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From Annemann's Card Magic

"You can now give the deck a dovetail shuffle leaving the top 21 cards undisturbed"

erm ... how?

I can do that with another shuffle, but not a dovetail, which I assume is a riffle.

A dovetail is just like a riffle, the only difference is that you shuffle the cards from the top corners, if that makes any sense - as opposed to the method associated with the Waterfall.

I guess if you split the deck slightly off centre (so that the half containing the cards to be retained has more cards) then it shouldn't be too hard to shuffle the smaller pile into the bigger one, ensuring of course that the shuffle has finished before you get to the stock to be retained.

Hope that makes some kind of sense...just so long as you patter while doing it should register that you are giving the deck a kind of riffle shuffle - the fact that half the cards remain unshuffled should just fly right past them.

EDIT: Here's a video to a clip of the dovetail shuffle: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QCPkvrcs-NY .

When I thought about offsetting the two packs, this is how my thoughts went. I want to retain half the stack on top, to one pile has to be at least 21 bigger than the other. For safety, at least 26 bigger.

This means having three quarters of the cards in one pile and only a quarter in the other.

I think I'm going to stick with the overhand for that one.

Marvell your enthusiasm for magic is admirable but I think your problem is that you are trying to learn everything you can in one go. The last couple of days you have asked about a top change, miss direction and the dove tail shuffle.

It is great you have such a passion for magic, but I feel that you are going too fast. Slow down a bit and try not to learn everything at once. Jeff McBride says “take one thing and practice it to it’s the best you can be at it” or words to that effect.

Now if you read my post on over practice I think there are a couple of hints that could help you in there. Why don’t you take six slights or tricks and practice only them for a month or so then see if you make an improvement in these fields.

The reason I ask so many questions is because there is nobody else to ask and I'm a big fan of getting it right first time rather than practicing a bad method for ages and then having to unlearn it.

I move quite quickly through tricks because I live in a small village with a small group of people to perform to and they have good memories. Things will be different in the summer when the tourists come back.

I enjoyed your thread on over practice and hope you'll see that I was already following your advice. Here is what I'm up to:

I'm working through Royal Road from beginning to end, slow and steady and practicing and performing the tricks as I go as well as practising the sleights out of context, if required. There are only a limited number of tricks per chapter and I don't want to race ahead without being confident with the sleights, so ...

I'm skim reading Anneman's Card Tricks to see if anything fits in with stuff I'm already doing. I love that book. That's where the dovetail question came from, a skim read. It was important to me, because I'm still practicing the shuffles. Being able to mix in a riffle retain like that instead of relying on other shuffles would add to my practice and supplement my performances.

I use YouTube to find videos of people doing sleights to see what they look like compared to the description in the book. You can't help bump in to tricks which I then try and work out how they're done.

Things like the 2CM and Triumph were inspiring enough for me try and actually reproduce them. It might not be that I can do them in performance, but they are good for a goal. The misdirection question was associated with the top change question and the top change question was associated with the 2CM. It's all linked really.

With all things I learn, I take quite an acedemic view and find myself reading more about the topic than I can perform. It gives me comfort and helps me, I find. I knew all about scale theory when I was learning to play chords on the guitar, but this knowledge helped me with my chords. so it wasn't a waste.

So all I'm really doing is:

a) perfecting the smoothness of all of my shuffle controls
b) performing tricks using simple palming
c) practicing sleights and tricks from the following two chapters
d) using the 2CM to get an understanding of the road ahead

I think you'll agree that I'm not racing ahead, I just love talking

What I could do with is a book of card tricks which follow the Royal Road, so there would be "More Tricks with the Palm", "More tricks with the Back Slip". Anneman is the perfect level for me. It gives me a chance to vary things and still practice the sleights in performance (if you see what I mean).

When I first started (about the beginning of November), I did go a bit mad. Having a grasp of shuffle controls already, I learnt the classic pass. I bought the Devil's Picture Book and can perform Out of This World. It's nice being able to do that, but it wasn't a good learning path. At the end of November, realising I needed a bit of direction and tuition to perform some of the other things, I bought RRTCM and looked around for mailing lists and forums. I ended up here on the 26th and started heeding advice.

Thanks for you kind words of encouragement and for steering me in the right direction. Don't ever think I don't listen to all of your advice.

I know it is a daunting experience learning a simple self worker and then see some one do triumph. It puts it all in perspective that you are on your first couple of yards of the journey. The is something some what charming about you not knowing how to do things and asking for advice that’s what this part of the forum is for. I see card magic is a great love of yours. Like sponge balls are mine. I have been doing magic 3 or so years now and I don’t even know what a dove tail shuffle is. In fact I don’t do that many card tricks at all

Card through silk
Triumph
Ashes on the arm
Pip trip

And a couple of others as well as doing card manipulation and XCM I am glad you see that I am trying to give you advice and not patronise you in any way just trying to stop you from buying every gimmick out there and having loads of stuff you will never use. You will thank me for it one day. Some one said I cant remember who all these fancy controls and stuff, are just to impress other magicians how you got the card to the top to the layman isn’t really going to impress him. Now simple basic controls like you are learning Marvell is the way to go , I never do the classic force in fact I am scared of it. I think a few people are. Now to the point of having two sources is very good quite often I will look something up in the RRTOCM and then Mark Wilson’s complete course in magic. Just to get a broader range on how to do the effect/slight.

Continue with the 4 points you are practicing for about 2 months or so don’t over practice like I said , an original Markdini concept , well I think it is. And you should be doing well. don’t worry about miss direction and the finer points on things just yet. All so I know its hard but don’t show any effects to the people in pub until you completely happy with them your self. I know soon as you learnt something you want to run out and show the world but keep it simple and gradual and you will get there. Plus get some rope do some rope tricks mix it up a bit I quoted this line before I cant remember who said it but “to the magician there are 1000s of card tricks, to the layman there is about 4”

Markdini wrote:I never do the classic force in fact I am scared of it.

Ahhahaha! This is why I read ahead. I have picked some advice along the way which has helped me no end. It's a two parter:

1) just because you start one trick, doesn't mean you have to do it

2) just because a trick doesn't call for a force, a glimpse or some misdirection, doesn't mean you don't have to do them

I now practice my classic force whenever I do a fanned "pick a card" when the trick doesn't need it at all. It means it can fail with no consequences and I can practice in real life.

Markdini wrote:Plus get some rope do some rope tricks mix it up a bit

Coins maybe. Ropes ... they're so ... not me

Markdini wrote:I quoted this line before I cant remember who said it but “to the magician there are 1000s of card tricks, to the layman there is about 4”

Indeed. That's what's nice about reading Anneman, it allows me to give the impression of repeating a trick with a different method.

Marvell wrote:
Coins maybe. Ropes ... they're so ... not me

S sponges are out of a question. May I ask why rope isnt you? Have you ever worked with ropes before or is just something you dont think you are able to perform?

Ropes, sponges, cups & balls and most things requiring props don't fit in with my casual, impromptu style. Since I'm only performing in the one pub, the longevity of a cups and balls routine is short lived.

I need some focus, and that's presently cards, but coins is a reasonable extension. I'm hoping Santa brings me Bobo's book.

Learn some rope tricks, and do it with a bit of string or something you can find. I always have a show lace to do Greg Wilsons ring leader. borrow a ring take the lace out your shoe impromtu!

Focus is an important thing I agree but too much focus and everything becomes blured.