talkmagic.co.uk

Card Tricks/Mentalism

ESPerfect by Peter Nardi and Mozique
£9.49 from :// www.alakazam.co.uk

The Effect.
This is a card trick with a difference, You explain to the audience that you have been experimenting with mind reading, and that consequently you bought two sets of the standard ESP cards (one with blue backs one with red backs) that are commonly use in psychic testing.

You deal the 5 blue backed cards face down in front of you, and then the 5 red backed cards face down in front of the spectator. You then pick up your 5 cards, and this time deal them face up showing them to be the five standard ESP cards. Namely the Square, Star, Circle, Cross and Wavy line symbols.

You now pick up your cards again and start shuffling them, and request the spectator do the same with their five cards.

After both sets have been sufficiently shuffled, you take your top card (face down), and give it to the spectator to place in their deck. You then ask the spectator to hand you any one of their cards (face down) and you place it in your deck.

You are now holding a deck of 4 blue backed and 1 red card, and the spectator is holding 4 red and 1 blued backed cards.

You deal your five cards in a line in front of you, and ask the spectator to do the same.

You can ask the spectator at this point what card he thinks he picked. It's no big deal if it's not the corerct one, but statistically you have a 20% chance of taking the trick to another level.

Your then turn over both the swapped cards – and to every ones amazement – they are both the same one. You ask if the spectator freely selected their card and once they agree explain that in fact this is a lot weirder than it initially seems as when you turn over their other 4 cards they will see that they are in fact all blank.

In fact the card they chose was the only non blank card from the set of five and it matched your card.

b]Difficulty.[/b] 1/5
1=Easy, 2=No sleights, but not so easy, 3=Some sleights used,
4=Advanced sleights used, 5=Suitable for experienced magicians only)
Very easy. This is very much a self working trick.

Review.
This is another one of the tricks I saw Peter Nardi demo the other night, and again I was very impressed (I'm starting to sound like the Peter Nardi Fan club aren't I? All I can say is that he has created some pretty strong effects).

I find this works very well as a simple experiment using ESP cards – which in my opinion makes a nice change from regular card magic.

The spectator has totally free will in picking their card – and it would appear that yours too was randomly selected. Actually there is a very minor sleight here, but it is very easy, in fact I believe that it was in chapter one of RRTCM (so you can’t get more basic than that!).

I also like the double ending. As if both you and the spectator selecting the same card wasn’t impressive enough, when they find that they had freely selected the only non blank card – well that’s the killer.

Rating. Effect/item: 9/10, Quality of goods: 9/10, Value for money: 9/10

Bottom Line.
Even if you don’t like card tricks this is worth buying. If you like mentalism then I would consider it as essential. So yeah, the bottom line is I liked this a lot.

There is a difference in the way you and the spec are to "shuffle" your cards

Not sure what you mean by this Tom, I use an overhanded shuffle, as does the spec - although the spec can really shuffle any way they feel comfortable with (as long as they dont turn over the cards). To be honest I have sometimes done this by just asking the spec to pick any card from their deck - which seems to work just as well.

But you are right this is a real no brainer trick - which for me really has it's place. Sometimes you just don't want to be counting and remembering thongs.

Symbologic does sound interesting though. I'd love to hear more about it. How about a review for it? (hope I'm not being too cheeky).

Guys

The easiest way around 'small packet shuffles' is to shuffle them 'on the table'.

When you deal out the speccies cards, deal them down side-by-side.

The speccy is then asked to move them round - Monte-style - and then gather them up in any order.

This eliminates the 'flashing' you're talking about. Also, it's a lot stronger - as seeing the cards this way is a nice way to reinforce the effect of it being 'a random choice of 5'

I think Seige has got it right.

step 1. Lay oput both sets of cards face down.
step 2. turn your cards face up - and talk a little about the ESP cards.
step 3. turn your cards face down again
step 4. mix your cards up on the table as described by Seige.
step 5. ask spec to do the same.
step 6. move your cards into a pilr(making sure "the card" is on the top.
step 7. ask spec to do the same.
step 8. swap top cards - and lay them out again in a row.

the rest is self explanatory.

but seiges table shuffle is the simplest and least dangerous way to do the shuffle bit.

and btw - thong was thing (as if you didn't know!)- personally , I blame it on Mandrake for somehow mentally changing the words when I wasn't looking. It's the kind of tyhing he does. (but how does he do it?)

Only comment:

I perform this trick totally blind - i.e. I don't show either sets of faces.

By revealing the Magi's cards - it seems a little odd not to reveal the speccies cards too, IMHO. Almost like trying to hide something.

However, you've given me something to chew on - and I think I've got a plot which allows the faces of BOTH sets to be shown. It's done using an Orion count (or Flushtration count). Can't quite get the final transfer - but it looks like it will work a treat.

Basically, hold both packets together - reds on top of blues. Orion count to show the BLUE faces with RED backs (geddit?). Lay down what appears to be FIVE ESP RED BACKS on the table. Then, show five BLUE backs with ESP faces.

It kind of works - a bit rough around the edges at the moment - but some bright spark will sort it out... (where's NickJ when I need him???)

Is it essential to the trick to have the spectators cards all blank apart from his chosen one, as I was going to buy this trick and swap in duplicate cards from and ESP deck...Is this possible-dont want to know why if not, just a yes or no (exposure and all)..
Many thanks,
Dave

Quick question

I understand the way the main trick works but-

Is the wavy line guess at the start part of what you get in the trick or is it just luck if you get it right?

thebigcheese wrote:Is it essential to the trick to have the spectators cards all blank apart from his chosen one, as I was going to buy this trick and swap in duplicate cards from and ESP deck...Is this possible-dont want to know why if not, just a yes or no (exposure and all)..
Many thanks,
Dave

Yes - but the trick is stronger for it. There is no reason I can think of why you would want to swap in your own cards.

Georgias Dad wrote:Quick question

I understand the way the main trick works but-

Is the wavy line guess at the start part of what you get in the trick or is it just luck if you get it right?

I don't understand the question. What wavy line guess?

To be honest - the effect as the spectator sees it has been fully explained. All that is left to decide is if you feel the effect is for you or not.

What wavy line guess?

I think he is referring to the Alakazam video demonstration where at the start the guy guesses correctly the wavy lines as a little introduction to the trick.

Cheers WC
I must learn to explain things more clearly