Memorized deck systems

[Guest]

Originally posted by hoo monkey:
There seems to be some disgreement abot whether memdecks can be easily retained.

People who use them will tell you that they are not difficult to retain. People who don't will tell you that they are difficult to retain. So who knows what is true? Probably the people who actually use memdecks.

About 35 years ago, I learned the Nikola stack. I couldn't use the Nikola pegs, because I was already doing extensive work with the Lorayne mnemonic system and the Nikola pegs used a different version of the figure alphabet. So, I re-wrote the pegs. It took about 15 minutes, all told.

It took me about an hour or so after that to memorize the stack, and then I worked with it frequently.

I haven't used it in five years or so, but I can run through the deck in my head, and I know all of the information.

I can set it up in about two minutes from a freshly opened deck, two and a half minutes from a shuffled one.

Maybe this will remove some of your skepticism about learning a memdeck system.

BTW, if you don't want to learn it or you feel like you can't learn it, you never will. That may sound obvious, but apparently it isn't.

[Guest]

Whatever stack you use, Tamariz' technique for memorizing a stack truly works. You will have it down in a single day.

His method of memorization also makes it very hard to forget the stack. What more could you want?

[Larry Barnowsky]

I use my own original memorized stack which is identical to the stack used in an effect of mine called Entropy I. I can use the the stack for mem. work and then finish with a blockbuster ending using Entropy I. That effect can be found in my new book Kingdom of the Red :genii:

Larry

[Guest]

Originally posted by Lee.Sailer:

Frankly, as much as I love Tamariz, none of the tricks that require the Mnemonica stack really interest me, which I only learned after the fact. The routines in category 1 and 2 are mind blowing, though, so I do not really care.

Agreed.

I learned the Tamariz stack when the book came out - amongst the buzz of something new. I'm truly glad that I did - but if I had my time over I might go for the Aronson stack.

The tricks specific to Mnemonica are just not that great in my opinion.

On the plus side, a lot of magicians new to mem deck work have also learned the Tamariz stack. So now we come up with some nice ways to fool other magicians.

[Guest]

I learned and used the Aronson stack for years. However there is one routine in the Tamariz book that cannot be done with the Aronson stack. Being such a powerful routine and wanting to add it to my repertoire, I had to unlearn Aronson and learn Tamariz. That's far more difficult than learning either in the first place.

[misdirects]

If you are interested in memorized decks and algorithmic stacks, you may be interested in The Bart Harding Secret, which, like Darwin Ortiz's Si Stebbins Secret, allows you to go from New Deck Order (NDO) to stack order (and vice versa), quickly and easily. (As reflected by the name, the Bart Harding Secret concerns the Bart Harding Stack, which is an incredible algorithmic stack from 1962.) More information on the manuscript, and download links, are available at:

www.misdirects.us