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101 Amazing card tricks written by Bob Longe

Cost
$5.95 or around that

Difficulty
I am a beginer in magic and this book was really easy

Review
It is for any magicain a waste of there money. It teaches ultra simple tricks that most everday people can figure out. Most of it's tricks are self working. It was a major waste of my money.

Overall
1/10 it get's this rating for it's for beign pointless to read.


Note: I am still hot off the press so please help me a bit. Are self working tricks good to performe once in a while?

I'm afraid I'm going to have to disagree with you. For the experienced magician that already has a number of books about card magic - this probably isn't the best buy.

However, for the beginner I would recommend it. It's a good beginner book with a good introduction into the basics. There are a few hidden gems in this book for the beginner card magician.

Granted, this is another of those 101 books and there is some filler and some effects that really don't cut it. To avid that you can check out another of Bob Longe's books: World's Best Card Tricks. These are some stronger tricks (with only a little overlap between the two, if I recall correctly) without the filler to get up to that 101 number.

This was one of the ones I planned on reviewing as I work my way back through my old books.

I read this book right after reading another book that basicly said the same thing. It to me at least teches everything that can be found on the internet for free, with the exeption of a few tricks, one of witch I use. Just do a goggle search. www.google.com

You're right, I shouldn't have read this .

If you don't think something is deceptive enough then work with it. Invest some time in it to make it deceptive, that's what magic is all about. On occasion I still do use some of Longe's material to great effect.

C'mon it's $5.95!

I still use the 'milking trick' (p.65-7) to great effect.

Although, when I do it, a thought occurs to me after the milking. I make a note of something on a piece of paper - change my mind and cross it out. Then I ask the spectator deal out his remaining cards onto the table face-up. We both look at them, I glance at my writing and nod thoughtfully and say something like this is interesting. And make another note. The cards are then deal face down on the table and the spectator choses one of the cards. "That was an interesting little aside" I comment and flip over my paper to reveal that I had noted down the card he would chose.

(Needless to say, the crossed out prediction can clearly be seen to be the same card as the second prediction thanks to x2writing and the spec 'chooses' his card via magician's choice)

Back to the trick. Of course, if you know the milking trick, you know that I now know the card the spectator chose at the beginning of the effect, after shuffling a borrowed deck throughly and picking out the card himself. All I have to do is bring his card to the top of the remaining deck and reveal it anyway I like.

I do the milk fast and never point it out. Normally I'm talking to the spectator so all they don't really look at the cards, they just hear shuffling. No-one ever mentions the action, I don't, so presumably people just take it for mildly-fancy shuffling.

totalmagic wrote:Note: I am still hot off the press so please help me a bit. Are self working tricks good to performe once in a while?

Hell yes, but this review reads to me like you're implying that if a trick doesn't use a knuckle-busting slight, it's not worth doing. How very wrong you are. Only the effect matters.

Sorry if I've read you wrong, but there we go.

...just to add to Tomo's post, technically, no one should know if you're performing a knuckle buster or a self worker...they should be as if you are doing nothing other than what's "ordinary"...

never overlook a self-worker!

I agree with the above from Tomo and abraxus. I mix in self working tricks with sleight tricks because when something miraculous has just happend by a sleight, the audience just wants to spot sleight on the next one and are concentrating on your actions. This is perfect misdirection from the self working nature of the next one which will appear all the more miraculous for it and, if they think you sleighted it, will only make them think you sleighted in spite of them looking for it.

This was actually the first book/video/effect....I ever had. I got it as a Christmas gift, and at that stage of my "career" it was well worth it, an exellent start, and something I would happily recommend to a true beginner.

As time wears on a card worker will advance beyond the infromation found in the book, but it is a great introduction to the art! I still utilize some of the information found in the book, but reworked it to suit my style and presentation........it is amazing what "performing" the trick vs. "doing" the trick, will do to a trick.....I used to "do" them, now I "perform" them!

i bought this book (before i even knew about the forms) when i was a beginer. i think it's good for beginers like i was. I'm not a card magicion but here is my overall score



for beginers: 8/10
experienced card magicions: 3/10 (for the 4 or 5 tricks that are done before a realy good trick to make the good trick look beter )

Tomo and abraxus are dead right.
And I know I'm being a bit silly now because you mean no slights, but is there really any such thing as a self worker? All the good ones demand a rigourouse use of good patter.
I know we flounce it up a bit now,but the basic ootw is just one example of a brilliant self worker.
I've seen this done very very badly, the guy almost explained how it was working as he went along.
Do this trick with a bit of performance and you have a minor miracle.

I have also seen slight tricks done with increadably bad patter (by me in fact in my early days) but the tricks still held up on their own.

If it were not for the experience gleaned from tm's posts and the effort I have made in getting my selfworkers patter correct, then I may have just kept to the slights making the trick strong and not my performance. I'm not saying that you only learn patter and presentation from self workers, but they did allow me that little more brain power during the trick to concentrate more on what I was saying, and reacting to my audience, especialy in my early days. It is this interaction that makes magic magic and it was through selfworkers that I leart how to interact the most at the beginning.

yeah, i got this book when i was seven. it had really cool self working tricks that i did in 6th grade or so.

I think it teaches some useful sleights, and some of the tricks can be brilliant if you think about your performance. That's my point of view

Tomo, abraxus, and connor all have good points. In my opinion, card tricks with sleights and self workers really complement each other. Marvell make a great point when he said that you should use self workers after good sleight of hand routines. That way the audience is concentrating on your movements and trying to find some sleight that will never come.

if you get royal road to card magic then your sorted for life!

and for gods sakes dont dwell on a book youve wasted 5$ on ...its only 5$ for gods sakes...magic is something you do and love.your always gonna buy books or effects that you wont use but that wont matter cause even if its useless its your hobby and interest