I do not use a peg system.

With that said, I have practiced some memory palace work and it was fun to practice but I ultimately didn't end up using it for anything.


I practice with 2 decks of flash cards shuffle face up into face down.

I also drill by suits, and 4 of a kinds.

Hey 1tepa1, I'm also learning the Redford stack using a similar mnemonic system. I learned the system from Harry Lorayne's "The Memory Book". I started a couple of weeks ago. I, too, really struggled in the beginning with forming and recalling images. When thinking of a card or number, I'd often have to cycle through several words in my head before finding the right one. Sometimes I'd struggle so much on a few words that I'd have to pull out my notebook to remember what the word is. It would take me several minutes to get through the entire deck. It was pretty discouraging.

I've found that replacing words/images with the first word that comes to mind on those I struggled to find has helped. I also wrote the numbers on the back of each card, as well as a basic drawing on either side of the card for words that I struggle the most with. After practicing with these cards for a while, I'm starting to see the drawings in my head when I think of the associated number or card.

For practice, I'll split the deck in half, shuffle them face up into face down, turn over each card as I go through them and then repeat in the other direction. After having spent many hours on this over the last few weeks, I've noticed I'm no longer relying on the mental images for some cards and I can whiz through them fairly quickly. There are a few that I still have to stop and think about. This has taken a lot of effort for me to get to this point. I spend more time running through cards and numbers in my head during downtime or going through my practice deck during work meetings than I'm willing to admit.

I started a thread a couple of years ago regarding this very topic.
Initially I tried to memorize Mnemonica by brute force, but it was terrible because it just didn’t stick to memory.
I had Harry Lorayne’s Memory Book, but at the time I never bothered to learn the systems seriously.
And at that point, I had my Mnemonica book almost 10 years! And I still hadn’t learn the stack at that point LOL what a situation that was!
But the good news was that I had all the information I need right in front of me, all I had to do was just sit and learn Harry’s systems.
So I started with the major system, then I learned all the peg words from 1-100, then I learned all the card words. I learned all those systems cold!
I listed all the cards in Mnemonica order, putting the number right next to each card word from 1-52, and I started making associations between all the images.
I had to go through the list just once! Within half an hour, I memorized Mnemonica.
I slapped my head so hard after that, I said to myself why didn’t I learn this earlier?! Thankfully, I’m only 34 now LOL
Put in the time to learn the pegs and the card words. You’ll be glad you did!

As I have frequently commented, different people have different learning styles, so it is not possible to make (accurate) blanket claims about the efficacy of any particular learning method.

Even though a specific approach may prove excellent for a wide variety of folks, it doesn't mean that it will be best for everyone. Rote learning, classical mnemonics, rule-based systems, and algorithmic techniques have all proved to be the "best" stack-learning solution for some people.