talkmagic.co.uk

The Effect

A card is named by your spectator. A blue backed deck is spread between your hands The named card is seen to be the only card that is face-up. The named card is now turned over to show it has a red coloured backed! Now to prove you knew this card was going to be selected you show all of the other cards to be blank!

Cost

£12.99

Difficulty
(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)

I's say 1.5, it's basically self working with a very small sleight which even I can do.

Review

I was tempted by this trick because I liked the triple kick effect and have always wanted the Brainwave deck. It is a very simple effect to perform and those who own the ID and Brainwave deck will know the mechanics. My favourite bit is the last part where you show all the cards to have blank faces. Its not 100% examinable but the way you fan the cards is so open and fair there is no point in the spec looking through blank cards - it's just boring!

The one thing I don't like about it is that the spec can't name ANY card, it has to be of a certain suit but any value can be named. This won't be a problem if performing with a group because I'm sure one person would get the suit right anyway and you can go from there. BUT if it was just done on 1 or 2 people then they may not get it right and you would look a bit of a fool. I have used a few psychological subtlies to 'force' the choice and this has worked although one person did guess what I was doing through some of my gestures but I guess I just have to be less obvious.

The trick also comes with a nice DVD with a performance and description. It's short but sweet and makes the package complete!

What I was wondering, if anyone could help me out, is would I be able to combine this with the normal Brainwave deck so any card can be named but still keep the faces blank because that's the best bit?


Overall

Overall I would give this 8/10. It loses marks for me because not any card can be named and it is a one trick pony. Although if your clever and performing with a group then you can probably get around the force, however it can't really be repeated on the same group - which you shouldn't do anyway but for me it's always nice to have the option!

Hope that helps and if someone could help me out with making this an any card trick that would be just grand!