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What are everyones favourite Set-Up Card Effects?

You have access to one or more "normal" card decks, plus 30 minutes alone to set up any stacks, or positioning that you wish.

There are no marking materials, nothing to create long and short or rough and smooth. Just the decks of cards.

Which effects would you do?

I'd either set up the Osterlind BCS and do the cards in the pocket routine (or cards on the table, as I prefer to do it), or Paul Harris's "Galaxy" (a variation on "Out of this World".

I have a favorite Predicting the aces effect that takes seconds to set, and always plays very well .
Its plot is, the spectator shuffles a deck ( twice!!) you turn your back, they deal out the cards one at a time, stopping at the first ace, and without turning around you tell them what ace they have come to. Then you do the same with the other 3. I have added a new twist to the effect, where after you predict the order of 3, you chose a random card value, and predict the next card in that value. Then show an envelope containing a written prediction, which is naturaly 100 correct. And remember all of this happens in the spectators hands.
YOU NEVER TOUCH THE DECK ONCE! ( aparently) .

Where did i learn the basic version of this? Carl fulves self working card tricks. But the above twist is all mine............ HA ,HA , HAAAA....( exits, bellowing a Maniacal laugh......)

There really are so many. I always have a deck set up in the BCS, and if I am doing an effect where the stack is iimmediately destrioyed I would use a Si Stebbins stack, that being said. My favorite effects with a set up deck at the moment are...

Aldo Columbini's Pre-Deck Ability (A version of Simon Aronsons shuffle bored).

Paul Hallas's 43

and I am really enjoying laying with the Gilbreath principle at the moment so I would like to include Mockingbird and the Hawk from the Max Maven stable...

Ok for everyone looking for a great stacked deck routine you must see Bill Malone perform Sam the Bellhop, many may consider this trick to be his signature trick. It involves a whole story using the whole deck with numerous false shuffles, when performed coorectly your spectators will be in ahh. Michael Ammar performs this routine on Easy to Master Card Miracles 1, but unfortunately butchers this trick badly. I would recommend this trick for any magician who knows a few false shuffles and cuts and can really play to his or her audience.
For any advice or tips email me at s_adamson1@hotmail.com

I've heard a lot about this Sam the Bellhop stack, and it sounds right up my street.

Playing to my spec's is my favourite part of performing. It's great to spin a story of some kind. Haunted Key (either "you know Uri Geller can bend metal? Well I'm not quite that good yet, but have a look at my garage key..." or "see if you can spot where the magnet is...") and Heirloom are my two absolute favourite tricks, when I've got the time.

Anyway, back to the original point, is Sam the Bellhop detailed in any books that I can get hold of? DVDs are generally a turn-off as I find them quite expensive, and, of course, a book won't skip or get chewed up in a player like a DVD or video.

Saw 'Sam The Bellhop' at Blackpool, It is a hilarious routine and Bill Malone performs it perfectly. I think it's taught on one of the Bill Malone On The Loose dvds. I'd like to get my hands on one of these aswell, but don't know where you can get them.

There are some niced stacked deck routines on Lennart Green's dvds - mostly gambling routines...

Using the 'Resurrection Gauntlet' from the rather patchy TV series 'Torchwood' I am resurrecting this thread... I hope you don't mind.

My favourite deck set-up is the memorised deck with the modificiation necessary for Barrie Richardson's 'Any Card at Any Number' from 'Theatre of the Mind'. Once this effect is done - and I find it FABULOUS - it is not at all difficult to reassemble the deck in normal memorised order so you can follow up with 'Shuffle Bored' (or indeed any other memorised deck trick).

Been doing Sam for about 20 years now. I like Dan Paulus's Blind Luck, or any thing with the BCS or Si Stebbins (Nielson Emergency ESP Routine is great).

I second (or "third" or "fourth" as the case may be) Sam the Bellhop. Easy as pie with high entertainment value. The trick is to keep the story brisk and be confident with false shuffles.

Annemann's Instantaneous Card Memory - It allows you to really improvise an entire routine, revealing cards in a number of ways. It's truly an amazing bit of business.

Bannon's Dead Reckoning - Beautiful concept, which, once the initial set up is done, can be repeated endlessly throughout the night without having to reset your deck.

Mark Elsdon's Memorization routine is a wonderful 3 phase pseudo memorized deck routine which also leaves plenty of room to improvise and vary on the fly. Great work.

OOTW is always a good classic. Paul Green's Jeopardy always kills. Lew Brooks Order out of Chaos, Bannon's Play it Straight.

From a personal perspective, I enjoy my own Kabuki Queens effect, which requires minimal set up. Gets me strong reactions, too.

I enjoy Sal Piacente's cutting to aces routine. Takes a moment of setup and is an absolute killer.

i'll be smug and say two of my own, one's a canasta styled thing with a lewis-jones stack...and the other is, well:

shuffled, cut...then someone takes a third to a half of the cards...

we make three piles out of the rest, one card from each pile inidcates:
suit/number/position

the person deals to the position indicated from the third/half they previously took - and it's the card previously generated by the other two piles...

takes about 20 seconds to set up...

if i were allowed a short card (which is always in my normal deck) - then my new pendulum finder effect...

so there!

As a proper set up I would probably go with Galaxy.

This doesn't really count as a set up but I would more than likely go with an aces routine starting with shotgun aces, Man from New York, card Collector etc.

On the Sal front I'm glad you mentioned there was a nice routine of his Seige as part of a special deal I'm getting some Sal Piacente dvd's which I am now very much looking forward too.

Further Than That in CCM. I know I've said it so many times but I just feel that this is the best trick to get reactions out of people. Everyone I've showed it to has been amazed.