The following is an image of the current book cover which I will update from time to time.
“Tetra-Red by Jennifer Gwinn with Allan Ackerman, Patrick Redford, Andru Luvisi, Nancy Colwell, Rudy Tinoco, Woody Aragón, Clark Kjorlaug, Tim Heinlein, Ivan Mallia, Jonathan Schumacher, Austin Berg, Andy Choy, Gerry Griffin, Shay Brunson & Jack Carpenter.”
This is fun to write about. So I google searched for “Tetra-Red” the other day on March 1, 2024, to see where it might be mentioned. And as you can guess the search results were flooded with a bunch of cute little red tetra fish — many of them cardinal tetras. (The stack name is actually based off the words “Tetradistic” and “Redford” as the memdeck is both tetradistic and compatible with The Redford Stack.)
This is a fun stack independent spelling & stabbing routine in Allan’s new book set All-In Volumes I & II. In this video he shows of Tetra-Red’s spelling capabilities as well its use as a memorized deck.
In the September 12, 1964 issue of Abracadabra — volume 38 issue 972 — (and later in A Card Session With Peter Kane), there is a routine by Peter Kane called Tetradism. The word tetradistic is based off the name of this routine. In this routine, Peter Kane describes setting up a stack with four repeating thirteen card banks of identical value order, such that when you perform two perfect faros, you end up with a stack of all four of a kinds. Peter also said decks such as Si Stebbins and 8 Kings already have this sort of arrangement.
The word “tetra” in Greek means four
This book is for every memorized deck worker. This book not only discusses the ins and out of the Tetra-Red memorized deck / stack but also offers other useful stack-independent content most any memorized deck worker would appreciate.
I learned my first tetradistic stack from Erdnase’s book, The Expert at the Card Table, fifty-seven years ago. S.W.E. said to take Ace through King, shuffle, throw on the table, and memorize the thirteen. Repeat the same stack four times, so mates are thirteen cards apart, and keep like colors twenty-six cards apart. That was about the length of his description, one short paragraph.
Towards the end of the video, at 10:13 minutes in, Jeff mentions a “Secret Book Within a Book”. i.e. a free PDF e-book on page 50. Well that book is my book, Tetra-Red.
Allan Ackerman’s new book set All-In Volumes I & II is now available for purchase at Vanishing Magic.
This is very exciting news as Allan Ackerman’s last published book was 30 years ago: Las Vegas Kardma in 1994. Allan has however remained busy creating quite a bit of magic over these past 30 years. All of it was available in limited run lecture notes or occasional video, most of which are difficult to find these days.
Allan Ackerman just did a youtube interview with David from Unbiased Magic Reviews. In the interview, Allan mentioned that he uses my Tetra-Red stack and shared some details about it.
