Card deck memorization : challenge to get below 2 minutes at speed cards

[Corbanicum]

although I’ve never heard of names that didn’t follow some sort of rule

Me neither

[Wist]

Yes !

After ( too ) much 48 i managed to get a full deck in 60sec. Good achievement after 1 month.

Also, I wanted to ask you, is your card system phonetic, and if it is does it follow some sort of rule or are the names arbitrary?

My system is divided in four categories :

• Hearts : family and friends
• Spades : athletes ( both mental and ~body~ ones )
• Diamonds : objects
• Clubs : animals

For each categories : i started by associations that came first like my mother for queen of hearts, then i had images that i kind of wanted in my system so i tried to link them with a card, finally for the last remaining i used the major system with the number of the card to create a sound that i would relly on to make an image

[RubiksKid]

After ( too ) much 48 i managed to get a full deck in 60sec. Good achievement after 1 month.

Congratulations, Wist! That’s incredible!

For each categories : i started by associations that came first like my mother for queen of hearts, then i had images that i kind of wanted in my system so i tried to link them with a card, finally for the last remaining i used the major system with the number of the card to create a sound that i would relly on to make an image

Interesting. So your system is both category based and incorporates the major system.

As for me, I don’t have anything too terribly exciting to report. I got a PB of 6 consecutive sub-1:10 runs for image recall along with a max of 70% for a 10-deck segment, my short-term goal being 100%. I also got two times around 1:53, but there were translational errors, so reconstructing the deck was impossible. I usually don’t make translational errors, but the timer brings out the worst in me.

[Wist]

Congratulations, Wist! That’s incredible!

Thank you, you will do it too at some point, good luck on mastering your system.

So your system is both category based and incorporates the major system.

yes

[RubiksKid]

I got a time of 1:45, but I made an error. I mistranslated a pair as backwards. Everything else was perfect. There literally isn’t a smaller error you could make with my system. Although I’m disappointed that I didn’t officially complete the challenge, I’m still happy with my progress. 1:45 is a big jump from where I was before.

Thank you, you will do it too at some point, good luck on mastering your system.

Thanks. It’s a long road. In theory, it would take me 52 times as long to develop the same level of familiarity with my images compared to somebody with a 52-image system. It’s rough, and I’ve found that it’s easy to make simple translational errors when under pressure.

[RubiksKid]

1:54 without errors!!

The challenge is done!! There were a few hiccups in this run (forgetting an image and coming up with a replacement impromptu + linking hesitation), but it’s still sub 2:00 without errors. Also, I studied for 4 hours before practicing today, so I also had quite a bit of mental fatigue.

Last night I changed my approach, and that’s helped tremendously. Before I was focusing on maintaining a constant line of successive interactions, and as a result there was often very poor linking with the locus and the number of images per locus became ambiguous. So last night I tried focusing on only placing 3 images per locus and only having interactions within these three images. The result was an immediate time cut of around 25 seconds.

I’m now going to focus on effective linking and (continue) increasing my recognition speed. I know 1:30 is within reach fairly soon.

[Wist]

1:54 without errors!!

GG !
Did you place them like one image per locus and trying to link them all one by one like the linking method before ?

[RubiksKid]

GG !
Did you place them like one image per locus and trying to link them all one by one like the linking method before ?

Yeah, pretty much. The first image would be linked with the locus and basically serve as an anchor for the two images that would follow, and then all three images would interact with each other, but there would be no interactions between loci. It worked really well.

[Corbanicum]

Hey guys,

It’s been a while.

But I’m still on the game

After ( too ) much 48 i managed to get a full deck in 60sec. Good achievement after 1 month.

Congratulations ! Really impressive !

1:54 without errors!!

The challenge is done!!

Great news Congratulations to you too,

So last night I tried focusing on only placing 3 images per locus and only having interactions within these three images. The result was an immediate time cut of around 25 seconds.

Really similar to the PAO method I use. I’m glad to see it works for you !

It also gives me more confidence with my approach. Thanks for sharing.

Now about my practice.

I managed to get a better recognition time in the 1:40 min range.
But it is not stable yet.

I have made a lot of efforts into it the last weeks, and wonder why my progress is so slow.
I’m even beginning to ask myself if this is the right approach.

During the last 2 weeks, I have made no attempt to memorize a whole card deck.
And I have decided to resume it tomorrow, even though I did not improve as much as I wanted my recognition time.

Times are quite hard for me at work as I’m having challenging deadlines and have to work overtime.

Also my neightbors have a very noisy dog, So much that I have to put ear plugs every night now. And plan to move soon…

Oh well, I’ll fight through this anyway

[Sylle]

After ( too ) much 48 i managed to get a full deck in 60sec. Good achievement after 1 month.

Yeah! To my knowledge, you’re the third or fourth French to achieve this

1:54 without errors!!

Nice one too!

I managed to get a better recognition time in the 1:40 min range.
But it is not stable yet.

I have made a lot of efforts into it the last weeks, and wonder why my progress is so slow.
I’m even beginning to ask myself if this is the right approach.

During the last 2 weeks, I have made no attempt to memorize a whole card deck.
And I have decided to resume it tomorrow, even though I did not improve as much as I wanted my recognition time.

When you do recognition, do you form the PAO scenes or do you visualize each card individually?

Do you have any idea of the time that would give you a 80-90% chance of getting the whole deck correct?

[RubiksKid]

I have made a lot of efforts into it the last weeks, and wonder why my progress is so slow.
I’m even beginning to ask myself if this is the right approach.

I do have a possibility for you. Of course feel free to not do it, but here’s my idea: You could make a new phonetic PAO list based off a very specific rule set. I think a really good option here would be having the first consonant correspond to the suit (k = clubs, d = diamonds, h = hearts, s = spades) and the first vowel correspond to the index (a = 1, e = 2, I = 3, o = 4, u = 5, A = 6, E = 7, I = 8, 0 = 9). This approach would give you a lot of freedom in choosing images for your system and the phonetics would radically improve recall time. Each person would have a corresponding object and action, something unique to that person (that way the name can easily be associated with the object and action as well as the person).

For example, 7♦ could be Dino (dEnO, from The Flintstones) licking a dinosaur egg. This sort of system would also easily lend itself to numbers if you decide to do that sometime.

I actually have a 52-image system myself. While structured slightly differently and not PAO, it works basically the same way. Because this system is based off of doubles, which never occur in a single deck, it’s very unpracticed. Still, I was curious how well the phonetics would aid in recognition time. In my first attempt I got a time of ~1:50. Considering this, I think using a similar system and practicing consistently would yield some really good results.

Again, it’s just an idea. You won’t hurt my feelings or anything if you decide to not go with it.

[Wist]

Yeah! To my knowledge, you’re the third or fourth French to achieve this

Oh cool, that’s good news !

[Corbanicum]

Yeah! To my knowledge, you’re the third or fourth French to achieve this

And in such a short time ! Wist abilities are very promising

When you do recognition, do you form the PAO scenes or do you visualize each card individually?

Do you have any idea of the time that would give you a 80-90% chance of getting the whole deck correct?

Thanks for you help Sylle.
First question :
Actually, most of the time I expect the sound to just pop up without the image. And often it does.
But sometimes I don’t get it, and then I need to search for the image and it slows me.
When the image pop up first and I’m doing the persons, usually it’s just the person that I will see.
If I’m doing the objects, I most often also need the person or the action or both.
The second question, I think I did not get it. Do you mean going through the deck and skipping 10/20% of the cards ?

I do have a possibility for you. Of course feel free to not do it, but here’s my idea: You could make a new phonetic PAO list based off a very specific rule set. I think a really good option here would be having the first consonant correspond to the suit (k = clubs, d = diamonds, h = hearts, s = spades) and the first vowel correspond to the index (a = 1, e = 2, I = 3, o = 4, u = 5, A = 6, E = 7, I = 8, 0 = 9). This approach would give you a lot of freedom in choosing images for your system and the phonetics would radically improve recall time. Each person would have a corresponding object and action, something unique to that person (that way the name can easily be associated with the object and action as well as the person).

Well, I remember that Nelson Dellis started with that kind of system. And then switched some of the cards to objects that have nothing to do with the phonetic system.
So that makes me doubt about the necessity to have the major system for every card.
It would be also very time consuming for me to start over, given all the tweakings I did on my system.

Also, I’m starting to have other duties as well. Like, now I’m studying for the PMP exam. So I don’t have as much time as before for this challenge.

I think I will continue for some weeks, in a light fashion. What I started doing is review the cards mentally before I go to bed, or before I take a nap, so that memory consolidation does its magic on my memory.

[RubiksKid]

Well, I remember that Nelson Dellis started with that kind of system. And then switched some of the cards to objects that have nothing to do with the phonetic system.
So that makes me doubt about the necessity to have the major system for every card.
It would be also very time consuming for me to start over, given all the tweakings I did on my system.

All right, that makes sense. I wouldn’t consider it a necessity except for really big systems, and even then, if you use a carefully constructed category-based approach it may still not be a necessity.

Also, I’m starting to have other duties as well. Like, now I’m studying for the PMP exam. So I don’t have as much time as before for this challenge.

Same. I’m back in school, so my practice for cards is basically limited to a few minutes a day practicing recognition. I’m in it for the ling run though, so this doesn’t really bother me. And I can still see progress.

[Rocks]

I also want to play this game plz invite me.

[SilvioB]

Do you mean Memory League?

It’s on the top of the forum page, or you can use this link:
https://app.memoryleague.com/

You can make an account there. The free version has a limited amount of games you can play per day. The paid version lets you play as many games as you like

[RubiksKid]

If by chance you’re referring to the sub-2-minute challenge, you’re welcome to join. It’s more fun with more people. Feel free to post with progress updates and/or questions.

[Sylle]

Sylle:

When you do recognition, do you form the PAO scenes or do you visualize each card individually?

Do you have any idea of the time that would give you a 80-90% chance of getting the whole deck correct?

Thanks for you help Sylle.
First question :
Actually, most of the time I expect the sound to just pop up without the image. And often it does.
But sometimes I don’t get it, and then I need to search for the image and it slows me.
When the image pop up first and I’m doing the persons, usually it’s just the person that I will see.
If I’m doing the objects, I most often also need the person or the action or both.
The second question, I think I did not get it. Do you mean going through the deck and skipping 10/20% of the cards ?

For the visualisation drills, there are different ways of doing it. Either just being satisfied with saying the names of the 52 persons in one’s head (for a PAO). Otherwise, saying the name of the first card’s person, the second card’s action, the third card’s object, the fourth card’s person, etc. And finally doing the entire visualisation, i.e. generating the whole PAO scene like you’d do in real memorization, only without placing the scene in a palace. The last option is the one that’s most relevant, in my opinion. The time it’ll take you to perform any of these drills is a current low limit for you. The time it’ll take to perform the latter is a low limit which is closer to your current baseline for memorization time.

For the second part, what I was asking was if you had an idea of what a safe memo run would be for you at the moment. If you memorize in 4:00, are you pretty sure that you’ll get 100% correct, 90% of the time? What about 3:45? 3:30?