Variations on the 2 Card Transposition

August 5, 2008 · Filed Under Uncategorized 

Regarding the recently published 2 Card Transposition trick, I’ve got some extra stuff you might want to check out. First, comes this email from Peng Huang, who goes by the name MountainDew on various magic forums.

As per usual, some sleight names have been changed to their respected section number in Royal Road to Card Magic.

Hi Andrew,

Here is a minor variation on the handling of the two card transpo. The
below handling seems to be cumbersome and unnecessarily ‘woolly’, but
the payoff is a greater clarity of effect.

We’ll use the 4S as the first card. After ‘it’ has been placed in the
pocket, rather than doing a RRTCM XI to show the next card (in which there
is no guarantee that the card is a nice contrast to the 4S), do a
Braue reversal of the top card (4S) - you end up with face up deck and
the 4S face down at the bottom. (Alternatively, you may turn the deck
over and do a half-pass of the bottom card, the 4S) Now, as you
casually spread through the face up deck, you ask the audience to
choose a card that contrasts the 4S - a red card that is high in value
e.g. JH. This handling does three things - 1. there is now a guarantee
that there are two contrasting cards in play, which IMO is so
important for this card plot, and 2. subconsciously emphasises that
the card in the pocket is the 4S and 3. gets the spectator more
involved in the trick

After a red, high card has been chosen (we’ll use the JH), turn the
card face down and place it on the bottom. The presentational
justification is highlighting the point that any red, high card can be
chosen, gesturing to the face up card spread. Close the spread, turn
the deck over - now the JH is in the RRTCM XI position ready for the switch,
and the trick continues as you’ve already described in your blog.

And that’s it…I hope this handling is useful and thank you for your time. :-)

Cheers,

Peng

PS - Just as an afterthought, I realised that a more simplistic way of
guaranteeing two contrasting cards without having to do a
reversal/half-pass, spreading through the deck etc…is right before
the trick, casually fan through the deck towards yourself face-up,
find two contrasting cards that are next to each other, and cut the
deck at that point and go into your handling from there. Of course,
the handling above eliminates the need to do this ‘2 sec prep’, which
I’ve assumed you think is ‘weak’. But I may be wrong here…

It’s an interesting idea, if you don’t mind doing the extra sleight, and it should help accomplish the three things Peng mentioned earlier.

Also, Andster had an idea for dealing with the cleanup of this trick that he published a long time ago…

Moving on to B D Erland’s Two Card Transpo. One thing I noticed right away, and I’m sure it’s just common sense, is that you’re left with a random card in your pocket. Which is slightly annoying. If you perform a trick before the transposition and control that selection to the top, you’re left with a selected card in your pocket. Which is just fantastic. Here’s what I did at work one day: …

Click here to read the rest of his idea

If anybody’s got any more ideas that they want to share, don’t hesitate to send them in. Incidentally, I’ve noticed that this trick has been published over on some site that advertises “Free Magic Tricks” and doesn’t bother with the coding system that I’ve got here. I only just noticed this, so I have no idea if their idea predates mine, or if they saw mine and just decided to explain/expose it over there. That said, since the handling really is so straightforward it should have been published a long time ago, I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt and assume that they didn’t take it from me.

Keep coming back here, though, as I’ll be adding further ideas to the tricks here as they come in. Thanks both to Peng for sending his in, and to Andster for publishing that (sorry if I didn’t say thanks earlier as he’d published his variation a long time ago).

Tags:

Comments

Leave a Reply

You must be logged in to post a comment.