Two Minute Deck Memorization: Update...

This challenge is getting pretty difficult and I think I've hit a bit of a wall, but I'm not worried. I think I've been causing a lot of my own difficulties here.

Since I moved up to memorizing a full deck, I have been able to pull it off a few times, but the time is way up there. The fastest I've been able to memorize a full deck in is about 3:30, though usually I'm up closer to 4-6 minutes.

It's getting to be really hard for me to work the time down to be consistently lower.

I think the reason is the relatively casual way that I have been approaching this challenge. Between work and other responsibilities, I've really just been working on this challenge when I had time. However, it occured to me today that the brain is very much like a muscle. If I practice this more, I'll get better at it. If I don't, that skill will atrophy. So far, I've been like that guy at the gym who works out only once a month, then wonders why he doesn't see any progress. Consistency!

I need to invest more time in this and be more consistent if I'm going to get down under 2 minutes. I can memorize a deck. I just have to do it faster! I have to put more time in if I'm going to cut more time out!

In addition, learning a full deck has been a lot harder because I ditched the old method and started to apply a new method.

More on that later...

Two Minute Deck Memorization: Three Suits!

I just memorized three quarters of a deck of cards. It took me about four minutes to do it, but I did it and I'm moving on to memorizing a full deck. I'm not too worried about the time for now. I'll whittle that down once I get a full deck done.

What's interesting about this whole endevour is that I can see myself figuring out little tricks and loopholes to let me get my time lower and lower. 

There's so many things about the way I initially approached this challenge which were not only unneccesary, but actually detrimental to my success.

That's pretty exciting, and it's been exciting to see my capacity to remember cards grow as I put these tricks into practice. These tricks are nothing super genius, and nothing to brag about, but in the next few days, when I start talking about the process, I'll point out how my strategy has changed over time.

My fastest time with half a deck (2:36 min) was actually way slower than my fastest time with three quarters of a deck (2:02 min)!

Anyway, here's the video for three quarters of a deck.

Moving up to a full deck!!!

Two Minute Deck Memorization: Two Suits!

I've worked up to half a deck! I've gotten accustomed enough to this that I can go through the deck forwards and backwards and if given a random number, I can tell which card was in that position. I can go the other way, too. If given a card, I can tell which position it was in, but I couldn't think of a way to demonstrate that in the video.

I've also run through it enough that I've noticed a few things I can do to make things easier on myself. More on that later a few posts from now, but for now, I'll just say that I'm hoping that I can start whittling my time down a bit. When I added the second suit, my time shot way up, understandably, but then it slowly came back down and settled right around 3 minutes. In theory, I'm capable of getting it down to 45 seconds. I don't think I'll come close to that during this challenge, but I know I can get under 2 minutes.

Anyway, here's me memorizing half of a deck of cards!

Now I'm moving up to three suits! Three quarters of a deck!

I'm on my way!

Two Minute Deck Memorization: One Suit!

OK, here is my new attempt to memorize one suit out of a deck of cards. 

I looked up the method used by the people who do this for a living, like those Grand Masters of Memory, and it's surprisingly simple. It will take some practice, but holy crap, I've already seen some good improvement!

So in about a day, I've gone from remembering two cards out of a suit, to remembering the whole suit. This is totally not because my brain has gone into hyperdrive, but because the method is so effective.

Still, I won't be terribly impressed until I can throw in another suit or two...

Two Minute Deck Memorization: First Attempt!

Ok, so today I was going to try to memorize a deck of cards. Failure was fully expected, but I have to admit, I thought I would do better than I did.

I've always had terrible memory. I once borrowed a book from someone called Improving Your Memory for Dummies but I never remembered to read it and eventually lost it. That's not a joke. True story.

So here was my first attempt to memorize a shuffled deck of cards.

It didn't go well. I decided to try to work my way up to a whole deck like I worked my way up to the Ghost Pepper. So I tried to do the challenge again with only one suit. Again, failure was expected, but I did get about as far as I thought I would...

So I don't know. This is looking like a long road ahead...

Two Minute Deck Memorization!

I have a new challenge!

Down the gauntlet has been lain!!! 

Laid?.... Lain.

I'm also excited to say that this is my first challenge that has not come from /r/GoForGold! Many thanks to "Exclamation Mark Rlsh" who posted this challenge to me on Facebook:

Dude, I like your other challenges, but let's not just push your body. Let's push your mind, too! There are 122 Grand Masters of Memory in the world. In order to claim that title, you have to memorize a shuffled deck of cards in two minutes, Memorize ten shuffled decks in an hour, and memorize 1000 random numbers in an hour.

I'm not going to make you do all three, but let's start you off with what seems like the easiest one. I want you to memorize a shuffled deck of cards in two minutes.

So that's it! Im going to try to memorize a shuffled deck of cards in two minutes!

Then I'm going to Vegas!