Cool. I re-read it again, shocked by own evangelism. Naturally every performer must consider her own circumstances; if your act is largely gambling themed, then of course you will want built-in effects that help realize those ends. To me what is so appealing about a five-faroed stack is that it's a transcultural effect that will never get old, to the performer or the audience.

On the audience side: While there are many fine poker demonstrations, we DO encounter people unfamiliar with the game. At the other end of the bell curve, for the young males fanatically interested in poker as a result of the recent boom, once-standard five card draw seems somewhat anachronistic.

On the performer side, I imagine the new deck order finale tolerates many different variations; ways to mix things up if one "becomes bored." I never really understood frequent complaint about things "getting old." I do, however, understand the incurable urge to tweak, improve and maximize, and (thankfully) there is no obvious way to present the new deck order; most of the fun in magic, for me at least, comes from developing compelling presentations. Finally, and in my view most importantly, the new deck effect can be done without the assistance of a table. This is a tremendous advantage for me personally, but I see how perspectives crucially depend on performing environments. If you are always seated at a table, then who cares? But how many similarly high-powered closers can be done in the hands? Hell, what's more powerful than taking a clearly shuffled deck and ending in new deck order?

There are lesser training-wheel type arguments that I do not find at all compelling. For instance, as I mentioned earlier, there are detectable patterns to the five faroed stack: It's a spade-heart/club-diamond mirror where suits cycle in predictable patterns and value-combinations repeat (Kings w/fives, nines w/aces, off color sevens between queens, twos w/tens, jacks w/threes). Some people might try to spin this as a positive: "See, it's easier to remember!" In truth, it does not matter if this is a virtue. If a memorized stack culminating in new deck order via faros contained either the most difficult to remember order or the easiest, it's a moot point. All that matters is the impact of the trick. Don't be lazy. While some great tricks are unconscionably easy, others will require effort and sacrifice. And this is what bothers me when people tout cyclical stacks. Yes, they might demand lower initial fixed investment, but you're ultimately giving yourself more work because there are transition costs involved (i.e., when you abandon that stack for a better one). If you want to make the least amount of work for yourself, then you should throw your efforts into memorizing a stack you can reasonably expect to use in the long-term. Here again we see the over-riding advantage of a five-faroed stack: you get one fantastic trick you will never, ever want to give up. In my view, you should accord value to stacks the same way professionals accord value to books: Would you prefer to read a book where you use one great trick for the rest of your life, or a book that contains six tricks that will capture your interests for awhile before falling by the wayside? I do not in any way wish to diminish pleasure-reading; one of the great charms of magic is learning amusing new tricks that you will revisit, rotating in and out of your routines... but there's no comparison.

In actual practice, you can't rely on a calculation. For each card, you must instantly know its stack number. For each stack number, you must instantly know the corresponding card. There are all kinds of methods to help you when you're first learning the stack, but in the end you must achieve this level of proficiency or you won't be able to use a memorized deck effectively.

Please don't take this the wrong way, but why on earth is the Joyal stack suboptimal when you are performing The Birthday Book? I've read your comment several times, and I can't make any sense out of it.

I use the Joyal stack all of the time to do The Birthday Book, and it doesn't give me any problems.

Steve Beam's "Super Stack".

Doesn't the gobsmackin' finish depend upon being able to do three perfect faros ... or am I missing something?

You aren't missing anything. Yes, the big finish requires three perfect faros.

Good for you...keep using it! The only reason why I mentioned that is because of the positions of the 7s. It may be paranoia on my part, but people often want to handle the book a little after the trick. I felt that this was an admittedly subtle but still apparent pattern within the calendar layout of the book that I was using.

Was I ever challenged by an audience? No. ...So perhaps the problem was more in my own apprehension or anticipation than an actual deficiency in the method. I certainly am not advocating one stack over another for this reason. It just was a neurotic issue for me which combined with a youthful curiosity for the Aronson Stack, led me in that direction at that point in my life.

Best,
Jason

Thanks for the clarification. If the book that you were using had seven days per page or seven days spread over two pages, I can understand why you may have had a concern. My book has 2 days per page (four days spread over two pages), and it doesn't show any discernible pattern.

As you probably already know, if you use the Aronson idea for assigning playing cards to days, the book will be able to withstand careful scrutiny. I've given the book to many different people, and I've never had a problem.

I agree completely. Perhaps I should've put it more clearly ... what I meant was that the memorization process itself is much easier for me if I can calculate it - mnemonics and rote memory don't seem to work that well (for me)!

The aim, of course, is to remember it all - whether by actually memorising it or by "muscle practice" (using it so often that one "just remembers it") !

--
David

Sounds like you've found a good calendar book to use. The advantages are readily apparent. I'll keep my eyes open for that type in the future. Thanks for that suggestion.

Best,
Jason

I like the Nikola Stack from "The Encyclopedia of Card Tricks." The Poker stack inherent to the system comes in handy when someone asks, "Can you cheat at cards?" It's also easy to learn using the word-associations in the text.

In addition to the zillion ideas listed for this topic, think you have to include Oberon's Master Deck which allows for the location of any card instantly without looking at the deck and with no appreciable memory work. True, it's a one trick pony but it does do what it says, "takes all the time and effort out of learning a memorized stack."

A.) Never worry about the "trained eye." Usually, they are not.

B.) Your comment regarding that very few are willing to make the "big investment (of time and effort)" is quite true. It is a very good observation. A useful question to ask yourself is: "Am I one of the masses or one of the very few?"

Learning a memorized deck could literally double your card effects; many impossibles can be made possible.

Thanks to Doug Dyment, a very informative & useful essay on stacks may be found here:
http://www.deceptionary.com/aboutstacks.html

I'm just learning about stacks, I was wondering if anyone knows about the "8 kings" stack and where I can find more info about it.
I DL'ed stack view... that is one amazing application.

Does anyone have experience with Boris Wild's stack? He claims that someone can learn it in less than 10 minutes.

My favourite stack is the Breakthrough Card System by Mr Osterlind. Some of my fellows complain that it is not a "true" stack because you cannot work backwards from card to number in stack.

This system is easy to learn and if you use it often enough some cards become second nature. One of my favourite tricks is a very simple one - the deck under the table from Mr Osterlind's first video. It is so simple it makes you smile but with some showmanship you can succeed to have a dinner table full of happy, puzzled people.

The Wild Stack is covered in my on-line essay on full-deck stacks, which was mentioned above by "durian-red"; it is also analyzed in a (free) downloadable spreadsheet included with that essay. I think this will answer your question.

Many of the posts in this topic have been confusing sequential stacks with memorized decks, and also mixing up two separate (albeit somewhat related) concepts: the stack order (of which there are many), and the method of memorization (of which there are four). These issues are also covered in the above essay.

Doug Dyment hits the nail on the head. Despite so many threads on the Café, the questions of the nature of stacks and ease of learning, remains fraught with misinformation and misunderstanding.

What follows is purely my opinion, but one which I have backed up with facts many times on the Café.

What is a good stack? Assuming that we are talking about full deck stacks and the ability to know any card at any location, there are three GREAT stacks. Doug Dyment's own Quick Stack from his book Mindsights is easy to learn, looks reasonably random, and if you don't work with it all the time, it's easy to get back up to speed for a show. Simon Aronson's Stack and Juan Tamariz's Mnemonica stack are the two best memorized stacks out there. These will take more work to master, but not as much as many magicians seem to think. These are wonderful for working magicians that use them often and stay "in practice."

I personally use Aronson, but at the time I learned it (I first learned the Nikola but rejected it) the Tamariz Stack information was hard to come by if you didn't speak or read Spanish. Today, it's a toss up. Each has some advantages, but I don't think you will go wrong with either.

Doug's essay on Full Deck stacks is required reading, so go back to his post and click on the link. I would "quibble" with a couple of his observations, but overall I agree with most of his assessments.

Boris Wild is a remarkable performer, but I'm not a fan of his stack. Nor is Doug which you will discover when you read his essay.

Full deck stacks are powerful tools, but they are not, by themselves, going to take your magic into the stratosphere. When you watch Tamariz or Mike Close work with memdecks, remember these guys are GREAT performers. They would KILL with a ball vase.

Best to all,

Dennis Loomis