Some of the most magical effects are effects that have an element of luck involved. While such effects are often impossible to repeat, they are also impossible for the audience to figure out. They are effects that build reputations.
For example, I remember doing a standard “take a card” trick. The spectator had just selected a card and had returned to the center of the deck. I intended to control it to the top and produce it in some way. But before I could, the spectator grabbed the deck from me saying “let me shuffle.” In the process of grabbing at the deck, the deck was knocked from my hands and went flying. When it hit the floor and the cards scattered, all of the cards were face down, except one. It was an accident that the one card was face up, but by the expression on the spectators face I knew that it was the selected card. I promptly played it for all it was worth. I also knew I couldn’t top the effect so I put the cards away and went on to something else.
Since then I have played with such impossible effects that have an element of luck. These tricks typically have outs for when they don’t work. The following is my favorite.
Effect
The spectator just names any card in the deck. After naming the card the magician produces it immediately in a magical fashion.
The work
The basis for the trick is knowing the locations of several cards. If you have a concave short card in the deck, use the Queen of Hearts because it is often named, especially by women. Then peek at the top three or four cards and at the bottom three or four cards during a quick shuffle. With that, you are are set to produce any of the nine cards you know with a minimum of moves.
For example, if the queen is selected, hand the deck for further shuffles and have returned behind your back. Keep the deck behind your back and find the queen (easily done because it is a short card) and reverse it. If the top card is named do a drop turnover. The drop turnover can be found in The Expert at the Card Table, by S. W. Erdnase, and in Dai Vernon’s annotated version Revelations. The drop turnover is titled The Revolution and is on page 170 of Revelations. This is the classic move where the top card is slightly side jogged as the deck is raised, then the deck is dropped onto the table. The air pressure on the side-jogged card will cause the card to flip face up on top of the deck.
If the bottom card is named, do a variation of the pop-out move (described at the end of this chapter.)
If the second from the bottom card is named, do an Erdnase color change.
If the second from the top is named do a slip cut (The slip cut is also found described in Revelations and The Expert at the Card Table. In Revelations it is found on page 39.)
If the third or fourth cards are named then double cut the deck to bring those cards to the second from the top or bottom positions and proceed as above.
What if none of the known cards are named? Since the spectators have no idea of what you are about to do, some simple playing with the deck often finds the named card without the spectators being wiser. For example, a one-handed cut brings new cards to the top and bottom. Glance at the top and bottom cards to see if either is the one named. A quick overhand shuffle also allows several cards to be glimpsed. With practice you can spot the named card during the split of the deck in preparation for a riffle shuffle. If it is near the middle of the deck you can split at it (or very close) and shuffle it to the top or bottom.
At this point the odds of finding the card are close to one in four. The odds can be increased in several ways. The deck can have two corner shorts as well as the scalloped short. The deck can be prearranged with commonly named cards in the key positions. The cards often named are the King, Queen, and Jack of Hearts, the seven of Diamonds, and the Aces.
Sometime there comes a point where you are unable to find the named card, and any further playing with the deck will be too obvious. Then ribbon spread the deck face up, find the chosen card, remove it and proceed with an ambitious card routine.
Or if you are proficient with “culling” cards, spread the cards face-up between your hands as you look for their card. Keep the faces tilted so the spectators can’t see them. When you see their card, lower the faces so the spectators can see the faces as you cull the card underneath the spread. Feed the culled card to the top of the deck as you explain that you can’t find the card, but that that isn’t unusual…”you don’t often play with a full deck.” Now use the back palm off the top of the deck technique described on the following pages to produce their card from the elbow of one of the spectators.
Or I will often cull the card to the top and then cut it to the center of the deck putting a half deck crimp in the lower half of the deck as I cut the lower half to the top. I then tell the spectator that I want to check to see how much “magic” they have in them and ask them to cut the deck in half. Nine times out of ten they will cut to the crimp finding their card. If they don’t, I simply smile and make some comment as I replace the cut of cards. I then cut to the crimp and turn over the card.
Another option using the cull technique is to cull either the selected card to a position below your “short” card or if the short card comes first, cull it to a position above the selected card. Then give the deck to the spectator to shuffle, explaining that as a magician you always have trouble finding a card by “looking” for it. Take the deck back behind your back and pull out their card!
Don’t pass this up! I always use it to start my ambitious card routine. If I get lucky and the spectator names one of the cards that I can immediately produce, I have a miracle! Of course, miracles are sometimes hard to repeat, and spectators often ask me to repeat this trick. They usually say something like, Wow!, okay, now find the five of diamonds.
Back palm steal from the top of the deck
Effect:
Spectator selects a card and returns it to the deck which is shuffled.The magician takes the cards from the spectator, springs them from hand to hand, then reaches up to the right with the right hand and plucks the selected card from thin air!
I don’t know where I got this from. I might have modified some other ideas to develop it. I use it frequently, sometimes as an out when I have failed to find the card, sometimes as a revelation on its own. To perform the effect maneuver the card you want to produce to the top of the deck, face down. The deck is held in your left hand. You hold a break under the top card with your left little finger.
Your right hand comes over and takes over the break with the right thumb, as you turn the back of the left hand towards the spectators.
Further help in hiding the action can be done by turning slightly to the right. The right hand moves up slightly and the left hand, holding the deck, extends its first finger to point at the right hand. The right hand then produces the card.
The illustration above shows the right hand has begun to turned inward, the fingers have gripped the top card. The left hand is just beginning to rotate face down.
As the card is taken into the back palm, the right fingers straighten out. At this point the right first finger should be against the left thumb. Rotate the right hand palm up, keeping the first finger touching the thumb. The left hand rotates palm down and continues to hide the back palmed card. The next illustration shows the middle of the rotation.
Further help in hiding the action can be done by turning slightly to the right. The right hand moves up slightly and the left hand, holding the deck, extends its first finger to point at the right hand. The right hand then produces the card.
The movements should be done in a smooth continuous action:
- look at the spectator and say something (misdirection)
- as you take over the break with the right thumb and start to turn slightly to the right
- clipping the card behind the right fingers as
- both hands rotate, the left turning down and the right turning up
Pop-out move
There are many variations of this technique. Some require that the card to be revealed be reversed on the bottom of the deck. With this variation the card does not need to be reversed. Instead it is reversed in the process of making the card pop-out of the deck.
Begin with the deck face down, held with both hands, between the middle fingers and thumbs at each end of the deck as in the following illustration. The illustration shows the deck as the deck is beginning to be cut. The right thumb has separated the bottom card and is holding a break
Circle the two packs of cards around each other in a counter-clockwise motion.
As the right hand circles above the left hand pack, and backwards, suddenly reverse the direction, and with a snap of the right wrist, cause the card held below the break to pop-out. Properly done the card will spin out ninety degrees. Slap the right hand block of cards onto the left hand block, catching the flying card. At this point the deck should look like the next picture.
Now move the right hand block of cards forward and push down on the pop-out card, at the same time you lift up with the left hand block of cards.
This reverses the position of the right and left blocks. You start with the right hand block on top, and end up with the right hand block on the bottom. Caught between the blocks, is the pop-out card, now face up as in the next photos.
At this point, if you are working at a table, you can separate the two blocks slightly, and with a slight jerk of the hands, toss the face up card to the table.
Last Thoughts
I really am surprised by how often I get a “hit” and immediately am able to produce the card. This routine also gives you practice in the fine art of “outs” where you have to recover from a mistake. At any rate, the small amount of effort pays off when you produce a miracle, and that is what builds reputations. I am also surprised at how great a reaction I get even when I obviously look through the deck for their card. To me, if a magician looks through the deck and then produces the card it isn’t much of a surprise! But if properly done, with good technique and timing, the audience will not realize what you did.
Often the spectators will call out something like “lets see you do that again with the three of diamonds”, or some other card. It has surprised me, more times than not, that the second card they call out is another one that I can immediately find. If I don’t have it where I can produce it, I usually use the cull to find it. The spectators think the trick is over and are just giving me a hard time. They don’t really expect me to find the card. So I cull it to the top, and as I reach down to pick up the first card from the table, I reverse the top card of the deck by pushing it off the side and using my leg to flip it over. I pick up the tabled card with my right hand, and the deck is held in my left hand with the hand turned palm down to hide the reversed card. I add the card in my right hand to the deck, placing it face up on top of the reversed card as I turn the left hand over. I now have two face up cards on top of the deck, with the second from the top being the card the spectators have called out (in this example, the three of diamonds.)
I then tell the spectators that I can’t repeat the trick. I flip the double face down and I say “but I can take this card and change it into the card you want”. As I say “change the card”, I take the top face down card with my right hand and rub it on the table, then flip it face up to show the change.
One way I practice using “luck” is with my faro shuffle simulator, I turn the cards face down and riffle shuffle them a number of times. Then I start at the top of the deck turning each card face up. Then I try to find that card in a real deck.