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Description
Double Back - by Jon Allen

Cost & Availability
£11.95, available from www.emagictricks.co.uk

Difficulty - A very easy 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 This is my own personal interpretation, the effect supplied is slightly different
Imagine taking four cards from a deck - two pairs, for instance - a red king and a black king, a red five and a black five...
You show the cards freely front and back. You pick up and show the Red Five, and place it on the table - the spectator places their hand on the card. You then show the Black Five, place it under their hand with the red five.

You then turn the final two cards face to face, showing clearly that you are holding the two Kings. You put the two kings back together, face to face - and touch the back of the spectators hand with the two cards.
You comment that you've just forced the cards to swap places. And you smile!

You then joke "No, it's not that easy - look, I still have the two Kings" and show the two Kings once again.

"Here's the REAL changeover" and you tap the back of their hands once more with the Kings.
Instantly, you spread your two cards and turn them both face-up. They are the two fives.
The spectator lifts their hand - they are holding the two kings.

THIS IS EXACTLY AS IT HAPPENS - and it believe me when I say that your spectators will be very shocked indeed. And being honest, the first time I performed this (about 5 minutes after opening the packet it arrived in) I actually shocked myself - this is SO visual!

The trick employs a VERY simple and familiar card-magic principle. And unlike some other similar effects, this one has no moving parts, hinges, flaps, trapdoors, mirrors, magnets or disguised assistants. It is a VERY simple handling, with a couple of quite simple sleights.

The cards required are all supplied - and the ones I received were on red Bicycle Poker stock. But bear in mind, you don't need a whole deck to perform this effect - I simply found it more credible to do it that way, as I find carrying a packet of four 'ordinary' cards around on their own implies that there is actually nothing ordinary about them at all!

A fine little trick, which can be instantly repeated with NO resets - it can be performed perpetually.

Overall
Right then - down to the nitty-gritty. There are few effects these days that actually make me go 'ooh'. And there are even less that actually inspire me. But the sheer simplicity and principle involved in this effect make it absolutely 100% performable, and it has already inspired me to create another ESP based effect of my own.

The visual nature of this effect is what wins hands-down in my opinion. The actual change of the Kings to the Fives is almost instant - and you see THE WHOLE CARD, not just an index or a glimpse - no siree, you see the whole back, and the whole face, and in milliseconds, both cards have changed.

The almost angle-proof handling requires minor skill, only in as much as there are some basic sleights involved. The supplied documentation on how to perform the effect will possibly read as daunting to a novice, as the sleights have no descriptions, and are referred to only by their 'technical' name. There is an alternative handling supplied, which eliminates possibly the most feared sleight (and if I mentioned it's name, most people on this forum would tremble!) - but the rest is relatively plain sailing and self working.

The 'doom' factor is practically nil on this one, too. The trick simply CAN'T go wrong, as long as you know the routine. Obviously, there's 'pilot error', but the actual cards shouldn't let you down (unlike another similar effect, which caused me a slight red face - BTW Yankee Tom, where IS my Red one??? Tee hee!).

All in all, for the money, this effect can't really be done justice by a boring old review. The only way you'll fully appreciate this is to buy it and perform it - and you'll understand my enthusiasm.


Ratings
10/10 - excellent value for money, although documentation may be a little daunting for a complete novice - so I'd recommend only magician's with a basic knowledge of card sleights buy this one.

You really should buy this - especially if you're a bit creative - it will open up some doors to some new ideas, for sure.
Packs into a regular Bike deck, and with a simple switch (which I've tried) the cards are examinable.

Do yourself a favour... log onto eMagictricks and buy one now.

i can only echo seige on this one... i recieved it as a trade from Jon Allen himself!!!!(namedropping... hehe heh) anyways enough of that , it really is a smooth effect , plus, even though it comes in red bike it can be transferred to any make of cards you like (with a little thought of course.... i use tally-ho or bee decks so i needed it to work with those)


maybe not a true 10 but a "really close" 9.5

Thanks for reviewing this, I must confess I had thought about it - but decided it was probably too good to be true.

From, your description, the way I had guessed it was done is obviously wrong. So now I am reintrigued. It certainly sounds extremely powerful.

I bought this several months ago but because of

the most feared sleight (and if I mentioned it's name, most people on this forum would tremble!)

it stayed at the back of the drawer marked, 'To be looked at again one of these fine days when I've sorted out the Inverse Aardvark Shuffle'.

I guess today's the day!

As threatened, I sorted this out last night and spent a couple of hours sorting through the instructions. Firstly, it would have helped if the instructions hadn't been printed so small - 4 x A4 sheets reduced onto one orange A4 side, come on guys, give us speccy wearers a chance!

However this is only a minor gripe and I now hang my head in shame that I seem to have not read ALL the instructions through to the end - despite needing a microscope!. The alternative working avoiding the ooo-nasty move is extremely good. In fact, the simplicity of just starting with the four cards, using the suggested patter and making all the moves slowly and clearly (to prove that the hand being quicker than the eye doesn't always apply) is very clean and simple. When you show the spec's cards have changed places with yours only seconds after being shown to be in your hands you and your audience will be very impressed!

Tom...
1: Red has arrived - nice one! Cheers!
2: YES - you WILL give it a go - when I reclaim some of my life...
3: Where's the Dean Talavouris avatar - grinned every time I saw it!
4: Err...

Mandrake...
1: The 'feared move' is so unnecessary... just use handling No.2
2: If the instructions are too small, nip down to Staples and get an A3 copy
3: Glad I have caused a 'bottom drawer lurker' to surface again - it's so well worth it

All...
I will contact Jon Allen himself about this first, but I've already perfected a method to end totally clean and examinable. I won't post it on this board - because it will tip the gaff on the effect.

Re Enlarged Instructions - strangely enough, I usually end up enlarging most instructions as I find many are far too small to read easily and it also preserves the originals while I totally wreck the copies by underlining things and highlighting the important bits or the sequences etc. For some reason I didn't do this with Double Back (it was last February so I suppose I was too young and immature at the time!) but if you hadn't reviewed Double Back it would still be lurking where the sun don't shine (that's the back of the third drawer from the top, OK?!) so thanks for the nudge - very much appreciated.

Thank you for the review as well as all the positive comments towards Double Back. When i came up with it initially, I knew it was something pretty good but I didn't know how popular it was going to be. I'm happy to see that some people have had their enthusiasm re-ignited in the effect.

One thing that always seems to be overlooked in reviews is the presentation. I did put a lot of thinking into it and, in my humble opinion, it's what makes it different to other packet tricks. For those not familiar with it, you are asking the audience to really remember the cards they see. Many assume it is the quickness of the hand and distraction that magicians resort to, so now they have the opportunity to look really closely. All the time in the routine, everything is as it should be with the audience taking part in answering questions and fooling themselves along the way. I'm interested to know if people use the presentation in the instructions or use their own.

If anyone has any questions about Double Back, I'd be happy to answer them on here (without giving too mcuh of the method away) or in a private message.

Thanks for the posting, Jon, it's always good to hear from the main guy on these things!

I admit to being a total idiot in not persisting with Double Back the first time round - handling number 2 is so simple and effective. I've done this a few times now and it works really well as a slow motion routine, the hands move as though under water and all the moves are so clean. It can even be done without any patter - just lay out the four cards and point to each one slowly then raise four fingers to show the total. Follow this with fingers pointing to the faces of the cards as appropriate to get the message over and, if you include a bit of mime with suitable facial expressions, it's almost a silent classic!

Several people have told me about presentations they have come up with for Double Back but all of them have been contrived and, IMO, diluted the effect. Mandrake, your idea of a silent presentation does work because you are still bringing attention to the cards without overdoing it.

I really feel this is one effect that works best without 'story patter'.

It also works very well in 'silent' mode for folks with limited hearing - I did it in a (very amateur) mime artist style with lots of pointy fingers and facial expressions to convey the significance of each part. Seemed to work well!

Yankeetom,

Please feel free to PM me with your comments. I know some magicians who don't like me doing presentation 1. They say it looks too much like a magic move. However, they know it is and the audience don't. The thing with P1 is that there is no discrepency which you see a lot of version of DDLT.

I'm interested to here what the conflict is!