Not much to say about this one. Other than it is awesome. Remember those guys who counted cards and took Vegas for hundreds of thousands? So, yeah, this isn't that at all. It's actually more impressive, except probably a lot harder to do successfully at a blackjack table. Instead of just doing simple math (yes, card counting is just simple math) with the numbers on the cards, it's actually remembering every freaking number and suit of every card (in order) of a full deck.
Every competitor gets 5 minutes to look through and memorize a randomly shuffled deck of cards. But, if you can do it under 5 minutes, you can request to be timed. The world record for this event is 21.90s by Simon Reinhard (a German guy), and the USA record is 1m27s by Ronnie White 2 years ago. I guarantee you this record will fall this year, by someone. The USA is on the verge of breaking the 1min mark for speed cards - which is kinda like the 4 minute mile of memory. Only we aren't exerting any physical force at all like one does when running a mile. Instead it's all mental. Well that's not true, we still have to thumb through the actual deck, which at high speeds, can be extremely physically exhausting and dangerous for the thumbs (sometimes they can catch on fire).
After the competitor has finished memorizing the deck, they put it down and pick up a different (brand-spanking new) deck which they must then put into the same exact order as the one they had just put down.
That's basically it. It's a tense and exciting event. It's the kinda event where spectators watch and go "ooooo." Pretty much when anybody does something cool with a deck of playing cards, it gets an "ooooo."
This concludes all the morning events. These events all have some type of scoring system. The top 8 competitors after this event (with combined scores from all events), move on to the afternoon elimination playoff rounds. More on that next...