Rote learning in that fashion would just be a step too far for me though. Whilst Juan Tamariz’s book Mnemonica is a well-written go to reference for card tricks using the Mnemonica stack I don’t endorse the methods suggested by Juan Tamariz of singing the deck order to the tunes of nursery rhymes. The Internet too is a breeding ground for some pretty shady techniques to remember to stack order of the Mnemonica stack. There are videos that have been uploaded onto the internet purporting to explain how best to recall a given “Stack” which I would suggest are quite dubious to say the very least. Why anyone would want to punish themselves learning rote when there are far more sophisticated methods to embrace out there to get the job done, I can’t understand? You are correct though that you can learn the stack by sheer rote memory (much the same way most of us learnt our 12 x 12 multiplication tables in primary school) and once whatever stack is learnt (Mnemnica or Aronson or any other) by a magician they should know it 100% inside out. It’s vitally important to know both ways round with the deck. In other words, the card to location and the location back to any given card. One needs to be able to be equally conversant in knowing that (for example) the JD is in position 32, the AD is in position 39 and the 9 of Clubs is in position 44. As well as knowing: Position 43 holds the AC, position 48 holds the QS and of course position 52 holds the 9D. Any magician worth there salt will also know a fair number of methods to perform both ‘false shuffles’ and ‘fasle cuts’ for maximum effect. What fascinates me though is just how many authors there are that will sell you their systems to memorize the order of various stacked decks, when infact everything one needs (in terms of resources) by way of the skills to perform such a feat (i.e. being able to recall 52 random shuffled cards) is all on this forum at no cost whatsoever? Just a passing thought I had.
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