TRANSPOSING: HOW TO COMPLETE PORTRAITS IN A GRAND TABLEAU

Hi, everyone. Welcome back to the channel. Thank you for tuning back in. Today I want us to look at a technique that we use in a Grand Tableau called transposing. Transposing is one of the many techniques we can use in a Grand Tableau.

Obviously, this is a very big spread, it uses all 36 cards, and there are a million things we can read out of a Grand Tableau. Mainly, we look at the big lines, the rows and columns, and diagonals, and we also focus on the cards around the Man and Woman, depending on which one represents your reading or yourself.

When we do transposing, we do it in the context of reading the portraits in a Tableau. So another technique we can use in a Grand Tableau is to focus on a specific card, a card that represents a specific area or theme, and we read the portrait cards around it.

For example, suppose we are interested in knowing what's going on with a certain piece of news. For this, we would look at the Letter. The Letter is right here, and we focus on the 8 cards around it. So we read the portrait around the Letter because we are focused on a specific theme in relation to this piece of news or information.

We could do the same with any card, and this means that we know that the different cards mean different things in life. For example, the Ring represents relationships, focusing on what is going on in a specific relationship, we would look at the portrait around the Ring. And we would do this with any of the cards that are of interest to us in a Grand Tableau. So this is a technique that we use.

We focus on the portraits within a Grand Tableau. So notice that many of the portraits are complete, meaning all cards around the central card are within the Tableau. So like the Letter, the Ring, the Book, everything else in here. But there are also portraits that are incomplete. And these are the portraits for the cards that are on the outer edges of the Tableau. So for example, the portrait around the Key or the Child. They're incomplete.

They're missing the cards on the right hand side column. Same with the bottom cards, same with the top cards, and the corner cards. So for example, the Rider, we only have three cards in its portrait. 

This is where the transposing technique comes in. And this means that we move cards from one side of a Tableau to the other side of the Tableau in order to complete the portrait around a specific card.

So what we're going to do in this video is go over examples of transposing with the different versions of the Tableau.

TRANSPOSING IN A GRAND TABLEAU OF NINES

Starting with this one, this is the Grand Tableau of Nines, and we call it that because it is made up of four rows of 9 cards each. So let's go ahead and start with a few transposing examples.

Let's go for the one around the Child. So we've got these cards around the Child and we're missing the right hand side column. To do this, the way I transpose is I take cards from along the same row, the farthest card from along the same row and I transpose it to the other side of the Tableau where I need the portrait to be completed.

So it's very straightforward. I just go along the same row and I transpose the card. Notice that because it's at the edge, I don't have cards from a column here to transpose them up. That's why I go for the row. So that's one example.

Let's go for a second example. Let's go for the portrait around the Dog. The Dog is in the bottom row, and it is missing the bottom row in its portrait.

This is straightforward. I just take the cards from along the same column and I transpose them down, and this way I have a complete portrait around the Dog. I'm overlaying them on top of the cards because it's a very big spread. I zoomed out as much as possible. So you can see where I am getting the cards from. So this is how we would do it for the portrait around the Dog, we just take cards from along the same columns. Very easy, very straightforward.

Now let's look at a corner card. Let's take the Rider. Now with the corner cards, we have a few options of how we can transpose the card. This is where the rules of thumb start to come in. And I want to emphasize this because it is simply a rule of thumb, not a rule. So you play around a little bit with different ways you can transpose the cards, and then you decide for yourself how best you want to do them. So for the portrait around the Rider, we have only three cards and we are missing this entire side as well as the bottom row.

So we've got these two cards, the two bottom cards and a corner card around here. So for the cards along this side, it's straightforward. We do just what we did with the first one. We transpose the cards from along the same row, the farthest card. So this takes care of these two cards. And then for the bottom two, we would go along the same column and bring down these two cards. This takes care of part of the bottom row. And part of the right hand side colon.

Now we're missing the corner card. So with the corner card, we have a couple of options. One is to go along the same diagonal as the Rider. We take the farthest card along the same diagonal and this lends us on the Moon. So we would take the Moon and we would put it here. And so this would complete the portrait around the Rider.

Now, another option is to take the farthest card of the whole Tableau along the diagonal along the corner cards. It would be in this case the House. Take the House from the farthest corner and we would bring it down. And this would complete the portrait. Getting the farthest corner card is the way I do it. This would be the way I do the transposing for the corner card. But like we said, you might like to use the diagonal, so following the diagonal of the Rider and it will land you on the Moon. So here you have a couple of options. So let's bring these cards back.

You know how you transpose the cards, so it's easy to bring them back to their original location. And this would be the way we would do transposing for a Grand Tableau of Nines.

TRANSPOSING IN A GRAND PIQUET TABLEAU

Next, let's look at transposing in the Grand Piquet Tableau. Okay, so here is our Grand Piquet Tableau, I moved some cards around. Again, we have 36 cards the whole deck, but it is configured differently from a Grand Tableau of Nines.

As you can see, we have four rows of 8 cards, plus a bottom row of 4 cards. So this is going to create a different configuration, and therefore the transposing techniques have a lot in common with what we saw with the Grand Tableau of Nines, but in a few scenarios, they could be a little bit different.

So let's go ahead and run through a few examples like we did with the Tableau of Nines. Let's look at transposing the cards for the Tower because we want to read the portrait around the Tower.

Well, as we did with the Tableau of Nines, we go for the farthest card along the same row. So it would be the Whip for the bottom left and the Ring for the middle left. And the Anchor for the top left. So this would complete the portrait around the Tower. Pretty straightforward, just like we did the first time around.

Let's look at another example. Let's look at one from the top row. So let's say we want to complete the portrait around the Heart. Now here we would go for the ones along the same column.

And again here we have a couple of options. So I would take the Rider and put it in the top left. The Key in the top middle and the Child in the top right. And this way we have a complete portrait around the Heart. Now, I say we have a couple of options here because there are some authors who don't do this when it comes to the Piquet Tableau.

They don't use cards from the bottom row. They might use cards from the longest row at the bottom. So instead of using these three cards, they would take these three cards and transpose them up to have a complete portrait around the Heart. So that is an option that I've seen some authors do. It depends what is the rule of thumb that you want to follow? Think about this a little bit, play around with it and go with your preferences.

But I want to suggest that you want to decide beforehand and not when you're doing the Tableau, because you need to respect the principle of randomness and you don't want to select the cards with some bias during the Tableau. You don't want to make the decision of how to transpose the card because it can be biased.

Let's look at the portrait around the Mountain.

So here we are missing the two bottom cards, what we would simply do is bring down the two cards from the top. And the Bear. So this would be the portrait around the Mountain. Now I do appreciate that you could potentially move the Rider along the row. So if you just brought down the Sun, you might be able to bring the Rider onto here. I don't feel it is a consistent way of doing the transposing.

I think if you can bring down both cards from the top, you know, following the same technique along the same column, I feel it is more consistent, but it might be something that you consider. And also, if you brought down the Bear and not the Sun, maybe you can move the Rider to the corner. Again, these are options you might want to play around with with the transposing here in this part of a Piquet, which is also the same as what happens here.

For my part, I would bring down the two top cards because I feel it is more parallel, it is more consistent. It is less random in a way. This is my personal preference. But again, you might have different ways of doing them.

Another scenario we can use transposing within a Piquet Tableau is the corner cards here. The Garden and the Whip, because they are sort of close to this empty space here.

So let's see how the transposing plays out. Let's go for the Garden by way of example. So for the bottom two cards, I would just transpose the top cards along the same column. That's how I would do it. And I think it's the most straightforward way of doing it. So we have left the whole left hand side column. And here we have a couple of options. So for these two cards, I would bring the Whip and the Ring. The farthest cards along the same column.

This leaves us with the corner card here. With the corner card, we have a few options. We can go for the card that is farthest along the diagonal of the Garden and this lends us on the Heart so we could take the Heart and transpose it into the bottom corner here. That is one option. Another option would be the farthest corner card from the Garden. So this would be the Sun. So not along the same diagonal, but the farthest corner card.

We take the Sun and we would transpose it here. This is my go to method when it comes to corner cards. I don't use the diagonal. I tend to use the farthest corner card. So this would be my rule of thumb. But we do have a third option, and that would be to transpose the card from along the bottom row. So it would be the Bird. This too is an option that you might like to think about and possibly use. So these are some options for transposing that we get at the corner cards of the Piquet.

Let's bring these back. Because we know our rules of thumb, we can bring them back easily to where they wear with practice. You'll have your rules of thumb in mind and you won't lose the order of the cards. So this was for the Grand Piquet Tableau.

TRANSPOSING IN A MINI TABLEAU OF NINES

Next, let's look at transposing with the mini versions of these Tableaus.

Okay, this is the mini Tableau of Nines. I appreciate that the name of this mini Tableau can be confusing because we do not have lines of 9. 

We have lines of 7. But we call it that because it looks like the Grand Tableau of Nines. So here we have three rows of 7 cards each and it amounts to 21 cards.

Now, I want to, from the get go, tell you that in my personal practice, I do not apply transposing techniques to the mini versions of the Tableau. My reasoning for this is that I've opted to go for a smaller number of cards, a subset of cards from the deck.

And so I do not want every single meaning or every single insight from the cards. I want to focus just on the cards that come up in the mini Tableau. So I tend to focus on the portraits that are complete in a mini Tableau. And in this version of the mini Tableau, it would be the portraits around the inner cards. And it would be the cards and the outer edge of the mini Tableau that have incomplete portraits.

In other words, I take it that the complete portraits are the most relevant elements for me to focus on because I've opted to go for a mini Tableau. This is just the way I see it. It's my approach to the mini Tableaus. Of course, you might want to do a transposing. And this is what we're going to do together right now in case you want to apply transposing to the mini versions of the Tableau. So again, we have incomplete portraits along the top and bottom row and on the outermost columns as well as the corner cards.

So let's take a few examples like we did earlier.

Let's look at the portrait around the Snake. So we've got the Snake and the bottom row here and we have these cards around it. We want to complete the Snake portrait with three cards that would come in the bottom row. And so we would simply bring the cards from the top, the farthest most cards along the same column. And that would complete the portrait around the Snake. Very straightforward. Let's take these back to where they were.

And let's look at another example. Let's go for the portrait around the Cross. Similarly, we would just take the cards that are farthest along the same row. So I would take the Bird and put it here, the Dog, in the middle, and the Man in the top. And this way, we would have completed the portrait around the Cross.

Let's now move on to a corner card. Let's go for the Bird.

So for the Bird, we have just these three cards and we're missing this side, the right hand side column, and the bottom row. So for these two cards, we would just bring the same cards along the rows, the farthest card, and then for the bottom two cards here, we could bring down the ones along the same column. So this takes care of these four cards. We are left with this corner card. And like we did with the Grand Tableau of Nines, we have a few options here.

We could go for the card that is along the same diagonal as the Bird, and this would be the Book. And so we would bring down the Book here. Or the way I would do it is to go for the farthest corner card. So I would take the Clouds and I would bring it down here. And this is how I would complete the portrait.

Again, you have a few options. It is up to you. Try different ones, see which ones you like, but like I said, this is a decision you make before you do the Tableau to avoid bias, and then once you've decided you go ahead and do your Tableau and you apply your transposing techniques.

So this is it for the mini Tableau of Nines, very similar to what we did with the Grand Tableau of Nines. Let's move on to the mini Piquet.

TRANSPOSING IN A MINI PIQUET TABLEAU

So this is the mini Piquet Tableau. As you can see, it looks like the Grand Piquet.

What I did was I moved around some of the cards of the mini Tableau of Nines, but I had to pull an additional card from the deck because in the mini Piquet we have 22 cards, whereas in the mini Tableau of Nines, we have 21 cards.

So in the mini Piquet, we have three rows of 6 cards each, and we have a bottom row of 4 cards. The bottom row in the Grand Piquet is also made up of 4 cards, but obviously we have the rest of the cards at the top.

So how would we transpose cards and the mini Piquet? Well, let's go through a few examples here. Let's say we want to complete the cards around the Scythe. I would take the Dog and the Man and the Tree, and this would complete the cards around the side. The portrait around the side. Now, as we said, with the Grand Piquet, some authors do not pull cards from the bottom roll in this context.

They would take the cards from the longest bottom row. So it would be the Ring. And the Child and the Snake. Again, it is up to you which technique you want to use, which rule of thumb you want to make yours. Play around and see which one you prefer and then apply it in your practice.

Let's now go for a corner card. Let's go for the Coffin. So for the Coffin we are missing the whole top row and the right hand side column.

For the top cards, I would just pull the ones from the bottom. It would be the Tree and the Whip. But again, like we said, some authors do not like to use the bottom row in a Piquet, so they might pull the card that is before it. So the two cards are along the same row. They might pull the Snake. In my personal practice, I go for the farthest card along the column or the row.

Now the cards along here, we would take the Cross. And we would take the Clouds.

This leaves us with the corner card. So here we have a few options. We can go for the card along the same diagonal as the Coffin. The farthest most card along this diagonal is the Dog. So we would place the Dog at the corner. But again, some folks do not go for the bottom row. They would stop at the card before it along the longest row on the bottom. And that would be the Child.

Now, another option that we have here is to go for the farthest most corner card, not along the same diagonal, but the farthest corner card, and for me, that would be the Key. This is the rule of thumb that I follow, that I personally use in my practice. For the corner cards, I go for the farthest card and the big rectangle.

We do have one more option here, and it would be to pull the Bird, which is the farthest most corner card that includes the bottom row as part of the bottom row.

So that too is an option. My personal approach, like I said, would be to have the Key. So this would be how I would complete the portrait around the Coffin.

So we've got a few possibilities here with the corner cards and a Piquet. It is up to you, which one you want to follow. You can play around with these different techniques and see which ones you prefer.

Let's do the portrait around the Whip.

As you can see in a Piquet, we have a slightly different configuration and specifically in the mini Piquet, we don't have two cards that are missing here. We have just one. So let's just take this last scenario to see how it plays out.

So we have a few options here. We've got this column missing and we have the bottom, middle card missing. So for these two cards here, I would just go for the cards along the row. And it would be the Cross.

For the bottom card here, I would take the Coffin. And this leaves us with the corner card. Like we said a few times, the corner card can draw from along the same diagonal. This would be the Scythe.

Or in my way, I would take the farthest corner card. It would be the Clouds. That's how I would complete the portrait around the Whip.

But we do have one more option in this case and it would be to draw the Bird from the bottom row into here. So here it creates the possibility of drawing a corner card from the bottom row. 

See if you like this approach, what matters is that you are consistent once you've made your decision and decide beforehand. What is the rule of thumb that you prefer? For my part, when it comes to corner cards, I always go for another corner card and I take the farthest most corner card, not the card along the diagonals. This is how I do it.

And the coffin was up here and these were along here. As you get used to your rules of thumb, you remember how you had transposed the cards so you don't lose the order. 

So let me know how you enjoyed these transposing techniques. I certainly look forward to learning about how you apply them in your Tableau practice.

If this is the first time you've heard of transposing, let me know if you're going to give it a try. And let me know what your preferences are when it comes to the transposing techniques and to the options that we have.

Be sure to tune in to the resources that I have for you. You can learn everything about the Tableau that I offer through my master guides or courses. 

I also have a free download for you that captures some of the scenarios that we practiced in this transposing exercise. Be sure to download it so that you have it on hand and you can start practicing your transposing techniques.

As always, thank you for tuning in and until next time, take very good care of yourself.

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