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My favourite effect right now is OOTW. I was wondering how anyone else does the 'switch'. I stop them by telling them they are putting cards down quickly and just relax and do the rest in a contolled manner.

Does anyone have any unusual twists?

If this is exposure then MODS sorry. Feel free to remove the post. I won't be upset.

If you can find out about "out of this universe", you will learn a version that I feel is far more baffling as the pack is shuffled 3 times and the spec also mixes the pack thoroughly. It also has no switch midway.

Either that, or the devils picture book by derren brown has a version that needs no faffing about in the middle either.

the best version of OOTW is in my opinion was puplished by Greg Rostam!!
its a ootw effekt for 2 spectators AND its completley impromtu, if you are not using the gimnicked versioin.

Yeah, that's pretty good, I believe it's called "Cosmos".

OOTW is a killer, no matter what version you perform. The 'real' strength of this effect is in how you present it.

If you perform the standard version first you will nearly always get a 'do that again' at which point you could then do the shuffled deck version.

I always resist the temptation to do a repeat performance as I think it weakens the impact of the first.

Here's what I do:

I set the whole thing up as a demonstration of a legitimate and documented phenomenon, rather than a "trick" (I would never mention the OOTW title). I tend to play it straight.

I also set up rather muted expectations re. the outcome. Something like "no one really knows why it happens, but there is a slight tendency to get significantly more than half right". That way, they're only expecting a slight (if any) bias towards correct guesses.

Half-way through, say something like "OK. Whenever this has been tested, it is always found that there is a slight tendency to favour the right-hand pile for red cards, possibly because of the close association between the words 'Red' and 'Right'. The way experimenters have got around this in the past is by getting the subject to reverse the order of the piles half-way through. It probably wouldn't affect our results that much, but let's do it anyway, just to be sure". I then place each marker card on top of the opposite pile, and ask the spec to carry on. You could get them to re-shuffle at this point if they want to, as an extra convincer that the cards are well-mixed.

In my (limited) experience, the spec does not suspect that you have an ulterior motive for switching.

To clean up at the end, continue the quasi-scientific tone. "Right. Let's count up the ones you thought were reds. Could you do these?" Hand them the 'red' packet from the 'correct' pile. Once they start to count them, you've got ample cover to be able to pick up the 'black' packet from the 'wrong' pile (which, of course, is actually full of reds) and count them. Once all the cards are counted, say something like "I've got 13 here. How many have you got? 12? OK, so that's 25 in total. Exactly half of the pack, in fact, if we discount the two markers. Let's put them together, and do the same for these - you thought these were all black, didn't you? There should be 25 again - let's check quickly though..." You could then pick up a pile and say "there's 25 cards here, which you've guessed are red. How many reds would there actually need to be to convince you that there might be a real ESP phenomenon going on?" That way, you've got a reason for counting up the cards, an action which (in reality) was only needed to provide misdirection for the switch.

Sorry for the waffle. I really like this trick.

i always let the spec shuffle the deck first, this makes it a far stronger effect. It seems impossible. I made someone cry with this effect the other day.

Flyinbrian wrote:I always let the spec shuffle the deck first, this makes it a far stronger effect. It seems impossible. I made someone cry with this effect the other day.

I've always wanted to do that. I've had people running away but never tears.

Was it good?

I saw the Derren Brown version on The Devil's Picturebook - he gets the spec to do a very limited overhand shuffle which doesn't disturb the order of the cards.

But, when he performs it, Derren also did (what looked like) a genuine riffle shuffle. He left this part out of his subsequent explanation, sadly. It can't have been a genuine shuffle (as far as I can see, given the effect) but it looked spot on.

Genius.

Derren Browns version is good but as he said, its unfinished. What else he could add would be good to know.
I like Slightly Magic idea, may be a left side of the brain advantage sort of reason...
I also spread from L to R and R to L to get the right finish, nobody questions the lay of the cards.

I heard Luke Jermay has a killer version published in one of his books.

.:Ham:.

.:Ham:. wrote:I heard Luke Jermay has a killer version published in one of his books.

.:Ham:.

Luke's version of OOTW is contained within 'Building Blocks.'

From what I can remember, it makes no use of mechanical methods, and is achieved purely through suggestive techniques.

Each card is shown to be red or black after the spectator names a card's colour. If you have a background in NLP/Hypnosis, you already know how to do this effect.

I've always performed a version of OOTW which involes the litlle bit of work in the middle. I love the idea of a shuffled deck beforehand, can anyone point me in the direction as to where I can source this version, and also, can it be done without a deck switch or gimmicked deck?

For a completely different OOTW, have a look at derren brown doing a little mischevous version here

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vr1iq9UBBVE

Cheers for that Marvo Marky. As usual the comments on that clip were fantastic reading. For one of many hilarious examples check out the guy who said:

This was a very well executed case of NLP. Notice his choice of language and the way he speaks. He emphasizes 'Dislike' followed shortly by the way his says 'Dissent to connection'. Notice he pronounce 'Dissent to' so that you hear 'centre'.
Put those two together 'dislike centre'. So, if you notice when the person is is the *centre* of the photo, he dislikes. When they're at the side, he likes.

It took me a second to get this one - very well done!


I bet he felt like a right little NLP guru when he figured that out.