The Si Stebbins Stack
A deck in a secret order that riffles like a shuffled one. Two small sums give you the card under any named card, the card at any position, and where a named card sits — no glimpse, no mark, and no move.
Ask it a card
Pick any card. This is the sum you would be doing in your head.
Play it through
Be the spectator and you cut wherever you like, take the top card, and it names it. Be the magician and they cut — you see only the card left on the bottom, and you do the two sums.
Try it without the sum in front of you
You see a card. Name the one that follows it. Four choices. The wrong ones are the near misses you would make at a table.
Published under this name by William Coffrin, who performed as Si Stebbins, in 1898. The arrangement itself is far older — versions of it turn up in books from the 1590s. It is out of copyright, out of secret, and still the first stack most card workers learn, because it is the only one you can rebuild from scratch in front of a mirror in ten minutes.
It is also described as a perfect order card trick, and that is exactly what it is. The deck is in a perfect order, every card three higher than the one before it, and the whole effect rests on that order being invisible to somebody looking straight at it.
How to build it
- Two rules, and that is the whole stack. Every card is three higher than the one before it, and the suits run in a fixed rotation: Clubs, Hearts, Spades, Diamonds.
- Counting past the King wraps around. Ace is 1, Jack 11, Queen 12, King 13. King plus three is sixteen, and sixteen minus thirteen is three, so a King is followed by a 3.
- Start with the Ace of Clubs and just keep going. Ace of Clubs, 4 of Hearts, 7 of Spades, 10 of Diamonds, King of Clubs, 3 of Hearts, and on round. After fifty-two cards you arrive back at the Ace of Clubs, which is what makes the deck a loop rather than a list.
- Build it from a new deck in about a minute. A fresh pack is already sorted by suit, so you are dealing rather than searching. Do it a dozen times and you stop needing to think about it.
The whole thing, in order:
The Si Stebbins stack as a printable PDF cheat sheet
A screen is a poor thing to have open at a table. Two pages, made to be printed and folded: all fifty-two cards in order, the four descending runs that rebuild the stack from a new pack, and the lookup that goes the other way — somebody names a card and you read off its position.
Download the cheat sheetNo email required.
Every card on it is generated from the two rules rather than copied, by the same arithmetic that runs on this page, and a check compares all fifty-two against each other before the sheet ships. A stack list with one card wrong is found in front of an audience.
Why does the Si Stebbins stack work?
Because 3 and 13 share no factors, and 4 suits divide 52 exactly.
Adding three each time and wrapping at thirteen walks you through all thirteen ranks before it repeats — 1, 4, 7, 10, 13, 3, 6, 9, 12, 2, 5, 8, 11, because three and thirteen have no common factor. Any step size that shared a factor with thirteen would land you back where you started early and leave ranks unused. Thirteen being prime means every step from 1 to 12 works; three is chosen because adding three is a sum you can do while talking.
Meanwhile the suits cycle every four cards. Thirteen ranks and four suits, with the two cycles running at different lengths, means a rank does not meet the same suit again until fifty-two cards have gone by. That is the whole construction, and it is why it closes into a loop exactly at the end of the deck.
| What you know | The sum | What it gives you |
|---|---|---|
| A card someone names | rank + 3, next suit along | the card beneath it |
| A card someone names | see below | its position in the deck |
| A position | 3 × position, next suit along | the card sitting there |
Why does it look shuffled?
Because the eye looks for suits, and no two neighbors share one. A deck sorted by suit is obvious from across a room; this one has clubs, hearts, spades, diamonds repeating so steadily that it reads as noise. The ranks climb by three, which the eye does not spot either, because it is looking for runs of one.
What gives it away is a long look at the faces, so do not give anybody one. Cut it as often as you like — a cut moves the starting point and changes nothing else, since the deck is a loop. A riffle shuffle destroys it completely.
Can you tell a stacked deck from a shuffled one?
That paragraph is an opinion, and it is one every page about a stack offers. Here is the same claim as a number instead. Two spreads of twelve cards below: one is cut out of the Si Stebbins stack, the other was shuffled. Press the one you think is stacked.
Spot the stacked deck
Only your first answer is counted, and it is counted once per browser. After the reveal you know to check whether every card is three higher than the last, and a person who knows that is not the person the question is about. Deal two more as often as you like — those are for you rather than for the count.
What it buys you
- Somebody takes a card and you name it, having glimpsed only the card above it.
- You call the deck's order from memory while it sits in your pocket.
- A card is lost in the deck and you cut straight to it.
- It is the doorway to a memorized deck, which is the same idea without the sums — faster, because there is nothing to work out.
Questions people ask
How do you set up a Si Stebbins stack?
Split the deck into its four suits. Put each suit in order, Ace up to King. Then move cards from the top of each pile to the bottom: none from the clubs, three from the hearts, six from the spades, and nine from the diamonds.
Now deal one card from each pile in turn — club, heart, spade, diamond — until all fifty-two are together. That is the stack. It takes about a minute once you have done it twice.
What is the Si Stebbins formula?
Two sums, and they are the whole system.
Add three to the rank. Aces count one, Jacks eleven, Queens twelve, Kings thirteen. Go past thirteen and subtract thirteen.
Move one suit along in the order clubs, hearts, spades, diamonds, and back to clubs. Magicians remember it as CHaSeD.
Who was Si Stebbins?
The stage name of William Coffrin, an American circus performer and card worker. He published the arrangement in 1898 and it carries his name.
He did not invent it. Versions appear in print more than two hundred years earlier. He is the one who made it famous.
What is the magicians' order for a deck of cards?
There is no single one. Si Stebbins is the oldest arrangement still in common use, and the easiest to rebuild at a table, because you can work any card out with two sums instead of remembering fifty-two positions.
Other stacks trade that away. They give you a deck that looks even more innocent, and they ask you to memorize the lot.
Does a Si Stebbins deck still look shuffled?
To anybody not counting, yes. No two neighbors share a suit, and the ranks climb by three, which reads as randomness rather than as a pattern.
It will not survive a magician looking for it, and it will not survive a real shuffle. A spectator may cut it as often as they like.
More
The 21 card trick needs no setup at all and is worth understanding for the opposite reason: the method is trivial and everything rests on the performance.
Harrison Alley
Hobbyist · Writes Sleightless
A hobbyist, not a professional. I write up the self-working end of card magic, because it is the door I would point a beginner at, and every trainer here is played through and checked before it ships.