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Have you guys (or gals) ever gotten lucky doing a trick, and the trick turns out to be more amazing than it was intended to be or you thought you screwed up but somehow got out of it?

I'll give an example. I was doing some card tricks for my aunt the other day, but I didn't want to show her any of my really good ones until there was more people, So I was just doing some basic "pick a card, lose it, and produce it" tricks. But I somehow screwed up the first trick so I just said "oops I guess I haven't warmed up yet", so my next trick I acted like I screwed up again and turned over the top card and said that it was her card (it wasn't), but she started laughing and said "how did you do that? that was my first card" ( lucky me ) then I shapeshiftered it into her second card and she freaked.

how about some of your stories with luck?

ID....pulled it out of the box the facing the wrong way....but the selectected card happened to be on the face......not a better ending, but a rescued ending that was better than it deserved to be!

This Saturday just gone, I was performing some impromptu card tricks for friends on a night out.

The usual stuff—nothing fancy. With a nice deck of black fan Tally Ho cards.

A card got selected and returned, and I was about to bring it to the bottom of the deck when I lost my pinky break (alcohol induced butterfingers) and panicked a bit.

Knowing the card was roughly in the center, I had a couple of outs in mind, and during an illogical cut (blind) I heard 'Wow!' from the speccys.

So, I kind of guessed they'd sighted their card. Because of the mechanics of the illogical cut, I sighted the bottom card closest to the middle of the deck and carried on with a 'I'm not sure, but I'm getting the card you thought of...' and simply caught another (firmer!) break below the top two stacks upon re-ordering.

A quick pass later, and I'd managed to palm off the top card ready for the original effect (which was card-under-beermat) which I had planned.

This was made even better than usual as I threw in the line "Now, I'm taking it you saw your card somewhere in the deck while I was shuffling, somewhere around the middle?" as I handed them the deck.

As they dealt through, dealing face-up to find their card, I slipped it beneath their beermat. The effect seemed so impossible, and I was just so lucky. This happens once in a while, but not normally with such a cool convincer in the middle of the routine!

KaleBaiton wrote:Have you guys (or gals) ever gotten lucky doing a trick

yup...her name was Rebecca...

abraxus wrote:

KaleBaiton wrote:Have you guys (or gals) ever gotten lucky doing a trick

yup...her name was Rebecca...

Did you give her a good unshuffling?

Early when i did magic, i did a trick where the spectator did all the work and i had my back turned. It was quite hard to explain what he had to do at one point so i gave an example.

Basically the spectator had to take 'x' number of cards (corresponding to the value of the card they chose) from the bottom and put it to the top.

I said "For example, if you chosen card was the 5 of hearts, you would take 5 cards from the bottom and place them on the top of the deck." I took his silence like he understood but he then started to laugh.

I asked him what he was laughing at, and he replied "That was fantastic!"
I gave him a puzzled look and he said "how did you know that was my card"

I pretended that was the trick. Take what you get!

A few weeks ago, I was doing magic for a bunch of teens (what a joy) and had one challenge me that I couldn't fool him. After a solid half-hour of blowing his mind, I got bored with it and turned to talk to a friend. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw this kid reach into the deck, select a card, and put it about a third of the way down in the pack. He got my attention and said, "Okay, I'm ready."

I turned to him, pretending to be unaware of his actions, and said, "what...?"

"I'm ready. Find my card."

I estimated, picked up the deck, and showed him the card I'd cut to--he was blown away to find out that it was his card.

That's probably about the luckiest I'd ever gotten, and the closest to "real" magic you can get!

Ciao,
Rob

Maybe the luckiest I ever got was when I threw a card at this guy at work and it missed him and landed in the shirt pocket of the guy sitting next to him. I dont know how he never noticed but I quickly did a deck swap and told him I wanted to try somthing.. I forced the card I threw at him ( 8 of clubs and asked him to rip it up. I then burnt the card till it was nothingness..

And a little hocus pocus play and I told him to think about his card. I showed the top card and of course it wasnt it. I advised him he must think with his heart not his head. I asked him to think of his card and put his hand on his heart.. when he did he felt the card through his shirt.. his jaw hit the floor.. he reached in and pulled the card out..

That was one of the best reactions I ever got and I think that would have had a few magicians stumped as I had never went near him and he made a point of telling everyone an exaggerated story '' I shuffled, cut and selected a card etc''

One I remember was when I was doing some simple trick where the spec chose a card and returned it to the deck. I then lost my pinky break and just said I messed up the trick and started again. When she went in to pick a new card her eyes just went wide open and she said "how the f did you do that?" Turns out when she went to choose a new card she picked out the same card she did the first time. I just sat there with a small smile on my face and thanked the ghost of Dai Vernon that I got lucky.

Hah...

I remember an old story that Dai Vernon told on his "Revelations" DVD set.

He was in military school, but was notorious for doing card tricks. One day, walking through the shower, he spotted a card on the shower floor, picked it up, and started practicing back palming with it.

His supervisor came strolling through the showers and said, "Hah! Let's see you produce a card now!"

The Professor reached between his legs in a most unsavory manner and pulled out the card he was toying with. How's that for luck?

A couple of months ago, I'd just divined a girl's and found it on top of the deck again when she grabbed the deck, examined it, shuffled it, turned over the top card and screamed because it was her card again.

I.D wrote:That was one of the best reactions I ever got and I think that would have had a few magicians stumped as I had never went near him and he made a point of telling everyone an exaggerated story '' I shuffled, cut and selected a card etc''

and it must have been one of the best effects you ever did too... Lovely story!

Thank you all! Great reading and good laughs. Sorry I can't contribute yet. Love this thread.

A couple of times I've done a little something with the ID, guessed at what card the spectator is thinking of and got it correct. Time to move on to another spec when that happens - you're not going to top it.

Another occasion I was showing some stuff to a few guys, and there was the usual cocky guy who can't take being fooled. I was watching a pool game and saw him messsing around with my deck out the corner of my eye. I ignored him and let him do his thing - shuffling the deck, examining it etc. I see him take a card off the top after shuffling. He then says to me something along the lines of 'ok mr. magician what card am I holding now?'. Without even turning to look at him I tell him the card he is holding. He flashed it as he took it off and I saw it was the Jack of Spades out the corner of my eye. He was considerably quieter from then on.

Recently I had some one challenge me by taking a card and shuffling it into the deck and challenging me to find their card.
I always have a short card in my deck, which I noticed they had taken. I was able to devine the card without touching the deck. I left it at that. I contemplated then cutting and palming off the card, and asking them to pick out their card for something else. But felt that the fact I'd touched the deck would detract from the purity of the divination. Sometimes less is more.