Sigh ... I hate seeming stupid but - what is a "tetradistic stack" (as discussed in some recent threads here)? My books (Joyal, Tamariz) don't seem to contain the term, and a Net search doesn't seem to come up with a definition.

Thanks for any help with this; if it's not suitable for a forum answer, feel free to PM me.

Regards,
Larry Samuels

The definition is simple: If you faro shuffle a tetradistic stack twice, the end result will be thirteen four-of-a-kinds.

Examples include the old Eight Kings stack, the Si Stebbins stack, and Doug Dyment's QuickerStack.

Barry,
Thanks! From reading, I got the impression that 8 Kings stack is a tetradistic stack, but since it consists of series of 12 cards, I couldn't connect the 2 ideas. -)

Regards,
Larry

Ackerman has great work with tetradistic stacks. I highly recommend looking into it

It's a term that was coined by Allan Ackerman I believe. At one point he was a mathematics professor at UNLV which corresponds to a term that certainly has an academic slant to it.

Translation: A stack that contains 4 distinct groups. The stacks Barry mentioned above all conform to that definition.

Steven,
Thanks! I'll have to look into what a tetradistic stack can be used for.

I've been working on my faro (with Paul Gertner's "Unshuffling the Faro Shuffle") and it's fun to watch the cards group in certain patterns as you go through the cycle of 8 faros. -)

Larry

The Mem deck I created is also tetradistic. There are also some unique effects that use this stack but not necessarily as a mem deck. One of them is in my second book, Kingdom of the Red, called Entropy I and II. Another is one I've been jealoulsly guarding but will likely appear in my fourth book which I am currently writing.

Larry

Four groups whose numeric order is the same, with cycling suits.

My Mem Deck consists of four groups which repeat but the suits appear random and do not repeat from group to group. The order I chose and position of the suits was carefully planned. However, no one would ever see a pattern to the suits, only the cyclical pattern of the numerical values. If tetradistic means cycling suits as well, then my mem deck does not meet that definition.

Larry

Properly speaking, tetradistic means only four-ness. In Ackerman's own stack the suits do cycle which allows certain niceties, but when using the arrangement only as a stack, the more random the appearance the better.

Thanks John for the clarification.

Larry

I can get into my mem stack from new deck order in 30 seconds. It's tetradistic-- it might be worthy of your consideration. Especially since it has twice the functionality of any other mem deck.

SEY

Anyone where Alan Ackerman has work on tatradistic stacks published.


Fred Mitchell

Fred - As far as I know Ackerman's tetradistic stack has no other built in properties. I think he just shuffled thirteen values together and that's what he decided to use.

Steven - I don't think I'm giving away anything you haven't already, but isn't your stack Si Stebbins? While it has a wider range of tricks -- namely, all the Si Stebbins tricks created over the years -- it also has a couple draw backs: color and number patterns. While I have come to appreciate that the appearance of randomness is over-rated when it comes to memorized stacks, that pattern is still too obvious for my liking. For instance, in order to perform the memory demonstration in "Ackerman's Opener" a Si Stebbins deck will require various gymnastics.

The truth of the matter is that there are not very many great tricks using a mem-stack, but there are some tricks that can ONLY be done using a mem-stack. I can't think of any particular to Si Stebbins.

The reason this stack is called 'Tetradistic Stack' is that the stack was used in Peter Kane's 'Tetradism' which appeared in September 12, 1964 issue of "Abracadabra".

Hideo Kato

I doubt this. It would be equally accurate to say that both Kane's effect and Ackerman's stack were named after the Realists' 6th century notion of Tetradism as an alternative to Tritheism.

Really, this is just a word that means "consisting of four similar/equal/related portions".

He truth of the matter is that there are not very many great tricks using a mem-stack, but there are some tricks that can ONLY be done using a mem-stack. I can't think of any particular to Si Stebbins.
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Cain,
Have you read Aronson.Tamariz Books.

Fred

Yes. And I use a memorized stack.

Allans products: http://allanackerman.com/

Thanks Kjellstrom.

Decomp