How to memorise a deck of cards.
A couple of years ago I went through a stage of learning useless skills, I suppose it was because everyone around me seemed to be able to do something I couldn't or they could do something I wanted to do! I did a few things, I learnt the capitals of every country in the world (I can still remember 60% of them!) and I also learnt to juggle. But probably the best thing I managed to do was to learn how to memorise a deck of cards.

Amazingly not only is it the best thing I learnt to do it was also probably the easiest thing to learn to do. Within 3-4 hours you can learn the skill that will last you quite a long time! I learnt it from a memory book written by Dominic O'Brien - he managed to memorise 14 decks (a world record!).

It may seem to be a very difficult task to memorise the order of a deck of cards, and it can be if you use the more conventional ways of memorising things. For example the repeat method where you repeat a phone number to yourself again and again. This works for a while, but can get very difficult if the number is long.

The best way to memorise things is almost always to form images rather than trying to remember numbers or symbols. So in order to memorise the pack of cards we have to change a card into some sort of image.

And this is how to do it:

There are 10 numbers with playing cards, each number is assigned a letter:

1 - a
2 - b
3 - c
4 - d
5 - e
6 - s
7 - g
8 - h
9 - n
0 - o

The number six and nine are represented by 's' and 'n' as it is easier to think of an image that begins with this letter.

Then the suits take their letter

Spades - s
Clubs - c
Diamonds - d
Hearts - h

Each playing card can be given a letter code (forget about the picture cards for now!).

4 of Hearts - dh
7 of Clubs - gc
9 of Spades - ns

and so on.

These letter combinations can now be converted into celebrities (or real life people if you like!) so:

4 of Hearts - dh - Damon Hill

and

2 of Hearts - bh - Brian Harvey
3 of Diamonds - cd - Charles Dickens
5 of Spades - es - Ebeneezer Scrooge
6 of Hearts - sh - Sherlock Holmes
7 of Clubs - gc - George Clooney
8 of Hearts - hh - Harry Hill
9 of Hearts - nh - Nigel Havers
10 of Hearts -oh - Oliver Hardy

So instead of memorising playing cards you can now memorise famous people! Which is far easier!

The best way to memorise the order is to create a journey. For example, your journey to work, school or college in the morning.

My journey is:

My room, Bathroom,
Living Room,
Kitchen,
Garden.
And so on.

Now say you are given the set of cards 7 of Clubs, 5 of Spades, 10 of Hearts, 9 of Hearts and the 3 of Diamonds.

This becomes a short story

When I woke up in the morning I saw George Clooney in my bedroom, I then went to have a wash in the bathroom only to see Ebeneezer Scrooge sitting in the sink. Dismayed by this I walked into my living room only to see Oliver Hardy sitting on my sofa watching TV. Disturbed by this I went into the kitchen for something to eat, I open the fridge and am taken aback when I see that the actor Nigel Havers is there, amongst the salad! Annoyed I leave the house and wave goodbye to Charles Dickens who is mowing the lawn!

You don't have to have all the other rubbish that goes alongside the basic facts of:

My room - George Clooney
Bathroom - Ebeneezer Scrooge
Living Room - Oiliver Hardy
Kitchen - Nigel Havers
Garden - Charles Dickens

But it can be nice. Hopefully you found the funny story far easier to remember than the actual cards! The truth is the more ridiculous your story the more memorable it will be.

The current situation would suggest that you would need a journey of 52 places in order to memorise a whole deck! This is too many, in order to cut it down by half you can add an action to each card.

For example:

George Clooney - Operating
Ebeneezer Scrooge - Counting money
Charles Dickens - Writing a book

Then for example; 

George Clooney writing a book = 7 Clubs, 3 Diamonds 

And that's pretty much that - apart from the picture cards! You can do whatever you want with the picture cards, as long as you remember who the person is then it doesn't matter! Personally I do have a system of:

clubs = politics
spades = film stars
diamonds = rich people
hearts = heart throbs!

Basically your whole memory system is up to you. You could use famous people, fictional characters, your friends or a mixture of all three. It doesn't matter as long as it helps you to memorise those cards!

I found the most difficult part of the exercise was to memorise what playing card referenced each person. It took me 3 hours to develop it completely. I did it about 2 ½ years ago and I still remember 75% of the cards so I'm not doing too badly. I would highly recommend learning this as it is a very good party trick. And who knows you may one day use this system on the gambling tables in Las Vegas, if you do I'd take any donations of good will!

This article is based on the book by Dominic O'Brien. Not only does he give the best way to memorise cards, he also gives info on remembering dates, foreign words and much more and it is a really good (and useful) read!




Article written by Steve G