Spex Mix: 7 Simple Ways to Preserve/Create a Stack in a Spectator Shuffled Deck

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Last year, I wrote a post on the strength of allowing a spectator to mix the deck themselves as opposed to using a false shuffle. I believe false shuffles are somewhat futile. I don’t believe you can do both of these things at once:

  1. False shuffle the deck.

  2. Have the spectator completely convinced it’s real.

You can read that post for my logic as to why.

(And you can read other posts in the Spex Mix series by CTRL+F and looking for Spex)

So I collect ways to allow the spectator to do some or all of the mixing.

Joe Mckay has sent along this write-up of seven lesser-known ways to allow the spectator to do the mixing in a trick.

My favorite of these is #4. I learned this from Paul Harris’ trick Cell Mates (I’m not sure if it was credited this way). It’s a great way to allow the spectator to shuffle seemingly the full deck while keeping up to 13 or so cards in stack.

Thanks to Joe for compiling these. The rest of this post is in his words…

7 SIMPLE WAYS TO PRESERVE/CREATE A STACK IN A SPECTATOR SHUFFLED DECK

1) This is from Andrew Galloway.

If you ever need a trick that uses a 4-of-a-kind that is secretly set up - an interesting strategy is to stack a deck up with 4 ACES together, 4 KINGS together, 4 QUEENS together, 4 JACKS together and 4 TENS together.

And have these 4-of-a-kinds spread through the deck - each group separated by about 6 cards.

The spectator can then overhand shuffle the cards - and you can look through the deck (to apparently remove the Joker) and secretly cut a 4-of-a-kind to the top of the deck.

2) A nice idea (Juan Tamariz credits it to Alex Elmsley) to set up for Gilbreath effects is the following. Or for a half-deck version of Juan Tamariz's impossible card location called NEITHER BLIND NOR STUPID. In this case we are using a self-working method to create a stack from a spectator shuffled deck:

  1. Have a deck shuffled - or use a borrowed shuffled deck.

  2. Run through the cards and say that you need to remove some cards at random.

  3. As you go through the cards, you throw out all the red and black cards which interrupt the red/black pattern running through the deck. So - you are basically throwing out the cards which are not already in red/black order.

  4. You will be left with a pile of cards - face up on the table. They will be in a mixed-up order and this helps make everything seem fair.

  5. The cards that are left in your hands are now (secretly) in red/black/red/black/red etc order.

3) This is a Larry Becker idea.

Have a 4-of-a-kind on top of the deck - and then hand out small groups of cards for everyone to shuffle.

You need about 8 spectators for this.

The first one gets the 4-of-a-kind, the next one gets 5-6 cards and so on. You then regather the cards - with the first spectator putting their packet on top of the deck.

Your stack is back on top of the deck that has been freely shuffled by a bunch of people.

4) The Ron Edwards Hold Out.

Have a deck of cards (face-up in your hands). Your stack of cards is reversed on the bottom of the deck. It could be a 4-of-a-kind, or something larger.

Spread through the face-up cards and take about 20 cards and hand them to a spectator to shuffle. You then place these shuffled cards - reversed - at the bottom of the deck.

You then spread through the rest of the face-up cards and hand them to a different spectator to shuffle. You just keep spreading until you come to the first face-down card (which will be the first card of your secret stack).

You take back this shuffled packet and place it face-down at the bottom of the deck.

Your secret stack of cards is now on top of the face-down deck.

5) John Guastaferro has a trick called Lost and Found that involves glimpsing a chosen card from a shuffled deck. You then run through the face up deck looking for the chosen card. You upjog the 4 cards you want to stack and the chosen card - and then use the answers to questions you ask the spectator to winnow down the cards to the chosen card - whilst secretly placing the 4 cards you want to stack on top of the deck in preparation for the next trick.

6) Brother John on Culling is an interesting self-working stack/cull from a shuffled deck. It was published by Josh Jay in the Feb 2007 issue of MAGIC magazine.

7) Steve Mayhew has a sneaky way to stack 4-of-a-kind that is easy to do. It is called Old Lazy Fat Guy Cull. It can be found in his book What Women Want (written by John Lovick).