Anybody have any good ways to set up the Marlo Miracle Aces starting with a truly shuffled deck without having to do the farrow?
The best that I have come up with lately is...
under the guise of memorizing the location and order the cards, spread through and Hofzinser cull the 4 aces plus one random card between each (may take a couple quick spreads if some aces are next to each other or already at the top). Then spread one more time as if to check again quickly and cull 16 random cards to the top of the ace/dummy stock. Double Zarrow shuffle followed by a false table triple cut and a false up the ladder (something convincing and simple to look like they are shuffled again) and then get to cutting.
I end with the 20 card count from the top on the last ace just to be sure.

It works, but it would be nice to just cull the aces and then get the order/stack of randoms set in the act of shuffling... ideas? The idea of pretending to memorize or study the deck sort of makes it look less amazing... as if you actually could memorize and shuffle track like that

Hate to be that guy, but it's Faro, not Farrow.

Oh sure... I suppose that now you'll tell me that it's Marlow and not Marlo.😉
Obviously, I don't do (and therefore speak of or write about) the shuffle with any sort of proficiency. Any thoughts on alternative stacking method?

It's lucky to have Sudo Nimh pointing out your error.

A choice approach is to set up the deck in the course of another trick.

For a smart (and classical) example of this, check out John Brannon's Dear Mr Fantasy. He's got a fun and intelligent way to approach this sort of thing.

Why are you looking for an alternative to the faro? Personally, I believe the faro is far superior to any methods mentioned so far - especially since it doesn't have to be a perfect faro and it can be made to look like a standard riffle shuffle (during the cascade).

Just my opinon.

AsL

My thoughts exactly.

@sychou: Not sure how to interpret that. Surely you're not suggesting that proper crediting and naming etc. isn't important. I'm of the opinion that these things are.

I have heard this before... that it doesn't have to be perfect. But it's not true. It has to be perfect for 8 cards + 16 in order to come out right. I find it hard to believe that in a group of tricksters and cheat (compliment), that the only answer is to follow the traditional setup without any room for variation or substitutions.
@rupert
Thanks for the suggestion. I'll check out the Brannon reference.

You could always do a deck switch to one that is already stacked



I doubt anyone in the forum can claim to be able to improve a Marlo's effect, or at least I can't. If that's the best that Marlo could come up with, I'll take it as is.

Check out "(B)estimation Aces" in the book "JawDroppers" by Harry Lorayne.
He have removed the Faro so he can use any old borrowed deck.

@steinarthelen
This looks promising... I had seen Loraynes performance of the cut routine in the past (using the Marlo set up), but from what I have been able to search out online, testimonials seem to confirm your assertion that this published version doesn't require the Faro (not Farrow) lead in.

I just would love to be able to find a simpler 'looking' set up. My Faro isn't horrible (especially when I only do a partial packet)... but it isn't dependable and I have always found the need for this particular move (after having shuffled overhand, etc.) kinda fishy looking.

Thanks for the help!

Cfirwin3,

Hope you didn't take my correction badly. It wasn't meant in a mean-spirited way.

Rupert Pupkin has given you some great info in his post. That said, if you can already faro it shouldn't take much more work to get it reliable. While some may consider it to look "fishy", you can do as Juan Tamariz and others do and pause the shuffle after the weave to show how well the cards are being mixed before you do the cascade. This really helps justify the awkwardness of it.

The simplest way to setup without a faro is a bunch of overhand shuffles. But even with a faro if you have the aces on top instead of 8 cards down, you would only have to perfectly faro the top four cards, I'm sure anyone can do that. Then you can get the other cards on top of the stack with any method you want.

Oh, certainly not.
Good tip on the presentation. Thanks!

I finally came up with a solution to this that works pretty well. It involves running 14 cards on top of the aces (in a 52 pack, no jokers) and then performing a Klondike shuffle (making a big deal about the fact the the cards are being thoroughly shuffled). The resulting situation is an identical set up for the effect.
Just thought I would share this back out for anyone interested.

Never mind wrong quote and post. Remove please. Thank you.

Why not milk the aces from the bottom then run the rest?

Obviously that works as well...
You can even do the same for the indifferent cards between the aces (the opposite) so long as the cards will allow single cards to be run from both sides smoothly without error.
In the end you will have run 16 plus 4 doubles. If the misdirection is good... why not?

It seems to me that the Klondike (like the faro) is perfectly misleading in that it so intentionally accomplishes the very thing that it is supposed to prevent... there is nothing to hide as it becomes self-working.

@cfirwin3, nice you got a solution that works for you.

Obviously there are many ways to do a setup and I agree with a previous poster that a good approach is to setup during a previous effect.

Here's a suggestion:

The 4 aces are culled to stop of deck. Get two indifferent cards on top of them (using an OH shuffle for instance) and then perform a slough-off faro. In a nutshell take the top third of the pack and faro it into the middle of the other packet. You have to make sure that the top 6 cards (11 in total to be pedantic) are perfectly weaved. Only weave the cards by half an inch or so and extract all the faro'ed cards and cascade shuffle them on top of deck.

The first ace is now at #5 from top. You can either run 9 cards on top to complete the setup, or use an effect to accomplish that and take some heat off the culling and fancy shuffle.

For example, you could perform Steinmeyer's 9 nine card problem (here with a lie detector theme)



and drop the nine cards on top of deck before going into the Marlo effect. I think it would work well with a presentation that ties up both effects.