Memorise a pack of cards

Let's look at the use of memory techniques to perform a task.

One of the memory events which fascinates people is the fast memorisation of a pack of cards. One way to do this is to make a 'linked list' story of 52 cards. Another way is to have 52 peg locations [the first 52 places in the BLOKES article which you learned earlier] and associate each card's image with a peg location; then, by visiting the peg scenes, the cards placed at each are recalled. Beyond that, there are several techniques. Let us start by using the BLOKES system's first 52 locations and a list of 52 people to represent the cards which are randomly shuffled and then dealt.

The cards can be defined by their numeral and suit. What if the numeral is represented by a hard sound and the suit is represented by a vowel?:

cards' numerals:

D 1 [1 is the Ace]

B 2

N 3

L 4

M 5

R 6

S 7

G 8

F 9

T 10

J [J is the Jack and, when making words, it might sound like 'ch']

P [P is the Queen]

C [C is the King]

The spade vowel is A;

The Hearts vowel is E;

The Diamonds vowel is I;

The Clubs vowel is either O or U or R [rather than a vowel];

In this way, you can look at a card like the Ace of Spades and know that its consonant is 'D' [for an Ace] and the suit vowel is 'A'; you may then spell a person's name which uses 'D' followed by 'A' such as the actor DAniel Day-Lewis. Here are 52 people who may represent cards in this way:

Basil Rathbone Ben Stiller Bill Murray Bruce Willis Cary Grant Cecil Parker Cindy Crawford Colin Firth Daniel Day-Lewis Denzel Washington Diana Ross Donald Sutherland Farrah Fawcett Felix Dexter Phillips - Leslie Forest Whitaker Gary Oldman Geri Haliwell Geena Davis Grant - Hugh Jackie Chan Jenny Seagrove Jim Carrey John Malkovich Larry Hagman Leslie Nielsen Lionel Richie Locke - Sondra Matt Damon Mel Gibson Michael Caine Monroe - Marilyn Natalie Imbruglia Neil Young Nicholas Cage Noel Gallagher Rachel Weisz Redford - Robert Richard Gere Robert de Niro Samuel L. Jackson Sean Connery Sigourney Weaver Susan Sarandon Sharon Stone Sheena Easton Shire - Talia Shrek Tara Palmer-Tomkinson Terry Venables Timothy Spall Trey Parker Sean Connery

So, Basil Rathbone is a 'BA...' name which indicates a 2 [B of 'Basil'] and the Spades suit [A letter of 'Basil']; it takes some time to become fast at this and you can replace some names with names which are more familiar to you, if you want.

As you read the first card, you figure out its person image by examining the numeral and suit; then you imagine that person at place 1 of the BLOKES system [the bath tub image from the earlier article]; and this means that you are storing the knowledge of which card is first in the pack; you then imagine the second card's person at location 2, and so on until the whole pack is translated into 52 people at 52 places.

Recalling the pack requires that you revisit the bath tub image to see who is at location 1; you then translate that person into a card name. For instance, Marilyn Monroe is 'MA...' or the 5 of Spades.

Video demonstrating how to memorise the first cards of a pack

Card Counting with Mnemonics

In May 2008, I realised that card numerals (not their suits) could be tracked through the duration of a game of cards. Here is a demonstration where you can play and press buttons!

Memorise a pack of cards - complex method

Presented here is a complex method. Please just browse it rather than consider doing it. I am replacing it later in 2008. You need to have an image which represents each card of the pack. I use images of people. You also need 52 actions which represent the 52 cards of the pack. One idea for people is to say that the people images from 01 to 13 will represent the spades suit, from 20 to 33 will represent the hearts suit - but you might want to read other memory books before deciding on a way of representing cards. Next, you need to know the images of the letter pairs from AA to ZZ. Then you need some peg images to mark off the position in the pack that a card image belongs at. There is also a system of sounds used to say some cards in shorthand rather than to take time imagining a visual story for them. The context is that a pack is memorised and a second pack of cards is provided so that it can be given the same sort order as the first pack. Then the packs are compared. This is the technique which I am practising at the moment:

The sound system

Here are some hard sounds which can be used to represent a card's numeral:

D 1 [1 is the Ace]

B 2

N 3

L 4

M 5

R 6

S 7

G 8

F 9

T 10

J [J is the Jack and, when making words, it might sound like 'ch']

P [P is the Queen]

C [C is the King]

If I see two cards and one is the Ace of Spades and the other is the 9 of Hearts then I am interested in an Ace and a 9: the D sound and the F sound.

The pair of suits (Spades and Hearts) are represented by vowel sounds:

So, 'Spades and Hearts' has the 'O' sound. Joining the hard sounds with the vowel sound, we get a nonsense word: of - the 'D' meaning the Ace, the 'O' meaning 'Spades, Hearts', and the F meaning 9 : Ace of Spades, 9 of Hearts: 'DOF'

By making four nonsense words, four pairs of cards are memorised: 8 cards.

The first 20 cards

For the first 20 cards, five lots of stories are stored at five peg image locations, where each story uses 4 cards; Card 1 is perceived as a person; card 2 is perceived as an action which the person does; and cards 3 and 4 are perceived as a single object. How do I turn 2 cards into 1 object? Well, I am using the AA-ZZ letter pair system:

For red cards, the following card numerals are represented with the following letters:

D 1 [1 is the Ace]

B 2

N 3

L 4

M 5

R 6

S 7

G 8

F 9

T 10

J 11 [11 is the Jack]

P 12 [12 is the Queen]

C 13 [13 is the King]

For black cards, the following card numerals are represented with the following letters:

A 1 [1 is the Ace]

Z 2

E 3

I 4

V 5

O 6

U 7

W 8

H 9

X 10

Y Jack

Q Queen

K King

So, any pair of cards can be represented as a letter pair. For example, the Ace of Diamonds and the 2 of Clubs are a red Ace and a black 2; so their letters are DZ. The DZ image is therefore the object which the person does the action to.

Later on, at the recall stage, there will be eight such letter pairs [one per story] which need converting back into cards. Sometimes, there will be two red aces and you will not know which one is meant to be the Ace of Hearts and which one is meant to be the Ace of Diamonds - at that time, guessing is required. However, at that time, the rest of the pack is known to you - so much of the time, you are not guessing. eg. If you have already recalled the 3 of Diamonds and then you find a letter pair with a 'red 3', it can not be the red 3 of Diamonds and therefore it has to be the 3 of Hearts.

The next 24 cards

The next 24 cards are memorised as 8 sets of 3 stories involving a person performing an action on a person.

The last 8 cards

The last 8 cards are memorised as 'sound system' nonsense words like I described earlier. Here is a launchable example of a random nonsense word.

You have now finished the whole pack. You still have the nonsense words in your mind and while you say them back to yourself, you can store them as images at peg locations so that you no longer need to repeat them again and again in your mind. Or, you could just repeat the sounds in your mind until you are given the chance to sort the second pack to resemble the sort order of the first pack.

Recalling the pack

Find the nonsense word cards and keep them in their own sorted pile.

Find the 'Person Action Person' cards in sort order and place them with the nonsense word pile.

Find the 'Person Action' cards of the 'Person Action Object' stories. Use deduction and maybe guesswork to convert letter pair images into pairs of cards.

Why complicate a card memorisation system?

The reason for making things complicated is that the pack may be memorised more quickly. The card event is most entertaining for an audience when memorised at browsing speed (under 2 minutes). Practice improves speed below 2 minutes. By using 'data compression' and other tools, the pack can be memorised more quickly. My system requires you to practise the alphabet letter pair system which is a very useful system in other memory tasks - so you are memorising cards but also developing more general mnemonics ability. If that were not so important then I would recommend an alternative, more specialised system such as a library of images to represent two cards with more detail than the AA-ZZ method. eg. Stating the first card precisely and the second card by numeral and colour (52 x 26 images in the system).

Other card stunts

If you want to do a card stunt but want to do a lot less work then you can consider creating 16 images to represent any 4 cards as 'Red Red Red Red', 'Red Black Red Red', etc. so that any 4 card colour combination is covered; then, you can go throught the pack and use 13 images at 13 peg locations to memorise the pack's colours. Another method is to use AA-PP alphabet images to represent any 8 card colours: each letter of a letter pair covers 4 cards; so, a letter pair equates to 8 cards' colours. I posted the idea about using one image to represent many cards in the a Yahoo Group named 'MemorySkillsAndTheBrain', in the 1990s. A lot of my material precedes my use of the internet. In the early 1990s, I was trying to sell a memory book involving people and actions, for instance. Then, with the Yahoo groups, I was able to write about the alphabet letter pair system, etc.. I discussed the concept of using sounds rather than bothering with images in 2004 on a Yahoo group. All these ideas come together and make, I think, a cool card system. But you can apply sections of it to do other things.

For instance, the nonsense words allow you to memorise quickly 8 cards. That is a good stunt in itself: to memorise rapidly the top 8 cards of a deck of cards. The 13 sounds used to represent card numerals in the sound system may also be used to represent other information such as colours. I am actually using something similar to represent flag colours and then to build words out of the consonants in order to represent many colour combinations.

Further Media

Tips from Ben Pridmore who can memorise a pack in about half a minute.

Extra from Ben Pridmore

Two cards = 1 of 169 people

Footage of Andi Bell may be found on YouTube.

Video clips from YouTube, etc.

My Internet Card Trick

I have created a card trick which you can follow over the internet if you have a pack of cards.

It rocks or sucks depending on your mood !!!!

Amateur Card Tricks (you need a pack of cards to do this with me)