Annotated Royal Road: Chapter 1, The Overhand Shuffle I
Chapter 1: The Overhand Shuffle I
“The Overhand Shuffle” & “Using the Overhand Shuffle”
Generally, this part of the chapter is good. After demonstrating how the legitimate overhand shuffle goes, it then teaches you how to control a card from a given spot to the top, to the bottom, to different positions in the deck. The teaching is fine — we’re talking about rudimentary stuff here, and like most rudimentary stuff, you’ll find a lot of commonalities between what’s here and what’s elsewhere. The pinky position is important, in that you’ll find it reassuring when you’re trying to keep ahold of an injog.
The shuffle drills that they give you later on are pretty good, and I’d recommend doing them. A quick story from a previous gig… I was doing a multiple selection routine (an MSR, if you don’t already know, is a trick where several people each select and then return cards, and you reveal them each quickly in increasingly impressive ways), and there were six people there. All the cards were returned and then controlled to the bottom, and then shuffled up to the top. I knew almost instantly that I’d lost control of one of the cards (the sixth was gone for sure, but I didn’t know about the fifth one). I was able to get out of it, but if I didn’t even know the shuffle drills I might never have known a card was gone in the first place, let alone been able to formulate an escape plan. That’s one of the benefits of drilling in general. Drills are stupid and mundane, but when you get them down cold to the point that you’re bored with them, you’ll actually be at the point where you can handle situations on the fly and even jazz a little. If that’s something you value, then you should do well to drill everything you can — and that’s not just cards, but also shuttle passes with objects, handling the gimmick in a lot of rope magic, etc. Drills will instill skills (we like to rhyme on the olde blogge now and then) that you can call upon whenever you need, and while scripts are all well and good for making sure that your routine is proceeding according to a good pace, if you’re like me and you like to depart from the script in order to address a situation as it arises, then drills are key. The last thing you want to do is try to dream up a new strategy on the spot without knowing your tools inside and out.
“Overhand Shuffle Control”
Buried in here is one of the first real gems of the book… your first full-deck false shuffle. To understand why this is valuable, you’ve got to understand what it is that you can do with a full deck stack in the first place. Consider the classic force — you spread the cards out and they take a card that you want them to take. Now, if you want them to take the same card that you’ve got printed on your shirt, then we’re talking about one situation where they need to take a specific card. On the other hand, if it doesn’t matter ahead of time which card they take, and it’s important only that you know afterwards which card it was that they took (so that they can then shuffle the deck themselves and you’ll still know it, or whatever) then a stack is wonderful. Do some research into the Si Stebbins or the Eight Kings stacks and, armed with a trick that uses those stacks, and this particular shuffle, you’ll have a full routine on your hands. Incidentally, if I say something like “You’ll have a full routine on your hands” then I’m not saying this lightly — the preface to the book brings up an issue that I think is highly pertinent to the working professional, which is that it’s better to have a few good routines on your hands than a million secrets in your head. You can get five minutes of good show out of a single damned card force. A full routine is nothing to sniff at.
Now, the full-deck false shuffle taught here is basically a variation of the GW Hunter false shuffle (undercut, run X cards, keep a break, undercut at the break, run X cards, dump on top). I can tell you from experience that even though this is rudimentary, if it’s used in tandem with something like a stacked deck, and if your execution is solid, you will fool people with it. Again, going back to another gig, I gave out enough signed cards from one deck that I needed to ring in a fresh one. Out of habit, one of the first things that I do before I do a trick is make sure somebody can see the cards and shuffle them — I generally assume that any prop I introduce will be perceived as unfair somehow, and I don’t want to be perceived as the “Don’t touch my props!” guy. Anyways, I was working for a couple of new guys, and I broke out the new deck which was in new-deck order, and I offered it out to them to let them shuffle. They said that it was ok, it wasn’t necessary. The moment that happened, they got an extra trick on their hands without knowing it. “Are you sure?” I asked. “Because you know you can’t really trust a magician when he shuffles the cards.” As I was talking, I did two full deck false riffle shuffles, and after getting their response, I spread the deck out face-up to show that they were still in order. They were surprised. I gathered them up and asked. “Are you sure you don’t want to shuffle?” They laughed, and I immediately repeated, using the GW Hunter and then a false cut. “Because I just told you that you can’t trust a magician when he shuffles the cards.” Another face-up spread, another reaction. At that point one of the guys who was laughing agreed to take the cards and give them a shuffle. When he gave them back to me, I held the deck, and looked at the guy knowingly, and immediately they wanted me to spread the cards again to show I hadn’t fixed them. I did, to show they were all well-mixed — “Hey, I’m not THAT good!” — and there was another reaction. Anyways, I told you all that to tell you this — they were surprised when a GW Hunter shuffle, combined with a false cut, kept the deck in new deck order. I was just using that for quick laughs before getting to the tricks I was trying to get too, but imagine what you can get away with…?
In any case, yeah, the GW Hunter shuffle is pretty good. I’d argue that there are better overhand full-deck false shuffles out there, but we’ll get to those in a later blog entry. This one is pretty good. If you care, I do it a bit differently than what’s described in the text… rather than 5, I go with 6, and I go with an injog of the last card rather than the step after the last card, and I also use a finesse that Allan Ackerman recommends in his Advanced Card Control series. I’m not going to tip that here as it’s not mine to tip, but the reference should help you out. If you like the way the shuffle in this chapter of Royal Road feels, and you want to do it, then look into Ackerman’s work on it.
“Overhand Shuffle Practice Routine”
This is basically a recommended routine for practicing all the techniques covered thus far. I recommend it, especially if you’re new to card magic. Aside from giving you the necessary skills to pull off these sleights, you’ll want to just get comfortable having a deck of cards in your hand.
“Topsy-Turvy Cards”
This is a weird trick. The effect isn’t exactly clear, and it’s a long way to go to get to a magic climax. There’s also no real application of the techniques taught in this chapter. This is odd to me, since the whole concept of cards that are facing the wrong way in a deck being made to flip the right way around, is actually the basis for the Triumph card plot. If you don’t know Triumph, it’s essentially this — a card is selected and returned to the deck, whereupon half the cards are turned face-up and mixed with the other face-down cards, and after faced with that messy situation, the magician snaps his fingers and then spreads the cards to show that all the cards are facing the right direction again, except for the spectator’s selected card. It’s a classic plot, and Royal Road actually teaches a good version of it called “A Tipsy Trick” in the chapter on Reverses, and if you can do all of the shuffling control drills in the first chapter, you’re ready for that trick. What’s more, you could even use the techniques in “Topsy-Turvy Cards” to pull off a Triumph routine — I’ll leave that as an exercise for you to consider.
“A Poker Players Picnic”
Junk. Anybody who tells you that this isn’t junk is either lying or incompetent with cards. The only thing this trick has going for it is the fact that the magician never touches the cards throughout, but the process is just so tedious that the trade-off, to me, isn’t worth it. If you really want to do a trick where the spectator cuts to the aces, then there are dozens of better, clearer methods out there. The real reason why this trick is in the book at this section is because it demands very little of the magician and it involves the techniques covered up until this point in the text. That’s all well and good, and maybe we can’t fault Hugard and Braue for not knowing what guys like Marlo would do to the plot, but really, the only reason to familiarize yourself with this trick is to know what to expect when you do some card magic for people, and one of them says, “Hey! I know a trick!” Now, if that happens, don’t be the asshole who says that their trick sucks — it’s a nerve-wracking thing doing magic for people, so congratulate them for successfully pulling off the trick. Still, this is an entry-level card trick, and if you’re looking to do halfway decent card magic for people, read it to know what it’s about, but move on.
Now, the ironic thing is that this trick represents one of the better uses of the false shuffle… doing it at the beginning of a trick to maintain a stack of several cards. That said, you’ll benefit from looking at better applications of that principle elsewhere. We’ll talk more about the “Spectator Cuts To The Aces” plot later on.
“A Pocket Discovery”
Probably worth considering as it involves controlling a card to a specific location, so that you’re set up for a decent glimpsing strategy. I’m not a huge fan of the plot described here, personally, but maybe somebody’s gotten mileage from it. Pay particular attention to the reasoning behind making sure everybody sees the selection — this is good advice. Later on in the book there are some better ideas about how to accomplish this type of effect — just read “The Egyptian Pocket” and you’ll see what I mean.
“Telepathy Plus”
One of my pet peeves with card magic is an effect that pretends to demonstrate telepathy, but the handling makes it obvious that card manipulation of some kind is involved. If you really want people to think that you’ve got telepathic powers, and you want to use cards to prove this, then the best short-term advice I can give you is (a) learn a false shuffle with a stacked deck, (b) learn a few really convincing forces, (c) study Dai Vernon’s “Out of Sight/Out of Mind”, or (d) look into the Invisible Deck. Again, I’m not giving this advice lightly. Some professional magicians close with the ID. If you’ve REALLY got a taste for this (using cards to demonstrate ESP powers) then start looking into what serious mentalists do with cards, such as Max Maven, Richard Osterlind, or Bob Cassidy. Richard Osterlind in particular has a lot of material where your “stacked deck + full deck false shuffle” strategy can get put to good use.
“Though Stealer”
A bit better than Telepathy Plus, if only because it’s more direct in terms of getting from the moment that they think of a card to the point that the card is then revealed to them. Again, I’ll be honest with you — not my bag. Richard Osterlind’s got some decent touches on his Easy to Master Mental Miracles DVD Set using this principle, but I still think it’s a bit of a shallow mystery, compared to some of the other stuff out there that can be obtained with equal effort.
“Pinkie Does It”
This one is pretty good. I use a modified version of this regularly (go on youtube and look up Ricky Jay’s videos, and you’ll find something similar to the one I do), and back when I was doing kids shows in Korea, I’d open with it. I will point out something from Tyler Erickson that I think really helps this effect — many tricks in magic that aren’t very overwhelming magically can be immediately improved simply by having the spectator, rather than the magician, shuffle the deck. Think about this for a second: a card is selected and returned to the deck, and the spectator shuffles… how is the magician to know reasonably where the card is? If, at that point, he says, “Oh, well, I’ll just ask the deck to find your card. What was it? Four of spades? Well, if the deck spells out ‘f-o-u-r-s-p-a-d-e-s.’” and look, there’s the card, you’ve got a real mystery on your hands brought on almost completely by the fact that the spectator shuffled the deck. Having the spectator remember that they shuffled the cards before the trick started could even lift “A Poker Player’s Picnic” into quasi-respectability. As such, if you’re looking to take something like “Pinkie Does It” and eventually make it a stronger trick, consider letting the spectator shuffle the cards before you make it rise from the deck. Of course, such strategies aren’t covered in this opening chapter, but we’ll get to them later.
“A Card And A Number”
There’s a technique taught in this trick to mark a card which you might find useful. Other than that, I’d argue that there are better tricks that involve a selected card being at a number freely thought of, including one in particular taught later in this book.
General Thoughts on this Chapter
It might sound like I’ve been a bit harsh on this chapter, but really, most of my criticism is towards the tricks included here. Later on you’re going to learn about double-lifts and palming, and the shuffling techniques taught in this chapter can easily be used in concert with those more advanced sleights. We’ll talk more about that later. For right now, consider instead what the techniques allow you to accomplish — a spectator can select and return a card, and you can shuffle that card into any position you need; you can shuffle the deck while still maintaining a block of cards; and you can actually false shuffle an entire deck. Get these skills down, and pretty soon you’ll be able to do some good card magic.
However, just because we can do something, it does not follow that we should do something. One thing to consider is what’s going on in a trick where you’ve got to bring a card to position N from the top or bottom of the deck — are you later on going to be dealing off N cards? If so, there’s a potential bit of an issue since running cards frequently looks like you’re running cards. For a trick like “Thought Stealer”, it’s hard to avoid giving this impression. In more advanced card work, you’re going to learn about other methods of getting cards into position, such as through riffle shuffles, or perhaps even altering the riffle-force (taught later in this book in the chapter on The Classic Force) so that instead of having a card selected from a given spot, you’re having a card returned to a given spot.
Taking this idea a bit further, there are some tricks where you won’t even want to use a shuffle or cut to control a card. Consider the following sequence: a card is put into the center of the deck, and with a snap of the fingers, it rises to the top. This simple sequence is at the heart of one of the classic card effects out there, the Ambitious Card Routine. There are ways of doing this involving a control of the card, but in those cases we’re talking about invisible controls (such as a classic pass) in which it appears nothing happened to the deck. A shuffle to bring the card from the center to the top will give you significantly less impact. That doesn’t mean that invisible controls are better than visible controls — sometimes you want to give the impression that a card is lost in the deck, and a shuffle will help you sell that better if you know what you’re doing — but it does mean understanding which tools help you best accomplish what you need.
One other aspect to this chapter that I think is worth considering is this: usually, you don’t really want people to know that you can control cards by shuffling. Sometimes there’s a lot of benefit to the idea of you picking up the cards and shuffling as though you’re just toying with the cards, as if cards were just meant to be shuffled. Shuffling offers an image of randomizing and adding chaos, so don’t neglect those touches in a trick like “Pinkie Does It” where they give you the finishing touch of showing how the card rose from the middle of the deck somewhere. This whole thing seems to eliminate the idea of the card having been shuffled to the top. If, on the other hand, they get wind of the fact that the card was somehow on top of the deck, then all of a sudden your shuffling betrays itself as having no randomizing or chaos-giving qualities, and you’ve just undermined one of your tools of deception.
Given the limits that shuffle controls have, does that mean we’re going to abandon them later on for better techniques? Nah, but it does help to understand how they can be put to best possible use. As said earlier, the use of the false shuffle to maintain a stack at the beginning of a trick is a good idea — it uses the shuffle at a period of low heat, and if the stack is well designed, it won’t be as easy to figure out the way it and the false shuffle combine to make the effect possible. Also, if you look at something like “Pinkie Does It”, the shuffle alone doesn’t exactly explain how the card manages to rise out of the deck. Also, as stated previously, a shuffle control used together with an additional deceptive strategy (such as a sleight or principle) can be very effective. We’ll see plenty of examples of this in later chapters.
So, at this point, what tricks can you do?
* Go google Si Stebbins to figure out the order, and then put the cards in Si Stebbins order. Do the full-deck false shuffle taught in this chapter. Spread the cards out, and when they take a card, bring apart the two halves of the spread on either side of that card, and then bring the cards that are the top half of the spread below the bottom half of the spread, and then square up (you’ve effectively cut the cards at the point of their selection). While they are looking at their card, catch a glimpse of the card at the face (the bottom) of the deck. Because you know the Si Stebbins order, you now know their card. They can put the card back into the deck themselves and shuffle the deck, and you can either try to name their card through telepathy, or else have them spread the cards out and you can pick up psychic vibrations from a spread, or else you could even pull out your invisible deck and reveal it that way. As mentioned previously, you could also look into the work that Richard Osterlind has done with the full-deck stack, in his Breakthrough Card System routines.
* Jump ahead in the book to the chapter on Reverses and learn “A Tipsy Trick”. If you can control a card, you’re ready for this trick. For all its simplicity, there are some card guys who consider this the finest Triumph out there. In fact, if you’re looking at the advertising copy for a card trick out there, and the only sleight-of-hand requirement is that you need to know how to control a single card via shuffle, you’re now ready to add it to your repertoire. Daryl’s got an entire DVD set of Card Revelations, where a good portion of the tricks require nothing more than for you to simply know how to control a card via shuffling, and some of them are really good.
* At some point in your magic career you’re going to come across some kind of 4 Ace trick. If you’re going to pull out the four aces, you might as well do it in some impressive way. If you’ve got the four aces on top of the deck, then the techniques here will allow you to seemingly shuffle and cut to your heart’s content, and produce the aces one at a time between shuffles. Alternately, if you hold the deck in your right hand, thumb pressed down on the middle of the top card, and fingers contacting face of the bottom card, you can with a jerking motion toss the cards into the other hand, leaving behind the top and bottom card in the fingers of the right hand. You can repeat the action with the left hand to toss the deck onto the table, and retain those two cards as well. If you’ve got the aces in the correct position, you can with that slick little sequence produce all four in a flashy manner. So, start with the aces in position, do the full-deck false shuffle to keep them in the correct position, and proceed with the double-toss revelation as described.
In any case, all that, combined with the shuffle drills, should give you enough to start with. When you’re ready, move onto the next chapter on Riffle Shuffle technique.
Tags: cards, royal road to card magic
I’m finally able to re-read RRTCM and look at your blog at the same time. I’ve only read your thoughts on Chapter 1 so I don’t know where we will agree or diverge as we move forward. I thought it would be good though to add some counterpoint where appropriate.
In Chapter 1 there isn’t much to get too excited about. The technique section, if followed, is laying a foundation that will serve as a basis for a lot of what we do moving forward. The basic overhand shuffle needs to be mastered in order to use sleights that are based on this shuffle. Don’t disagree with anything you’ve mentioned in this section, but there’s not really a whole lot to say.
On to the effects.
“Topsy-Turvy Cards” : I agree with your assessment and will add that my biggest problem with this effect is that it has nothing to do with the overhand shuffle. In fact the word “shuffle” never appears in the description of this trick. This effect should have been omitted. There are much better variations of Triumph to spend time working on this one.
“A Poker Players Picnic” : This is NOT junk. And I’m neither lying nor incompetent with cards. As far as beginner’s tricks go, this is about the best you can ask for. A clear plot with an unbelievable conclusion all with a regular deck of cards. My biggest problem is that it is too procedural as written. It is much better if you keep track of the aces and riff a little bit. “Point to any two piles. OK, pick them up and shuffle them together and cut them in half again. Now take the top card of any pile and put it on any other pile, etc.” You can make the instructions as simple or as elaborate as possible. Creating ad hoc instructions is far better than the strict procedural method outlined in the book, but it does require that you pay close attention to what you’re doing.
Funny story about this effect. I hadn’t done this in a long time and was doing some 4-Ace productions. I had just finished a poker demonstration dealing out the 4 aces and out of the blue I decided to try this. So I did my best multiple shift and gave them the cards and went right into this effect. They were more impressed by this than the previous material, because they (to their memory) had control of the cards the entire time.
So to sum up, this effect is a good beginner effect and is also a great effect after some heavier sleight of hand stuff to showcase that even when the spectator is in control miracles are still possible.
In general though, a pretty poor lot. “Pinkie Does It” is the gem of the group for me. “Thought Stealer” is the last one I would do and is by far the worst. Of course, I’m biased against spelling tricks of any kind (although there are two in my active repertoire) and probably won’t like any spelling tricks presented throughout the rest of RRTCM.
Overall, this is a good chapter for laying a proper technical foundation, but by and large the tricks are forgettable.
re: Poker Player’s Picnic
If we’re talking about a situation where the magician never handles the deck and the spectator cuts 4 aces, then you’ve got a miracle… if it’s clean. The trick as described in RR isn’t. There’s too much dealing and redistributing to keep it from being straightforward enough to rise above the level of junk. Why are we dealing off three cards? Why are we then redistributing three cards? Can we honestly say that this is a demonstration of a spectator cutting to four of a kind?
Don’t get me wrong, the condition that the magician doesn’t touch the deck throughout is admirable, but it’s undermined by the ridiculous procedure the spectator has to go through.
Giobbi has some work on the plot that he shows in his latest DVD set. Spectator cuts to four piles, and the top card is turned over, and that many cards are discarded, before the “principle of redistribution” is invoked. He’s smart in making the “principle of redistribution” seem like a silly thing and putting a lot more emphasis on the cards being dealt off and discarded. It’s stronger than the original, but still somewhat blech.
Ed Marlo has the following routine. Spectator cuts four piles. Whatever the top card is, that many cards are dealt off and discarded. Spectator ends up with the four aces. Magician never has to touch the deck. It’s one step away from being a miracle.
Chad Long’s Shuffling Lesson has the spectator shuffle and deal into four piles, and they’re left with the four aces. It’s arguably a modern masterpiece.
Eugene Burger has two different tricks in which spectators arrive at a four-of-a-kind on his Magical Voyages DVDs, one by cutting and one by dealing. Both are good.
It’s not Hugard and Braue’s fault for not having those tricks in there, of course, but honestly, we have better material available to us now, and we’re not doing newcomers to card magic any favours by pretending that PPP is an acceptable substitute for them.
First, I agree with you that, as written, PPP is too procedural to really be considered miraculous but with the changes mentioned above it can rise to a level that amazes spectators.
Second, my thinking was that the material needs to be judged on its own merit and not compared to more modern material. Otherwise, most of the tricks in this book will be considered lesser versions of something that has come later.
Having said that, I think it is a good idea to list better versions of effects written up in RRTCM, with the caveat that the methods need to be within the realm of someone at this level of development. For example, my favorite spectator cuts to the Aces effect is Bannon’s Final Verdict, but that wouldn’t necessarily work for a beginner that has just finished chapter 1 of RRTCM.
What a load of tosh! Poker Player’s Picnic is one of the greatest card tricks of all time if you have the requisite showmanship required to perform it. As for that Giobbi variation it is utterly horrendous and he should be banned from performing it. And it certainly ISN’T stronger than the original which I have performed for Royalty. I was most disappointed that I wasn’t granted a knighthood over it.
It really is about time magicians tried to think like laymen instead of thinking like magicians or even worse members of the magic cafe.
Thanks for your input, Mr. Lewis. As usual, there are no words to describe the immense value you bring to intelligent discussion. You may wish to go to this particular blog entry, which explores the trick more thoroughly.
http://sleightly.com/blog/2011/06/03/154365-poker-players-picnic
Yes, old chap. I read all that. It reminded me of Jamy Ian Swiss using 10 words where one would do. Still, he is American and as many American card magicians tend to be is dreadfully long winded.
I think where you are going wrong is the recap. First you have to make the tedious dealing entertaining which for a showman like myself is child’s play. And should be for you too if you put your mind to it. But it is the recap after it is all done and before the revelation that is the key to this.
You have to emphasise the fairness of the procedure and point out that they cut the cards anywhere they wanted. If you don’t do this the trick will fall flat. You say, “Let’s just go over what happened. You cut these cards absolutely anywhere you liked. I haven’t touched them, I haven’t handled them. Let’s see if we can make a good poker hand” and then get THEM to turn over the aces. If you do it you will dilute the effect. And say nothing when they turn over the cards. The effect will compound gradually that way.
You must remember that there is no such thing as a bad trick. It is how you present it that is the important thing. Even nail through finger will suffice if you have some way of magnetising and hypnotising that audience. I suggest you get to work on nail through finger immediately and I look forward to the results.
I meant to say “if you don’t do it” rather than as above where I said “If you do this” I missed out the word don’t and am mortified to find that I am not perfect after all.
However, I have studied the Royal Road back to front, backwardm forward and inside out. 50% of my performing repertoire comes from that book. I can therefore advise on the matter most thoroughly.
Thanks very much, Mr. Lewis. Having seen your videos online, I have no doubt that Poker Player’s Picnic is a highlight of your repertoire. Thanks for your comments.
Yes indeed. It most certainly is a highlight and it can be for you too if you follow my advice. It is perfectly possible to make a masterpiece out of what seems a beginner’s trick and here is an example of it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4lgB123C4q0
And here I am doing the same trick in Russian.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4lgB123C4q0
It does seem that beginner’s tricks suit you well, Mr. Lewis. However, I think you’ll find little disagreement here on the Svengali Deck.
While on the subject of videos I have seen you at work on Robson Street, a place I know well. You have a good voice for the street. I do wish the video had run a little longer so I could see how much money you had taken in.
However, I do believe I can advise you further on this matter. Oddly enough there are a lot of parallels with Poker Player’s Picnic with regard to your performance. I can elucidate further on the matter if you wish.
I can only hope that you’d be able to share some wisdom with me on any topic, Mr. Lewis. However, I would prefer that things stay on-topic, and will administrate along those lines.
Very well then. I shall merely explain how your own performance relates to Poker Player’s Picnic and then we will indeed be on topic.
The perceived weakness in this wonderful trick is the palaver at the beginning. It is seen to be long and convoluted. One has to put up with the dull bit to get to the interesting bit.
But yet you do not hesitate to suffer the same thing with your multiple selection trick. You have to go through the whole palaver of getting many cards selected, I think signed too if I remember the procedure correctly and then replaced. This whole palaver takes even longer than the palaver associated with Poker Player’s Picnic but yet you do this because you believe the denoument will be worth it.
Now there is always going to be a weak spot in a routine. The weak spot in the Poker Player’s Picnic is the faffling about ducking and dealing. The weak spot in the multiple selection is the multiple selections. And the signing of the cards. And the replacement of the cards. And of course the gathering of the crowd. But you have to do all this to get to the interesting bit the same way you have to do this for the ace trick. And it actually takes longer than the ace trick.
But yet you feel that this faffling around is worth it in the end. Same thing as the ace trick. Do you see what I am getting at?
So you have to make the faffling around as entertaining as possible to hold the attention. And by a divine coincidence the little remark you put under your video is EXACTLY the same remark I use to help hold the attention of the audience while all the ducking and dealing is going on.
I say, “If this trick works I will take the credit, if it goes wrong you will take the blame” which is as near as dammit to the comment under your video. Obviously there is a metaphysical message that the universe is sending you through Mark Lewis.
If you incorporate this remark into your patter when you do Poker Player’s Picnic it will help you hold the audience while all the palaver is going on.
And one more thing. You say that people will start to analyse the trick and figure out how it is done. Or at least you said that either on your blog or the magic cafe. The solution is obvious, old chap. Keep chattering and they haven’t got time to think. And as soon as the effect is over and they are spluttering at your genius get on with another trick. You must never finish with Poker Player’s Picnic and give them time to think. No. You distract them with another trick.
I have been in this game a long time. I can assure you that I know what I am talking about. I must say you are very privileged to be in my presence.
I will agree that at this point we are all very lucky to be reading these rational arguments coming from you. As always, thank you so much.
However, I don’t think you can actually compare the two tricks directly merely because of the preambles. It’s like saying that any trick with a lot of upfront work is identical to the 21 card trick, which is clearly nonsense.
In the Multiple Selection trick, all that upfront work isn’t necessary for the method, it’s necessary for the effect. With that many selections, revealing them in order and asking people to remember them is key, and that means you want the cards signed, since spectators forget these things, or if they’re not English-speakers they have difficulty naming their card out loud. The signatures make sure that problem never comes up. It’s also important that they get to see the cards going into different parts of the deck. That aids the effect. Plus, dealing with each spectator individually allows me the chance to get their names, so that when the names come up again in the rapid-fire revelations, the effect is further enhanced. Finally, keep in mind that the claim being made there is that this is an elaborate pick-a-card-and-I’ll-find-it trick.
The problem with PPP’s upfront stuff is two-fold. First, rather than aid the effect, it explains the effect. At least with discrepant techniques (such as with the cross-cut force) there’s potential misdirection in place. Here, the process is impossible to misdirect away from. Second, it makes it difficult, if not impossible, to make a case for a magic claim, when the routine comes across as sorting. It’s simply too far away from a mind-movie of the idealized effect.
There are better, more direct tricks out there that allow spectators to cut to and reach a four of a kind, or that can give the impression of a totally hands-off situation, or both.
Every single cutting the ace trick I have seen has the magician handling the deck at some point. Perhaps I am wrong and you can show me a method where the cards are not handled by the magician at any time. I don’t keep up with this modern fangled card magic which I find consists of finger flinging and dilution of effect.
I know you want to keep on topic and I will respect that but I would seriously advise you to revamp that street presentation if I were you or even, dare I say it, eliminate it entirely. That multiple selection routine is not suitable for the street. At least not for you. If you were doing a much longer set and kept it for later in the show then perhaps it would work. It is not an opening item in my view. Too slow.
But Poker Player’s Picnic is a much shorter procedure. It only takes a minute or so and you can chatter away and make it entertaining. Now perhaps the trick plain doesn’t suit you but it may well suit someone else and indeed many people have stated to you the effectiveness of it. And as far as I am aware those people are not actually me.
So your comments about the trick should be revised. It may be a bad trick for you but a good trick for everyone else. It is not so much if a trick is good or bad but whether it suits you or not.
This item takes skill but not manipulative skill. It takes presentational skill. I have been doing it for 50 years. I wouldn’t have stuck with it that long if it hadn’t got fantastic reaction. And you know what? Not a single person in those 50 years has had an inkling how it is done.
If you don’t like it fine. But never say it is a bad trick and tear it apart as you have done. It may be a bad trick for YOU but not for anyone else.
Thus endeth the lesson.
And what a lesson it was! Thanks so much for it. Having you enlighten us is the rarest of pleasures.
I could say more about the multiple selection trick but I won’t. We don’t want to go off topic do we?
My main issue was with the first line of your paragraph which rivalled even me for rudeness about other magicians. I thought you were channelling me for a moment and had to check that I had not arrived in the spirit world.
The trick may be junk for YOU but not necessarily for anyone else. I am certainly not “lying” when I tell you about the strong reaction garnered from this trick and neither am I “incompetent with cards” Indeed I consider myself to be the greatest card magician of all time. Not for the technique. Not for the tricks. Not for my most wondrous wit and personality. But for something else. I will not say what otherwise everyone else will appropriate the idea and I will no longer be the greatest.
One does have to keep a few secrets you know.