The Effect
a card is thought of, the deck shuffled and the card is revealed either on the top, the bottom or reversed in the deck. This is a slightly different handling of Dai Vernon's 'out of sight, out of mind', which i is given in his book inner secrets of card magic.
This is a pdf document that can be downloaded from Paul's own website: http://www.rpaulwilson.com" target="_blank" target="_blank" target="_blank" target="_blank" target="_blank" target="_blank" target="_blank" target="_blank
Cost $10 (£6 ish)
Difficulty 3
(1=easy to do, 2=No sleights, but not so easy, 3=Some sleights used,
4=Advanced sleights used, 5=Suitable for experienced magicians only)
Review
I like Paul Wilson, his RRTCM DVD helped me immensely when i was first starting out and this trick in no way disappoints. First of all, the effect is an absolute killer, its a great set closer and always knocks the specs for 6. I've been looking for a good thought of card effect beyond the ID for a while and this is my favourite so far. To my mind it has a number of improvements over Vernon's handling in that it does away with the whole dealing out cards shtick and allows the spectator to find their own card (I'm not really a fan of tricks that have a dealing element as a rule, i tend to think it slows everything down a little too much, and not in a good way).
I downloaded this just after i had finished RRTCM and found it a little advanced, it involves a bit of good audience management, but nothing too daunting. But coming back to it now it really isn't a problem, just make sure you are very happy with your over hand shuffle controls and you will be fine. There is a little bit of memory work involved, you are required to remember 3 cards at once (only the values though) and potentially a key card as well, so if you are not happy with that, then this is probably not for you. I struggled at first as i have a memory like a fish of golden hue, but have subsequently become slightly less useless and can get by now
The document itself is clear and concise with a number of photographs to guide you through, there were two minor points/subtleties that i struggled with at first, but a thorough read, with deck in hands ironed out the creases.
Overall 8.5/10
an excellent effect, the spec realy will have no idea how the hell you did it as long as you present it right. This is definately an intermediate level effect, my suspicion is that a beginner will be able to do the sleights, but not fluidly enough to pull it off convincingly especially while giving patter aswell. In terms of value for money, I think £6 is a fair price. If you already know Vernon's handling, then you can probably work out your own handling similar to this, if you don't, then buy this!
My only arguments against this are the 2 bits that i didnt think were quite as clearly explained as they could have been, but as stated above, you will still be able to work out what you need to do.
edit: well additional advice i suppose, there's a couple of times where it says to make a complete cut, i would strongly recommend catching a break and passing the deck. At this point you are cutting their card (that they have just seen in the middle of the pack) to the top of the deck, which allows the danger of the spec noticing exactly what you have just done.
