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[TheOldForum]

Name: Andrus Card Control
Price: £34.99 (Abrakazam)
Type: Card Book
Difficulty: 2-3
What you get: Two Spiral Bound books, one of descriptions, one of diagrams.

Effect:
Get ready for a new approach to card magic!
Imagine having a card signed and inserted into the deck, stopping when the card is sticking out of the deck 1/8th of an inch, so the spectator can see it (his actual card), going in. The card is pushed in the rest of the way, then the spectator is asked to name a number between 1-15. You, without ANY cuts, shuffles or 'moves' of any kind, legitimately count to the named number and find the signed card!

This, and dozens of other miracles, are taught in this two volume, 176 page set of books. Volume one contains the updated and reformatted text. Volume two contains over 1,050 line art illustrations by the author. Each book is spiral-bound, for ease of learning (they can be laid flat on the table).

Comments:
Even as a relative beginner to more advanced card sleights I found that I was able to get the hang of a lot of these sleights within just a few minutes due to the large numbers of line drawings and the detailed descriptions provided. This is an excellent book, both for new card handlers and those with more experience, I would recomend it.

Overall Rating: 9/10

[nickj]

Wow, it was nearly 3 years ago that I posted this! As you may have noticed from my mentions of this in other threads I have dug it out of my magic box fairly recently to re-peruse it.

I would probably alter the difficulty level to match the current guidlines by saying that the dificulty ranges from 3-5, needless to say there are sleights as that is the entire point of the book, but they range in difficulty from a variation on the DL to the sidewinder shift, a move for getting a card pushed into the middle of the deck to the top with one hand whilst apparently doing nothing but hold the deck still.

What you won't find in the book are any of the commonly used moderate to advanced sleights. There is not a pass in sight as it is one of Andrus' pet hates. Instead you get alternatives, most of which are intended to require no misdirection whatsoever, completely natural movements cover them all.

The book is very detailed, with 120 pages, 100 of which are filled with sleight descriptions, most of which fill less than a whole page and are accompanied by about ten diagrams each. The volume two book that comes with this contains all the diagrams so that they can easily be studied at the same time without flicking backwards and forwards between pages and contains 1048 sketches. That is one hell of a lot of pitcures, all of which are very clear and many have spectator angles and things drawn on.

One thing that should be mentioned is that Andrus tends to use bridge sized cards, which makes some of the more complex sleights such as the sidewinder shift very hard with poker size. I am having a horrible job getting the hang of this one, dropping cards all over the place, but it should be worth it as it will allow me to get a card to any small number from the top of the deck after being placed in the middle, without any moves or shuffles involved!