When I was performing regularly in restaurants the scalloped or concave short card was my favorite tool in my card magic arsenal. For those who don’t know what a concave short card is, it is like a normal short card, but instead of the end of the card being trimmed off with a straight cut, and then the corners reshaped, it is cut so that the corners remain, the cut starting past the corner and cutting on a slight curve.
Continue reading “Short Cards”Simple Double Duke
I enjoy gambling demonstrations. Simple poker stacks are fun, but when you want to up the ante, so to speak, a demonstration of a double duke is nice. A double duke is where you give a player a good hand, but give yourself a better one.
Continue reading “Simple Double Duke”Oil and Water
There are many techniques used to show the mixing of cards and magical separation. Since I tend to forget them, and where I saw them, here is a collection of techniques. None are mine originally, probably. These are all just using four red and four black cards. There are a lot of versions of Oil and Water using extra hidden cards, but I like the purist handling of just using eight cards.
Continue reading “Oil and Water”Reconstruction of tricks
One of the things I enjoy is looking at the trailers for tricks, especially impromptu card tricks and reconstructing a method for doing the trick. I recently looked at “Threesome” by David Jonathan and thought it was a nice trick. In the description of the trick was the comment of “taking and old principle of magic”, which led me to this solution.
Continue reading “Reconstruction of tricks”More on mental math card trick
Here is another variation of the trick. This one has an additional feature that helps confuse the spectator.
Continue reading “More on mental math card trick”Home made math sticks
I was looking to buy a set of math sticks which are used in a prediction effect (or a super computation effect.) Diamond Jim sells a wooden set for about $15.00. Stevens Magic has a set for $18. Being of Scot blood, I didn’t want to spend that much on a set of four wooden sticks.
Continue reading “Home made math sticks”Mental Math Prediction
This is the prediction of a number from the addition of a series of numbers. It is based on a mathematical principal that I have adapted to a deck of cards. To learn about the principal see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AZRD5UkAm2Y.
This effect requires a setup to a deck of cards. First remove all of the court cards (K,Q, and Js) and tens and set them aside. Now take the remaining cards and make four sets of three cards, each set adding up to 18. For example, one set may consist of a nine, two, and seven. When those values are added up, they total 18.
Continue reading “Mental Math Prediction”Drawn but not quartered false cut
This is similar to the false cut “drawn and quartered“, but instead of four packets, it only uses three and is a little easier. Below is a video.
Doubly Ambitious
This is a two card ambitious like routine that is very difficult to do. It is based off a two card transposition that I do.
Phase one: Ideally start with contrasting cards second and third from the top of the deck. For this explanation I´ll use the Two of Diamonds and the king of spades, with the two second from the top.
Continue reading “Doubly Ambitious”Four ace control
There are several methods I use for “losing” the aces into a deck of cards and controlling them to the top. Several involve cutting the deck into four piles and losing the aces, one in each pile. One day I was looking at some magic sites preview videos and saw a different method that I thought looked good. So I deconstructed the performance, figuring out what the magician had done. While I can’t be certain that this is the same method, I think it is close.
Continue reading “Four ace control”