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HOW TO MEMORIZE A DECK OF CARDS

6/22/2014 0 Comments

Erik Mana
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How To Memorize A Deck Of Cards

In my post "Discover Your Mind Palace" I shared a simple method that allowed you to remember a
short list of 10 items through a mnemonic technique called the Number Rhyme System. These
mnemonics are the basic principles to the following techniques that will enable you to memorize a
shuffled full deck of 52 cards. If you haven't checked out the my previous post, please check that out
first before continuing here.

For those of you who are already familiar with the Number Rhyme System and have given it some

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practice, this new technique will come to you a bit easier. That being said, this mnemonic technique
may seem daunting, but will still be a fun challenge to master. It will take some time and definitely a lot
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of practice, but fun nonetheless. Enjoy learning!

First, check out this video...

Simon's Mnemonics Pt.2

That was my son, Simon (10 years old) demonstrating his skills on memorizing a deck of cards. I shared
this video in my previous post, but I'm sharing it again to show you Simon's key techniques. We shall
come back to this video a little bit later to reveal more details. Lets talk about the mnemonics.

UPDATE: The video below is an update to Simon's progress. Check out how he's developed...

Simon's Mnemonics Part 3

PAO - Person / Action / Object

So how did Simon memorize the deck of cards? Well, much like in the Number Rhyme System, Simon
encoded each card. That is to say, that each card has a mnemonic picture, but not just one picture -

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THREE pictures!

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Each card represents three different images - a person, an action and an object. Usually the action
and object are related to the person in some way. For example...
The Jack of Diamonds represents the pirate Jack Sparrow, the action is drinking and the
object is a bottle of rum.
The 3 of Spades represents Harry Houdini, the action escaping and the object is a pair of
handcuffs.
Every card has a person, an action and an object. This makes it easier to remember all three
mnemonic elements. Don't worry, all of this will make more sense as we push forward.

Categorize Your Suits

In my own mnemonic system, I've categorized the four suits accordingly:

Hearts = Family members

Spades = Magicians
Diamonds = Comic book or movie characters
Clubs = Famous people

These categories can be anything you want as long as it easily aids you in your mnemonics.

Categorize Your Cards

Along with categorizing the suits I've also categorized the cards to make it even easier for me to
remember. You do not have to do this, but I find this helps me a lot when learning the mnemonics...
All even numbers are female 2, 4, 6, 8, 10 & Queen
All odd numbers are male Ace, 3, 5, 7, 9, Jack & King
The Queen and King are famous couples. For example: King and Queen of Clubs it is President
Obama and Michelle Obama.
The Jacks are people with the name Jack, like Jack Sparrow or Michael Jackson.
By categorizing your cards in this way, it will make things easier for you to learn and remember as you
are practicing the mnemonics.

Create Your Mnemonics

When I first started creating my mnemonic system for the cards, I first created four columns and listed
the cards by suits. For example:

CLUBS PERSON ACTION OBJECT

Ace Bruno Mars Playing the drums Drums
2 Natalie Portman Ballet dancing Black Swan
3 Bob Marley Playing the guitar Guitar
4 Alicia Keys Playing the piano Piano
5 Sherlock Holmes Smoking a pipe Pipe
6 Miley Cyrus Sticking her tongue out Wrecking Ball
7 Lenny Kravits Head-banging Sunglasses
8 Jessica Biel Exercising Medicine Ball
9 Justin Timberlake Singing Microphone
10 Olivia Wilde Kicking Tron Disc
Jack Michael Jackson Moonwalking Glitter Glove
Queen Michelle Obama Dunking a basketball Basketball
King President Obama Waving his hands Podium

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Again, these PAOs can be anyone and anything you want, but it should be people you can easily
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remember. After writing down this list and completing the entire deck, I proceeded to create
PowerPoint slides for each card with the card image and the PAO images as well. Once I've created all
52 slides, I can now study each card with its corresponding images.

Vivid Imagery
When you are familiar with the PAOs of each card, you can now proceed to actual memorization. As a
simple exercise, take three random cards from the deck and place them next to each other. The first
card on the left represents the Person of that card, the middle card will represent the Action of that
card and the third card will represent the object of that card.

For example, if we use my list of cards above and selected 5 of Clubs, 2 of Clubs and 8 of Clubs, this
group of cards would be - Sherlock Holmes ballet dancing with a medicine ball. Imagine this
image vividly, make it as outrageous as possible and remember the scene. When you remember the
scene you will be able to decipher what cards build that scene together. It is important to try to not be
too literal in your imagery. Try to make these funny images as exaggerated and outrageous as possible
using the PAOs.

The benefit of this process is that it will allow you to memorize 17 groups of cards instead of 52
individual cards. Look back at Simon's video and you will see how he separates the cards by groups of
threes and then memorizes them in order.

Enter Your Mind Palace

If you have read my "Discover Your Mind Palace" post, you will know how to create your own Mind
Palace and for this explanation I will assume you've created one already.

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Once you are familiar with your Mind Palace and you have walked through it several times in a specific
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flow and order, you can now begin to memorize your deck of cards. The importance of the Mind
Palace is to create a flow in which you can easily remember the order of the cards at any given point of
the deck.

Begin Memorizing
Take your first three cards from the deck and create a vivid image of the PAO of this grouping. Once
you have done this, place this image at the starting point of your Mind Palace. Then take the next
three cards from the deck and do the same, except that you will now place this new image in the
second spot in your Mind Palace. Keep going by taking cards three at a time and creating images
throughout your Mind Palace.

It is important to create very vivid, funny or outrageous images and to plant them in their respective
locations of your Mind Palace. By doing so, you can recall any card at any position of the deck order.

There will be 16 groups of three cards while the 17th group of cards will be four cards. The last four
cards can be PAOP or PAOO depending on how the images work together.

The Key To Mnemonic Success

What I've shared with you is my method to memorizing a deck of cards, but there are many ways to
approach and develop this skill. I invite you to explore other methods and to find your own style to
ensure mnemonic success.

This is only the beginning into the world of mnemonics and the skills that you develop from this post
are the basic foundations to building a strong memory. In a word - IMAGINATION is the key to a
successful memory. Using vivid imagery and the Mind Palace are skills that you can use to remember
anything and in future posts I will discuss in more detail how we can apply the same skills to
remembering people's faces and names, long digit numbers and even technical information from
school subjects.

Learning mnemonics and encoding information is much like learning how to read. You read each word
one by one trying to comprehend its meaning. Once you fully understand and recognize the meanings
of each word you then start to comprehend groups of words and understand the correlation of each
word with the next until you eventually understand a full sentence or paragraph and make those
connections with other sentences and paragraphs.

Memorizing a deck of cards and many other things are learned the same way. When you get used to
reading cards as a mnemonic code it gets easier and you get faster at memorizing them. When Simon
and I first started practicing mnemonics, we would take over 30 minutes to read the cards and
memorize them. But as we got used to the mnemonic code of each card, we got faster at reading it,
memorizing it and recalling the information.

It is important to understand the paradigm shift in how you must look at things and encode them in
such a way in order for you to memorize them. Remember that this is a real skill you are developing
and with all skills (easy or difficult) it takes practice, dedication and patience to master.

I wish you the best of luck in your journey into the world of mnemonics. Make it fun and everything
becomes easier!

"Imagination is more important than knowledge. For while knowledge defines everything we know and
understand, imagination points to everything we have yet to discover" - Albert Einstein

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