talkmagic.co.uk

Title: StackView 4.0.0

Supplier: http://www.stackview.com/

Cost: Free to download (Windows self extracting exe), $5 for a CD ($7 outside the US)

Difficulty: 3 - Study required

Review:

The help pages that accompany StackView describe it as “a utility program for the serious magician who is interested in studying stacked deck magic. It enables you to visually explore the effects of various standard (and a few non-standard) handlings of the deck.”

With a stacked deck, you can perform miracles with ordinary playing cards, which the spec can subsequently examine. There are literally thousands of possible stacks, some famous like Osterlind and Stebbins, others obscure. What this software does primarily is give you the ability to see what various shuffling and manipulation operations will do to a deck. In StackViewcan set up several standard stacks and also has the ability to set the deck to freshly-unwrapped Bicycle and Fournier orders (H,C,D,S and S,H,D,C respectively). You can also put the deck together in a specific state and save it for later recall.

As well as the standard overhand and rifle shuffles, some of the manipulations are complex; block protection, a wide selection of faros, counts, reverse counts, specific cuts, selection and return, etc. You can even deal poker hands to see where the cards end up.

What’s really Very Cool Indeed about StackView is the search function. You specify a starting state for the deck, an end state, the permissible manipulations, any restrictions you require, then press start. StackView then searches through the combinations of moves you need to get from the start to end states. Be warned however, that this can be a lengthy process. Depending on the maximum number of moves (up to 26) and the manipulations you specify, the estimated time can be from a few seconds to several millennia. StackView records the finished sequences so that you can play them back and even re-order the individual steps.

To test the speed, I asked StackView to come up with a set of runs that would move the first seven cards below the next six in the deck in three moves, retaining the original order within the moved packets. It took only 6 seconds to come up with an answer, but it took me considerably longer to set up a real deck and work it out for myself.

A major problem with using a stacked deck is learning it in the first place. Luckily, StackView has a handy test tool that will help you learn. You can choose to work through the complete deck or just a portion, test yourself on the sequence, its reverse or even a random point within the stack. The test then rattles along, giving you a default five seconds to name the card and two extra seconds remembering time. It’s worth noting that you can alter these intervals.

Overall:

This software won’t make you a card genius. It’s a tool. If you’re into stacks, it will help you in several ways, and may even help you create the killer stack and set of manipulations that makes you rich and famous. Self-working enthusiasts will have spotted that this might be for them too, and they’d be right. The search function should start the old creative juices flowing, and the ability to step through each manipulation gives the opportunity to study how cards dance through a deck.

Thanks for that Tomo - a good review on what looks like an excellent product. If you are the sort of person that can make use of a tool like this, then I suspect the software is a musthave...

I downloaded it only yesterday and was playing with it for the whole evening...I made my custom deck from the stack that I use and I got some grat results....I didn't know that with only few shuffles I can get killer "random" poker deal....brilliant tool....

I have been using this for a while—it's other bonus is it can be used to de-construct and reverse engineer a situation...

For instance, you want to deal 5 poker hands and have each one contain a spectator's chosen card, plus four of a kind? Easy.

It's only going to be of use if you are curious or motivated—as stated, it WON'T teach you any magic secrets or make you a magic genius overnight.

Aside from all that, it's educational, too

Just a quick heads up:

A new version of Stackview has just been released. There's tons of new features, and I'll get a review together as soon as I can.

A statistician's dream! Nice review Tomo!

DrTodd wrote:A statistician's dream! Nice review Tomo!

I downloaded the new version today and had a quick look. It's amazing now. I'm a bit busy over the next few days, but I'll try to get a review ofthe new features up asap.

Looks really interesting, I'll have to download it when I get home tonight.