The Annotated Royal Road to Card Magic is a project aimed at helping to provide a companion text to the classic book by Jean Hugard and Frederick Braue. It is based solely on my opinions and as such should be taken with the appropriate grains of salt. It includes editorial commentary on the book, with opinions that range from praise to scorn. It should not be considered a replacement for a book, and whenever suggestions or improvements are offered that belong to other magicians, effort has been made to point the reader towards those resources — this guide should not be considered a replacement for those books or DVDs either.
Royal Road to Card Magic is one of those foundational books that is recommended to beginners, usually with the advice to just buy the book, start at chapter 1, and work your way through. Even though the Annotations are done sequentially chapter-by-chapter, I do not share the opinion that this is the best way to read the book. Within the conclusion is a guide that basically outlines the order of study that I think would benefit the student based upon what their priorities are.
It is my hope to eventually put all of this into an e-book format, hopefully with photographs, videos, and more in-depth discussion of methodology, if I can get the necessary permissions. Until then, this guide is best read with book in hand, and with the understanding that there are other books out there that will be worth acquiring to dig deeper into the various subjects covered.
Best of luck…
Andrew Musgrave
1. The Overhand Shuffle (Part 1)
9. The Overhand Shuffle (part 2)
11. The Double Lift and Turnover
