THE ART OF MEMORY · LESSON 12 OF 30 · PART III: MEMORY IN DAILY LIFE

A Pack of Cards

A shuffled deck may be in an order no one has ever seen. Fifty-two cards, fifty-two pictures, and a way to hold them all.

Memory hook: playing cards spread on a family table, each one sprouting its own miniature city.

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In this lesson: you will learn a system that gives each of the 52 cards its own picture, use it to memorise a short run of cards, and see how champions go further.

Where we left off

What are the five steps for remembering a name?

Hear it, say it, find one feature, turn the name into a picture, join them. Then review.

Why should your feature choice be kind and neutral?

The pictures are for your own memory; choosing a neutral or admirable feature keeps the method respectful.

When should you review new names?

The same evening, then again after a few days.

An order no one has ever seen

It is a rainy Sunday and a family is playing cards. Someone shuffles the deck, seven times as they were taught, and puts it in the middle of the table. The cards are no longer in any order a person could name. There is no Ace of Spades first, no King of Hearts at the end. It is a jumble.

Here is something curious. A pack has fifty-two cards, and the number of ways to arrange fifty-two things is fifty-two times fifty-one times fifty and so on all the way down to one. That number begins with eight and has sixty-eight digits. It is so large that a properly shuffled deck is almost certainly in an order that has never existed before, and will never exist again.

Why is a properly shuffled deck almost certainly unique?

The number of possible orders of 52 cards is astronomically large, so the chance that anyone has had the same order before is tiny.

Talk about it. Is it more surprising to you that a deck is unique, or that someone can learn that unique order? Why?

And yet a person can look at a shuffled deck and learn the whole order. People do it as a hobby and in competitions. They do not do it by repeating seven of hearts, queen of clubs, three of diamonds over and over. A card is a poor thing to remember: the same red and black marks, the same faces, fifty-two almost alike.

What they do is turn each card into a picture, and put the pictures in order along a route. In competitions the best of them learn a pack in less than thirteen seconds. The method is the one you already have.

How do people learn the order of a pack?

They give each card its own picture and place the pictures along a route of places.

Talk about it. Would you like to learn a deck? What would you use it for?

To do this you need a fixed list of fifty-two pictures, one for each card, so that you never have to decide. The seven of hearts is always the same scene. In this lesson you will learn a simple system, and see how champions make it faster.

Fifty-two pictures sounds like a lot. But there is a pattern. Each suit is a family of thirteen, so you learn four families, not fifty-two separate things. You will build this system one suit at a time, and by the end of the room you will be able to run through a short hand.

Why does the card system use a fixed list of pictures?

So the same card is always the same picture and you never have to decide again.

Talk about it. What pattern would you use to give 52 cards 52 pictures? Think of suits as groups.

Words worth knowing

Say what you think each one means, then open it.

to mix up the cards. She shuffled the deck.

one of the four groups of cards: hearts, diamonds, clubs and spades.

the value of a card: ace, two to ten, jack, queen, king.

to put things into groups. Categorise the cards by suit.

the only one of its kind.

the city where a country's government is based.

The number of orders of a 52-card pack is 52! (about 8 × 10⁶⁷).

Fifty-two pictures in four families

Give each suit a category and each rank a member of that category. One easy category is capital cities: each suit is a region, each rank is a city.

Rank	Clubs (Europe)	Hearts (Asia)	Diamonds (the Americas)	Spades (Africa and Oceania)
Ace	London	Tokyo	Washington	Cairo
2	Paris	Bangkok	Mexico City	Abuja
3	Berlin	New Delhi	Ottawa	Pretoria
4	Rome	Beijing	Brasília	Nairobi
5	Madrid	Seoul	Lima	Rabat
6	Athens	Singapore	Bogotá	Canberra
7	Vienna	Ankara	Buenos Aires	Wellington
8	Prague	Manila	Santiago	Accra
9	Budapest	Hanoi	Caracas	Addis Ababa
10	Warsaw	Kuala Lumpur	Havana	Dakar
Jack	Lisbon	Kathmandu	Quito	Tunis
Queen	Brussels	Riyadh	Montevideo	Kampala
King	Amsterdam	Tehran	San José	Lusaka

Each city then becomes a vivid scene you can see: London is Big Ben and a red bus; Tokyo is neon and Mount Fuji; Cairo is the pyramids and a camel.

See the card. Say its suit and rank in your head: seven of hearts.
Look up its picture. Hearts is Asia; 7 is Ankara.
Make the scene big and moving. You stand in a crowded Ankara market, with the smell of bread and the call to prayer.
Place it. Put the scene at the next place on your route.
Go on. One picture per card, one place per picture, in order.

The seven of hearts

The card is 7♥.

Look-upHearts = Asia, 7 = Ankara.

SceneYou stand at the foot of a glowing white mausoleum on a hill, with a blue sky and a hot wind. Flags snap above you and crowds climb a long avenue of steps.

PlacedAt place 3 of your route, as the hall of a house.

The picture: A white mausoleum on a hill in a hot wind, flags snapping, crowds climbing the steps: that is Ankara, so that is 7♥.

How champions go faster

Champions do not use one picture per card. They give every card a person (or a person with an action and an object, like PAO), and then take two or three cards at a time: the first card gives the person, the second the action, the third the object. A pack of 52 then needs only about 17 scenes, and a scene takes a couple of seconds to build. This is how a whole pack can be learned in under a minute.

suit = a region.
rank = a city.
a fixed picture for
each of the 52.

Start small. Learn the clubs this week, then the other suits. The system only works through repetition; once it is automatic you will see the picture the moment you see the card.

Say it aloud. Say the thirteen clubs from the ace to the king in order, and describe one scene.

Now you build

Have a go before you open any answer. A rough attempt teaches you more than a perfect model you only read.

Which city?

Use the table. Match each card to its city.

Ace of Clubs

5 of Hearts

King of Diamonds

9 of Spades

Queen of Clubs

Seven of hearts

Make your own scene for 7♥ (Ankara). Use the senses: what do you see, hear, smell?

I used at least two senses. It is clearly Ankara (or the city I chose). It is moving.

A hot, dry hill under a blue sky; a white marble mausoleum glows in the sun; flags are cracking in the wind; you smell grilled bread; a loudspeaker calls across the city.

Three cards in a row

Make scenes for 2 of Clubs (Paris), 8 of Hearts (Manila) and A of Spades (Cairo) and put them in three places of your palace.

Each card has a distinct scene. Each scene is at its own place. They are different from each other.

Place 1: a giant glass pyramid beside the Seine, with a baker handing you a baguette taller than you (Paris). Place 2: a bright jeepney painted pink, crammed with chickens, pushes through the crowded street (Manila). Place 3: the pyramids glow at dusk and a camel is eating your map (Cairo).

The pattern

In our system each suit is a and each rank is a city.

Clubs are , hearts are Asia.

Diamonds are the .

Why does a champion take two or three cards at a time?

Run the clubs

Say the clubs from ace to king aloud, with a word or two for each scene.

1:30

Drill

Flash cards

Say the answer first, then tap the card.

tap to turn over

Quick quiz

What is the suit that stands for Europe?

How many scenes does a champion need for a whole pack?

Why must the same card always be the same picture?

What city is the 3 of Diamonds?

The memory challenge

Memory challenge: eight cards

Eight cards drawn at random. Turn each into its city scene and place it at your palace. Type the cards back in order, like 'King of Clubs'.

King of Clubs = Amsterdam. 2 of Hearts = Bangkok. 9 of Spades = Addis Ababa...

0:00

The list has gone. Type what you remember, one item per line.

Look back

These reach back to earlier rooms. Answer in your head or out loud, then check.

Lesson 11 · Names and Faces. What is the first thing to do when you hear a name?

Hear it properly, and ask the person to repeat it if you are unsure.

Lesson 10 · Choosing Your System. Which number system holds six digits in one scene?

PAO.

Lesson 9 · Person, Action, Object. In PAO, which pair gives the action?

The second pair.

Lesson 4 · The Memory Palace. What is the method of loci?

Using places in a fixed route to store pictures in order.

What I can do now

I can explain why a shuffled deck is unique.
I can give each card a fixed picture from a system.
I can place a short run of cards at the places of a palace.

A thought to keep

Which suit would you like to learn first, and what is your first picture for it?

Saved on this device as you type.

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