The Pridmore System for Card Memorization

My techniques aren't a secret, I'm quite happy to share them with

anyone who's interested. I normally point people towards the wwbc

posts last year where I explained it, but since we've got a brand

new group here, I've rewritten it and made it hopefully a bit easier

to understand. I don't actually call it the 'Ben system', but that's

what some people have been calling it, and I do quite like the name.

It's really just an extension of the basic Major system.

The basic principle is the same as everyone else uses, visualising

images at points along a mental route or journey. I don't use the

person-action-object ideas of some people, I just have

three `objects' at each point on my route. Some of these objects are

people, some are things. I `see' them arranged from left to right,

or top to bottom, and interacting in various ways according to rules

I made up as I went along, depending on which objects come together

in what order.

Each object is made from a combination of two playing cards, or

three decimal digits, or ten binary digits. The name of the object

starts with a one-syllable sound made up of a consonant, a vowel and

another consonant. For playing cards, these sounds are made as

follows.

The first consonant is given by the combination of suits, like this:

club/club - k

club/diamond - t

club/heart - n

club/spade - m

diamond/club - r

diamond/diamond - d

diamond/heart - l

diamond/spade - g/j

heart/club – f/th

heart/diamond - b

heart/heart - h

heart/spade - p

spade/club - sk/sn/sm

spade/diamond - st/sp

spade/heart - sh/sl/sw

spade/spade – s

The vowel comes from the number/rank of the first card, like this:

A = `a' as in `cat'

2 = 'e' as in 'pet'

3 = 'i' as in 'kitten'

4 = 'o' as in 'tom'

5 = 'u' as in 'puss'

6 = `A' as in `hay'

7 = `E' as in `bee'

8 = `I' as in `high'

9 = `O' as in `low'

10 = `oo' as in `you'

J = `ow' as in `cow'

Q = `or' as in `door'

K = `ar' as in `car'

And the final consonant comes from the number of the second card,

like this:

A = t

2 = n

3 = m

4 = r

5 = l

6 = g

7 = k

8 = f/th

9 = b

10 = s

J = j/sh/ch

Q = p

K = d

So, for example, Ace of hearts + 2 of clubs gives f (heart/club) + a

(Ace) + n (2) = `fan'. If the 2 of clubs came first it would be n

(club/heart) + e (2) + t (Ace) = `net'.

That gives me 2704 different images. For numbers, I use the same

list of images, but only use 1000 of them for decimal and 1024 for

binary. It works like this:

First consonant (first digit)

0 = s

1 = t

2 = n

3 = m

4 = r

5 = l

6 = gj

7 = k

8 = f/th

9 = b

Vowel (second digit)

0 = `oo'

1 = `a'

2 = 'e'

3 = 'i'

4 = 'o'

5 = 'u'

6 = `A'

7 = `E'

8 = `I'

9 = `O'

Second consonant (third digit)

0 = s

1 = t

2 = n

3 = m

4 = r

5 = l

6 = g

7 = k

8 = f/th

9 = b

And for binary, it's:

First consonant (first four digits)

0000 = s

0001 = t

0010 = n

0011 = m

0100 = r

0101 = l

0110 = g/j

0111 = k

1000 = f

1001 = b

1010 = p

1100 = h

1101 = sk/sn/sm

1110 = st/sp

1111 = sh/sl/sw

Vowel (next three digits)

000 = `oo'

001 = `a'

010 = 'e'

011 = 'i'

100 = 'o'

101 = 'u'

110 = `A'

111 = `E'

Second consonant (final three digits)

000 = s

001 = t

010 = n

011 = m

100 = r

101 = l

110 = g

111 = k

I hope that's clear. I'm always happy to answer questions!