EFFECT: Ace through Four of Spades repeatedly rise to the top after being placed elsewhere. Climax: Four of Spades changes to red Four.
One of the early routines I learned was an Ambitious card routine using the Ace, Two, Three, Four, and Five of Spades, by Derek Dingle. I have it in “The Complete Works of Derek Dingle” by Richard Kaufman, titled “Too Many Cards”. The patter for that version is on the theme of suggesting that the reason the spectator can’t follow is that the magician is using too many cards.
Larry Jennings has his four card version described in “The Classic Magic of Larry Jennings” titled “Ambitious Classic Variation”. This version does not list any patter in the book, but you can watch Jennings perform his five card version at https://youtu.be/zIOWUdw-B9E?si=a9CC9xXiGyqsPZN9
First let me say that I am a fan of the self working effects of John Bannon and of Nick Trost. “Poker Pairadox” is basically the same effect/method has “Court Card Conclave” published by Trost in “Subtle Card Creations”, the main difference being the number of cards used. Bannon’s effect uses the court cards and the aces, for a total of 16 cards, and Trost uses just the court cards.
I asked an AI to develop a web page for practicing card tricks and techniques. The page lets you randomly pick a trick/technique. This is the list the AI came up with. I have posted the web page at https://robertjwallace.com/cardtrick/tricks.html. I don’t agree with all of what the AI came up with and will be editing the tricks. Feel free to play with the page and if you have tricks you want to add, let me know.
This is another effect described by Matt McGurk on his youtube channel. You can find that at https://youtu.be/uxczhiTb9J0?si=65CU-LfJ-X6JnBLi. Below is a description of the trick followed by my modifications and notes.
The Effect
A spectator shuffles a deck of cards. The magician takes them back briefly to remove a “Joker,” then writes a secret prediction and hides it under a glass. While the magician’s back is turned, the spectator rolls two dice and performs a series of randomizing steps to arrive at a secret number. They then deal cards based on that number and the final dice roll. Miraculously, the card they land on perfectly matches the magician’s prediction.
The original Akronym effect (created by Yves Doumergue and available from Conjuring Lab) uses Wikipedia – spectators navigate through Wikipedia articles, clicking on random links and selecting words from the article titles they land on. Through letter extraction, their name is revealed. It’s a clever effect that has earned strong reviews from professional mentalists.
This is another android phone app that I wrote with AI using the Cordova platform. This was completely coded by the AI. Basically it is a random generator for randomly selecting numbers, rolling dice, or picking cards. But with a twist. The magician can control the outcomes.
I recently found an old “Dream Lock,” a four-wheel combination lock with a unique feature: it can be rigged to open using only two of the four dials. This meant I needed a reliable way to make a spectator select my two target numbers out of four digits they would pick.
I decided to use the classic “Cut Deeper” Force from card magic.
