Random Thoughts

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Faro coincidence

Boy the world has changed! When I was young if you wanted to learn magic you had to hang out at a magic store. A real brick and mortar building. To get to the real good stuff you had to make friends with the magician behind the counter and prove your worth. If you were lucky they might show you something more than “Scotch and Soda”. They might recommend a really good hardback book on magic, but those books weren’t cheap. You had to pay your dues, so to speak.

Today you have the Internet. The brick and mortar stores are almost completely gone. I miss them.

Anyway, while I was surfing the web I found this self-working coincidence trick that looked interesting. Now like a lot of these tricks on the Internet, this one had several “kickers” to the coincidence effect. Go ahead and take a moment to look at it. It is at https://youtu.be/9KhQrR5uqN8?si=2rnxeBWteVBaXC7m .

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A slightly modified Erdnase Stack

The one aspect of the Erdnase Stack that I have never liked is the undercut and throw during the second part of the stack. Below is the description of the four card stack for a five handed game with that step in bold:

FOR any game in which cards are dealt singly. Three of the desired cards are placed on top, one on bottom. Under-cut about one-third deck, injog top card, run two less than twice number players, out-jog and shuffle off to last card, so that it will be left on top. Under-cut to out-jog, forming break at in-jog, run one less than number players, throw to break, run one, in-jog running one less than twice number players, out-jog and shuffle off. Under-cut to in-jog and throw on top. Under-cut to out-jog, run one less than number players and throw balance on top. This gives the four desired cards to the dealer in four rounds.

Erdnase, Expert at the card table

Normally during an overhand shuffle you don’t simply cut a block off and throw it to the top. Instead, what I do is what was done in the first halve of the stack, namely, undercut to the out-jog and form a break at the in-jog. Then as I start the second part of the shuffle, I let the cards below the in-jog drop onto the top of the deck as I run one less than the number of players. This effectively hides the throw and reduces the right hands shuffling motion.

I think it makes the shuffle more deceptive.

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Faro stack for 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, or 8 hands, four aces

This was a “problem” I gave myself. Obviously you can stack four aces for a four handed game with two faro shuffles, but what if you want to deal a five handed game. Using my faro shuffle simulator I found a pattern that once the aces are in the correct locations a single faro out shuffle will stack them. (I used my faro shuffle simulator to work out the pattern)

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In the hands four Ace control

Years ago I came up with a method for cutting the aces into a deck and controlling them to the top. (see https://robertjwallace.com/ace-control/ and https://robertjwallace.com/ace-control-notes/.) That control used cuts to the table to “lose” the aces. I recently decided to modify the principle so it could be done without a table.

Effect: Hand the spectator four aces. Take the aces one at a time, insert each into the center of the deck, followed by several in-the-hands swing cuts. After the second ace you can show the top and bottom cards. After inserting and cutting the fourth ace, you split the deck in half and give it one riffle shuffle. The aces are then shown on top. (That is a bare bones presentation, once you have the aces on top you could do anything you want. For example you could do an in-the-hands Triumph.)

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