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Hello all.
I hope everyone is well.
I'm currently performing a routine which requires a set-up.
there will be four cards on the table leaving a deck of 48 cards, i need the stack four specific cards at 12 cards apart, so 1st, 13th, 25th and 37th.
Currently i get the deck in order by having the four cards on the bottom, and reverse counting into my right hand, and bottom dealing every 12th card.
I was wondering if anyone knows of any method of setting the deck up without having to count through them. I would like to be able to set up in front of the audience if necessary. I'm happy to just count it out in front of them, but if I can make it cleaner then I will.

The only other way i've thought of is to do 2 anti faros, which is more suspicious than above so thats not ideal.

I look forward to hearing any suggestions.

thank you,

Sam

Maybe I'm missing something, but......

Why do you need to set up the deck in front of the audience? By the sounds of it you've got the deck in one stack before the routine (with the four cards on the bottom) and then move it into another. Can you not just start with the deck in the order you require and potentially false shuffle if necessary?

Unless this is a second (or subsequent) phase in a routine that wouldn't allow that...? I can only imagine that the four cards required in the specific positions have previously been used, put to the bottom of the deck and then you go into this phase of the routine. If that's the case then I'll shut up

Erdnase stack system? (ECT).

If you have the time and/or offbeat to stack a deck between tricks, I think just switching decks from your pocket would work. Then you can worry about the setup between sets rather than between tricks, giving you plenty of time to just put the cards where they need to be.

Hi,
thank you all for your replies

Vanderbeltyou make a valid point:
I've a couple of reasons for needing to set the deck up. Let me add a little detail, the routine in question is a gambling routine. I play a lot of poker with my friends and usually at some point i'll end up doing a couple of card effects. I've never performed any gambling stuff before. however i'd like to be able to go into this routine after a game, controlling the four cards to the bottom is no problem, but my friends have a tendency to pay close attention to my hands, I don't think they'll see the bottom deal count, but i cant think of a reason to justify counting the cards.
Second reason is that yes I would like to perform this mid performance when performing more formally and the cards will have already been in use.

SpareJoker:
I just looked over my copy of erdnase, and i cant quite figure out how to make it work, the problem I'm having is when i have to shuffle 1 less than twice the number of players - so in this case that would be 23, i always run out of cards or shuffle into parts that are already set up. I think there must be a limit on this type of stacking. Although looking at erdnase made me consider the milk type of stack shuffling. which may look more or less natural than just reverse counting the cards, of course, having to run all 48 cards would never pass as an actual shuffle, but its worth looking at, perhaps in 4 runs of 12.

Sleightlycrazy:
I think you are right. for formal performances a deck switch is the way to go. however i would like to perform this routine more casually, as mentioned above, in which case since i may be using someone elses deck, a switch is out of the question.

I'm not sure doing magic after a poker game is a wise thing to do.

However you might want to try this on for size. Simply with a vain demonstration of skill cut the cards first in half in one shot. Proving that it wasn't a fluke cut again into quarters. Now you have four stacks of cards on the table, with the correct amount of cards in each stack. When assembling the deck simply stack the cards. You can have the necessary cards on the top of the top stack pick that up, palm the top three cards into your hand using a one hand palm. As you assemble the packs simply drop one card on each stack.

Sounds so simple when written down doesn't it? LOL!

The easy thing to do in the above is actually the card cutting. It really takes a suprisingly short time to learn how to 'dead cut' (I hate that phrase) half the deck, a quarter of the deck, and from there just about cutting to any number. Also great for bar stunts. Not so great in front of your poker buddies if there is money on the table.

You could do it by using the overhand shuffle by running cards and injogging, etc. But I suppose that would require you to remove the cards from the deck to begin with, which I presume you don't want to do. In my opinion it might look better than dealing through the cards, though.

hey all,

bmat:
that is obviously a concern of mine, however when I eventually started performing for my poker buddies I found that they were a really fun audience. Plus I'm sure only to perform (during a game) to people I know and who (i hope) trust me not to cheat them.
I wish I had the skill and confidence to cut the deck into perfect quarters so casually.
Have you seen Michael Vincent's Dual Control? (If not, watch the performance of the card rise on youtube....) He gets the spectator to try and cut the deck into quarters, perhaps I could apply that to this as well, it gives an excuse to count the cards, to see if the spectators got it right (that way i can be certain the piles are the right size), and then I can fix the stack as I reassemble the deck.

Your suggestion also sparked another idea:
The first part of the routine requires me cutting the deck into 4 piles of 12 cards (I'm starting with Martin Nash's "Vernash Aces" or Darwin Ortiz's "Combination Cull" with a little twist to control an additional four cards for later in the routine).
So i could just skip the stack altogether. I could simply have the cards on the top of the deck, thumb or pinky count 11 cards with the deck face up and do a bottom slip cut to add the extra card to the top of each pile.

What do you think? Ideally I'd like to be able to do it with the deck face down, but currently when I'm using the stack, I just spread through face up to the correct top card, so this way is probably no more or less suspicious. Plus at this stage I'm not actually doing anything yet so (in theory) there is no reason for the audience to be suspicious.



cc100:
you're right, i don't want to remove the cards, but overhand shuffling might look better if done casually i suppose. Like i said above, from the audience perspective i haven't actually started the routine at this point, so I could probably do this casually without worrying about it.