I have my own memorized stack. I randomly shuffled the cards and memorized them. So I am looking for a good resource of memorized deck routines that does NOT rely on the Aronson or Tamariz stack.

Rowdymagi5,

Mnemonica by Tamariz
In Order to Amaze by Pit Hartling
Buena Vista Shuffle Club by Matt Baker
Handcrafted Card Magic volumes 1, 2 & 3 by Denis Behr

are all excellent resources for stack independent memorised deck tricks and routines

Mark

Let me add Simon Aronson's "Simply Simon"... a fantastic book with a lot of stack independent routines. Jan

I've said it before and will say it again, for me in my humble opinion, Darwin Ortiz in Lessons in Card Mastery and Scams and Fantasies has the most practical, workable and hard hitting memdeck material available. For me at least it ticks all the boxes, usuable in the real world, as it keeps your stack in tact, commercial routines and REALLY strong magic. If you did nothing but learn his memdeck material from those two books you would be set!

Both Tamariz and Aronson's books have sections devoted to stack-independent tricks. I think they're well worth reviewing for ideas on how to deploy a mem-deck. I use the Aronson stack, but I also own Mnemonica and even use some of the effects from it.

In addition, I like to read card trick books with the question in the back of my mind, "How could this trick be better with a memorized deck?" You'll find some amazing ideas if you read with that in mind.

Michael Close has some great epub books on memdeck work as well as some recent and possibly more upcoming online workshop type things he does. I do not personally have his books that cover memdeck but I would venture to guess there is some non-stack dependent stuff. I do have his 3 books on Palming and love the way he formats them. The books come both in PDF and ePub so you can use a huge number of free and/or paid readers. The part I love is that he will be discussing different grips (good and bad) and suddenly there is a blue text link that takes you to a private YouTube Video where he shows you what he means. Once done, you go back to your place in the book and continue on. Color photos are also scattered thru the book also.

https://www.michaelclose.com/ He also puts out a nice monthly newsletter FREE for subscribers and you wont get spam from signing up.

Ortiz - Lessons in Card Mastery
Hartling - In order to Amaze
Behr - Handcrafted card magic
Tamariz - Mnemonica
Aronson - Simply Simon

Greg Chapman's two books also offer a lot of great ideas as well as his own stack.

For those of you that haven’t read Matt Baker’s book ‘The Buena Vista Social Club’ I have to say it’s amazing.

On my new review show we review the book and Ryland performs one of our favourite routines from the book.

You can check out the review and performance at the link below but rest assured this book it ace!

https://youtu.be/WCMnK8bHZZg

I like a lot Darwin Ortiz. From the books table of contents I'm not able to identify how much is devoted to stacked deck work and if it's all effects or essays as well:

https://www.vanishingincmagic.com/card-m......h-cards/
https://www.vanishingincmagic.com/card-m......mastery/

May someone point out which parts require memdeck work and if it's beginner friendly?


From the above links, here is the table of contents of Scams and Fantasies:
Deja vu Poker
Combination Cull
The Brush
Liar's Poker
Shark Attack
Raw Deal
The Professional
God of Gamblers
No Way Out
Pocket Money
Smart Money
Maximum Risk
Maximum Risk - Impromptu Version
The Last Laugh
Remote Control
The Zen Master
Hitchcock Travelers
The Quick and The Dead
Fastest Gun Alive
Cannibal Holocaust
The New Back Off
Ace in the Pocket
Darwin's Ambitious Card
Ultimate Oil and Water
Ultimate Fusion
Pass the Garbage
The Color of Money
Walkaround Triumph
Triple Cross
Beat the Devil
Appointment in Samarra
Showing or Hiding Skill

And the table of contents of Lessons in Card Mastery
Hole-Card Play
Positively Fifth Street
Positively Fifth Street Redux
Grifter's Game
Best of the Best
Best of the Best 2
The Spectator's False Shuffle
Passing Through
Hard Target
Sudden Impact
Inner-End Crimp
Supercharged Nine-Card Location
One Shot, One Kill
Twelve the Hard Way
52 Pick-up
Fast Company
Fast and Furious
Bulletproof
Rouge et Noir
Limitless
Calculated Risk
Billion Dollar Brain
Doppelganger
Sweating Bullets
The Uninvited Guest
Fast and Loose
Card Sense
Double Tap
Case Card
Test Your Luck
New Darwin's Wild Card
Sorcerer's Apprentice

Nice review, I just subscribed to your channel.

I can answer that as you quoted my initial reply, these are the routines from the two books that specifically need a memdeck and a quick summary of the plot:

Scams and Fantasies

- Maximum Risk - Tantalizer like effect using a spectators free selection
- The Last Laugh - Darwin's version of Roy Walton's Smiling Mule
- Remote Control - Two deck effect where spectator peeks a card and performer announces its location in the second deck
- Zen Master - Performer repeatedly demonstrates his ability to determine the location of any card in the deck under impossible conditions a Lazy Man's Card Trick on steroids

Lessons in Card Mastery

- Best of the Best - Demonstration of super human skill instantaneously memorizing a deck, perfect estimation and center dealing any named card.
- Best of the Best 2 - follow up to BOTB - having once instantaneously memorized the order of the mixed deck you do it again with a newly randomized deck
- Calculated Risk - Another version of the Tantalizer plot this time using a named card instead of a selected card
- Billion Dollar Brain - The performer provies an extraordinary demonstration of photographic memory with cards
- Card Sense - Divination of three cards under increasingly impossible conditions
- Double Tap - Performer turns his back and two spectators each remove a card and place them in their pockets. When the performer turns round he riffles the deck next to his ear and immediately names the missing cards
- Case Card - A spectator names any card the performer shows that it is the one card he left behind in the card box.
- Test your Luck - A spectator names any card she then inserts a random card anywhere into the deck, in the process she herself locates the card that she named.
- Sorcerer's Apprentice - The performer and spectator each select a card. The performer succeeds in locating the spectator's card. More amazing still, the spectator succeeds in locating the performer's card.

In terms of beginner friendly, it ranges in skill from tricks which combine a memdeck with false dealing, all the way down to pretty much self working if you know your stack, you should have a good grasp of your stack for all of them and be a fairly competent card handler.

The ones I use from Scams on a regular basis are Remote Control (great and super practical and easy way to introduce a memdeck) and Zen Master (only don't use Maximum Risk as I do another handling of Tantalizer that brings my deck into stack rather than destroying it). Zen Master is probably the single strongest card effect I could imagine doing never mind single strongest memdeck effect, and something you couldn't accomplish without a memdeck, you need to pick the time and place as it isn't table hopping material, but it KILLS and is just such a good routine.

From Lessons I regularly do Card Sense, Double Tap, Test your Luck and Sorcerer's Apprentice and have dabbled with Billion Dollar Brain which again is a fantastic show piece routine, but not one I do as much as say Zen Master.

There is just one essay in Scams, the rest of the two books are all card material, the other non memdeck stuff is well worth the investment as well, but that would be going off topic, there is stuff in Lessons not using a memdeck that for me is just as strong! Darwin certainly knows how to construct a card trick!

Hope that helps.

Thanks for taking the time to elaborate and also giving some personal notes, this is invaluable for a beginner like me, really helpful!

I'm getting the books and they will keep me busy for a while

This forum rocks!

I reviewed Order To Amaze by Pit Hartling on the latest episode of my magic review show.

My son Ryland performed one of the routines from the book as well.

It’s an amazing resource for people that use mem decks. Highly recommended.

Here’s the link to the show. Any questions let me know.

https://youtu.be/18QoOqlud4E

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