Aronson Stack Order: The Complete 52-Card List

Looking for the complete Aronson stack order? Here is Simon Aronson’s full 52-card arrangement in a single reference table, followed by the landmarks worth anchoring on, where the order comes from, and a practical method for getting it into your head.

If you want the background first — what the stack is known for and how it compares to Mnemonica — read the Aronson stack guide. This page is the reference table.

The Complete Aronson Stack

#	Card	#	Card	#	Card	#	Card
1	J♠	14	K♦	27	5♦	40	3♣
2	K♣	15	7♦	28	7♣	41	2♠
3	5♣	16	8♣	29	4♥	42	9♥
4	2♥	17	3♠	30	K♥	43	K♠
5	9♠	18	A♦	31	4♦	44	6♠
6	A♠	19	7♠	32	10♦	45	4♣
7	3♥	20	5♠	33	J♣	46	8♥
8	6♣	21	Q♦	34	J♥	47	9♣
9	8♦	22	A♥	35	10♣	48	Q♠
10	A♣	23	8♠	36	J♦	49	6♦
11	10♠	24	3♦	37	4♠	50	Q♣
12	5♥	25	7♥	38	10♥	51	2♣
13	2♦	26	Q♥	39	6♥	52	9♦

Read the table down each column, not across: positions 1–13 are the first column, 14–26 the second, and so on. That column split is deliberate — it matches the quarters you’ll learn the stack in.

Landmarks Worth Knowing

A memorized deck is a list of 52 arbitrary pairs, and the fastest way to make an arbitrary list navigable is to fix a handful of anchors and reason outward from them:

Position 1 — J♠ opens the stack.
Position 13 — 2♦ closes the first quarter.
Position 26 — Q♥ is the exact midpoint. Everything from 27 onward is the second half.
Position 27 — 5♦ opens the second half.
Position 39 — 6♥ closes the third quarter.
Position 52 — 9♦ closes the deck.

Notice the coincidence that both Aronson and Mnemonica end on the 9♦. It’s a small thing, but if you ever learn both stacks it saves you one pair.

The quarter boundaries (13, 26, 39) do more than divide the workload. In performance, knowing which quarter a card lives in is often enough to estimate a cut or decide how to handle a spread, before the exact position surfaces. Learn the boundaries cold.

Where the Order Comes From

Simon Aronson published this arrangement in 1979 in A Stack to Remember, and spent the following decades building on it in books such as Bound to Please and Try the Impossible. Unlike a mathematical arrangement, the order was not derived from a formula. Aronson constructed it by hand around specific effects, then tested and adjusted it until the built-in material and the “looks shuffled” requirement both held.

The most famous of those built-in properties is a ten-hand poker deal that lives inside the order and requires no sleights to set up. It’s the feature that made the stack’s reputation, and it’s still the reason many gambling-demonstration performers choose Aronson over anything else. The stack also carries spelling effects, coincidence routines and prediction material, all documented in Aronson’s books.

To be clear about what this page is: the order is the entry ticket. The routines that make the order worth learning are Aronson’s, and they’re in his books. Learn the table here, then go to the source for the material.

How to Memorize This Order

Staring at the table won’t do it. What works is the same process that works for any true memorized deck — the sequence is arbitrary by design, so there is no shortcut, only structure:

Chunk it by quarter. Learn positions 1–13 until they’re solid, then 14–26, then 27–39, then 40–52. Resist the urge to move on early; a shaky first quarter poisons everything built on it.
Drill both directions from day one. Card → position and position → card are different retrieval paths. Performance needs both instantly, and learning only one leaves you with a stack you can recite but not use.
Use active recall, not re-reading. Cover the table and produce the answer. Random-order quizzing beats running through the list in sequence, because in performance nobody asks you for the cards in order.
Find and attack your weak cards. After a few sessions, a handful of positions will account for most of your misses. Those are the ones to drill specifically — the rest will take care of themselves.

For the memory side of this — how to build vivid pegs, how to space your reviews, and when a memory palace helps — see five techniques for memorizing any card stack. If you’re still deciding whether Aronson is the right stack for you at all, the comparison of the major stacks lays out the trade-offs against Mnemonica, Si Stebbins and Redford.

Mnemonica: Stack Trainer ships with this exact Aronson order preloaded. Study any range, drill card → position and position → card with random prompts, and watch per-card accuracy until every one of the 52 positions is instant.