magic Archives - Page 4 of 11

February 28, 2022March 2, 2022

Magic with your phone

I have been intrigued with some of the smart phone apps for magic. But I have been off put by their prices, or that they only run on Apple IOS. So I decided to write my own, although it is not an app per say, but rather a web page that you can use for a mental magic effect.

The effect

There are two basic effects. The first is that you place a prediction down on the table. The prediction is a card that they spectator is about to select, using a phone (theirs or yours). You use the phones internet browser to go to a web site that shows a deck of cards that are face up in new deck order. There are two buttons above the cards: Shuffle and Toggle Backs.

Start of app with deck in new deck order.

You demonstrate the shuffle button, pressing it several times to demonstrate how the cards are shuffled each time the button is pressed.

January 15, 2022January 15, 2022

Short Cards

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.

January 5, 2022September 1, 2023

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.

January 4, 2022May 15, 2022

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.

December 31, 2021February 17, 2022

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.

November 21, 2021November 21, 2021

More on mental math card trick

Here is another variation of the trick. This one has an additional feature that helps confuse the spectator.

November 14, 2021November 14, 2021

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.

November 7, 2021November 7, 2021

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.

September 27, 2021November 5, 2021

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.

August 18, 2021August 27, 2021

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.