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Book review: Bound To Please (the early work 1973-1980) by Aronson (foreword by Ed Marlo)

The main aim of this review is to advertise a great book by Aronson (that previously got a quite negative review on TM - see http://www.talkmagic.co.uk/ftopic5484.php for another, independent and very different review) as well as give a brief introduction to the memorised deck with some pointers to other sources that might be helpful if you decide memorised deck is a route for you.

These days many magicians prefer DVDs to Books. However certain topics are treated much better in books than on DVDs. Memorised deck is one such topic.

Cardians fall into different categories. Some specialises in flourishes, some spend time learning and mastering various difficult and advanced slights. There is however another direction of card magic some of us have taken. Aronson, a pupil of Ed Marlo, is one of the major exponents for this direction, which is, memorised deck. The Spanish magician and former FISM world champion in card magic (1973) Juan Tamariz is another magician who specialises in this direction (the Tamariz deck order) See the review of the effect Mnemonica http://www.talkmagic.co.uk/ftopic14749.php ) Lennart Green FISM world champion (1991) has also used memorised deck (the 8-K order). See also http://www.talkmagic.co.uk/ftopic6583.php for a review of Memorized Breakthrough Card System (MBCS) Richard Osterlind.

Roughly 40 pages of Bound to please is devoted to material directly related to the famous memorised deck order called Aronsons stack. Mike Close is maybe the most famous magician who uses Aronsons stack. As Michael Close explains in his famous book Workers (see http://www.talkmagic.co.uk/ftopic9029.php for a review) he has used the Aronson stack for years, many times each night, at table hopping in restaurants where he has worked.

The basic idea in memorised deck is that the magician learns by heart an ordering of a fixed full deck order. For anyone else – who is not familiar with the ordering – the deck appears completely shuffled. Memorised deck is obviously not for beginners, as the magician needs to be able to control the full deck often even when other effects are being executed. To be practical the magician should be able to do this whether tabled or standing without a table. With some practice its even possible to do a genuinely looking one-handed riffle shuffle that maintains the full deck order (Seth a Sleight Of Hand Expert (Sweden) who is brilliant at controlling a full deck order and is one of Lennarts Greens pupils, taught me this).

The main difficulty utilising the memorised deck fully is however on the mental level, since the magician must (as Michael Close explains in workers) know the deck order absolutely cold. And it is not enough to be able to recite the deck order. For each card the magician have to know its exact numerical position (its stack number) and for each number 1-52 the magician must instantly know the corresponding card. And to do this one needs to perform regularly. Furthermore for many effects the magician needs to be able to calculate fast and execute precise estimates and cut to key cards, and correct for small errors without hesitations. All this while talking relaxed and maybe joking with the spectators!

Memorised deck is something you choose as a challenge, rather because it is easy. But, believe me it is a lot of fun and as every thing when you learn it, it begins to be easy and the time invested has been worthwhile.

So maybe, memorised deck is not for you? Well, bound to please might still be worth adding to your magic library. Let me explain why.

The real clever point of Aronsons stack is that though it looks completely random, it has a lot of very clever building features.
One can do a clever poker demonstration, then after that a clever bridge demonstration. But to some extend this is modular so the magician might ask the spectators if they prefer any kind of card game. What ever the answer poker (draw poker as well as stud poker and ten card poker deal or any poker hand called for) bridge (perfect bridge hand demonstration) or for example–21 , the magician can immediately demonstrate an effect in that game. Or if the spectators are more to mentalism (and he might even ask them what kind of effect they would like to see) can then do repeated spelling mental bid. Michael close very powerful effect where he need to estimate pretty precisely exactly how many cards are cut, but again the stack is maintained and a miracle can be performed for free.

Aronson discuss a very clever “one handed” deck switch while the magician for a brief moment take a shuffled deck of cards behind his back to locate a glimpsed card at a position requested by the spectators. [Effect: The spectators shuffle the deck, one spectator call out a number between 1-52, and another spectator glimpse a card that then lo-and-behold the magician in a few seconds can place at the position with only one hand behind the back]. Well, during this effect – that already is pretty strong, the deck switch is made and the magician is ready for the real miracles!!

Shuffle bored:
Now even you if are not into memorised deck, bound to please contain a lot of other brilliant material. His “Shuffle bored”
is in all its simplicity a piece of genius. I use shuffle bored on a regular basis, and it’s an absolute brilliant opener (some times I open with a triumph routine, while maintaining the stack needed for shuffle bored).
It has a great story line (especially Lennart Greens version of shuffleboard on DVD Green Lite for review see http://www.talkmagic.co.uk/ftopic15745.php ) that always goes down well with the spectators. It involves the spectators by letting 4-5 spectators shuffle different sections of the pack. And the effect is very strong since from this shuffled pack the magician can essentially estimate (or predict) exactly how many cards are up and face down after a spectator has shuffled face down into face up cards.
And this is just the beginning. Also the number of red cards face down and specific number of cards among the black cards can be estimated correct. The final killer (in on Green Lite) is very powerful and always gets a good response.

You can also do a version of shuffle bored after you have utilised the memorised deck. It is all very modular, and it is fairly easy to maintain (or even setup) the stack needed for shuffle bored while you perform other effects.

Like all good effect later other versions of shuffle bored has been invented, however as often is the case the original version is among the best!

Aronson also like to analyse a principle to its limits, which can be very interesting. An effect he calls Lucky 7 can for example be achieved using 5 different methods.

Conclusion: Not a book for beginners. It is taken for granted that the reader already is able to control a full deck order. Also other controls (e.g. the pass) is needed to control selections together with the rest of the deck.

No controls are given in Bound to Please. Depending on your shuffling style you obviously need to master a suitable stock of controls. The Zarrow shuffle is maybe the most deceptive (since it is completely impossible to detect and works even against the most skilled poker players in real card games see http://www.talkmagic.co.uk/ftopic14343.php for a review), however I find that the Zarrow shuffle looks slightly unnatural when compared to my slightly flourishy style of shuffling so I prefer the push through shuffle, Michaels Vincents false shuffle or the real Green Shuffle (explained on the DVD by Lennart Green Vol 4 for a very brief review see http://www.talkmagic.co.uk/ftopic4505.php ). If I want to do a full deck control overhand shuffle a few are given by Lennart Green on some of this DVDs for a review of Vol 1-3 see http://www.talkmagic.co.uk/ftopic1903.php ) and a few other more classical ones are presented in Advanced Card Controls by Allan Ackerman DVD series (which quite amazingly has not been reviewed yet). There is also a false overhand shuffle by Dai Vernon discussed on the Vernon tapes (for a review of vol 5 and 6 there are 15 volumes! See http://www.talkmagic.co.uk/ftopic511.php ). Finally, the Card college Vol 2 has an extensive discussion of full deck controls (see http://www.talkmagic.co.uk/ftopic230.php for a review of vol 1-4. Vol 5 was released after this review)

Shuffle bored is technically speaking within the reach of the beginner, however I think most beginners unfortunately would mistreat the effect, so the magic community is better of leaving Shuffe bored only to the serious performers. (for a very nice version of shuffle bored see also Dear Mr Fantasy” by John Bannon. For review see http://www.talkmagic.co.uk/ftopic6361.php )

Mark: 9/10 if you are interested in memorised deck. The missing mark is for not discussion any of the controls needed to make memorised deck practical.
The mark is 7/10 if you not are interested in memorised deck. Many of the effects (e.g. poker and bridge deals) can be done without knowing the deck order.

An excellent and very comprehensive Review - thanks!

One thing where I disagree strongly with most of the previous reviews (also reviews of some of the false shuffles) is the assesment of difficulty. The previous review states that "Bound to please" has diffuculty level of mostly 2 (i.e. hardly requiring any slights!). I completely disagree (see my review above).

But to be able to maintain a complete deck order without spectators asking to shuffle or without causing any suspision is not easy. The deck control needed to do memorised deck in a practical setting is definitely much more than 2. Sometimes I find the assesment of difficulty that is made in reviews very strange.

Often the reviever write something like: Very easy. I learned the D/L in less than 10 min. No difficult slights. But, NO ONE can learn the D/L in 10min and perform it so the spectators does not even question that there is more than one card. The same applies to the Zarrow shuffle (one reviewer "learned" in 45 min) or any of the other false shuffles I mension in my review. They are easy to "approximate" so it kind of looks OK, but more difficult to master in practice surounded by critical spectators in a real life performing situation.

I'm still digesting 'Bound to Please', but have to admit that I went straight to 'Shuffle Bored'.

Not only is this a wonderful, wonderful effect but I can't agree that it is not suitable for beginners. If you want to shuffle the deck at the beginning you have two blocks of 19 and 20 cards that you can genuinely shuffle, so strong false shuffle skills are not really necessary.

But frankly, shuffling at the beginning isn't even necessary; the whole effect involves the spectators shuffling and the effect doesn't tip a 'pre-ordered deck' at all. The first person I performed this for (my 'test subject'!) knows I have a memorised deck but when trying to figure out the method specifically said 'it can't be that'.

Other than that, I agree whole-heartedly with the rest of your review, Soren.

This is a great book, written by an engaging author. I personally hate poker/bridge deal effects, but there is so, so much more in here both with and without a stack, and with and without an Aronson stack. (I'm still debating whether to unlearn my own random memorised deck and replace it with Aronson's).

i've got this too...some beautiful thinking in it, but i struggle with all stacked decks, apart from the lewis jones one...which, to paraphrase the great maven "is a thing of terrifying beauty..."