Playing Card Memorization

Playing cards are an impressive tool with which to demonstrate a trained memory. Their random nature is well known, and playing card memory demonstrations (when properly performed) can evoke fantasies such as breaking the bank at Las Vegas card tables.

Playing cards, like numbers, are difficult to visualize because, like numbers, they're abstract. The mnemonic alphabet shows how even numbers can be visualized. In what ways can playing cards be made into visual images? There are many methods. There's versions using the Major System, the shapes of the numbers themselves, and even one using celebrities!

These methods can and do work (especially the last one, used by 7-time World Memory Champion Dominic O'Brien), but all require several mental steps to go from the images to the cards. For ease of learning and quicker recall, I prefer a system in which there are as few mental steps between the card and the image as possible. I even put off learning to memorize playing cards until I could find a system that met those requirements.

Thankfully, there is now such a system available. Bob Farmer, author of MAGIC magazine's "Flim-Flam" column, created and published just such a system in his January 1999 column!

I will be teaching this system, followed by a feat that will help you show off your new-found mastery of playing cards.

Click here to learn the playing card system.