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I had a discussion with a friend of mine (wannabe magician like me) about the trick "An instinct for card". He seems to be against it because the prearrangement is evident if the assistant wants to look the cards. What do you think about that?

I am not familiar with this trick but it will be up to you to control the situation and make it so that they don't want to examine the cards.

Something like a false shuffle (retaining stock or even full deck order if needed) or some false cuts would be an excellent way to 'convince' them that there is no set up as in their mind they've just seen you shuffle the deck.

Also if it only requires part of the deck to be set up, you can spread the cards out in your hands and only show part of the deck that isn't set up, if done quickly (but not rushed) and 'mock' clumsily in a casual manner you will get away with it every time.

The key is to not draw attention to it by saying something like "see the cards are in no specific order" as this will plant the seed of doubt in their mind. Just act natural, do a false shuffle or something and go straight into the trick.

Hope this helps!

To be honest I really don't think it's likely to be a problem, I hardly ever have anyone wanting to see my cards. If you present the effect with confidance then you should be fine. One thing, don't ever make a point of things being normal, the minute you say 'see, this is a prefectly normal whatyagig, not been tampered with in any way ' you're saying that somtimes things aren't always normal and untampered with and putting that idea into the specs head. Everything should just be assumed, normal.

If you are worried about this try to start and finish the routine cleanly, these are the times when someone is most likely to want to see the cards. If you need to get the cards into order do it while pretending to take out the jokers. It's amazing how much arranging you can get away with while 'looking for the jokers'

I doubt this will be a major problem for you depending on the setting and your performance style. Pick an assistant that looks like he/she will be nervous in the spotlight and they won't likely ask any questions like that. If it does come up and you can't get away with just showing the unsorted cards do a quick shuffle, hand them the deck and ask them to shuffle the deck to their hearts delight. When you get it back you can do a nice effect that doesn't require a prearranged deck. Then moving on if you must use this effect take the Lady of Mystery's suggestion and rearrange the deck while pulling out specific cards.

Honestly in a card routine I usually start out with a prearranged deck that is good for a few very nice effects, by the time I finish these the deck is nice and shuffled and if I get the vibe that I should (this vibe may come in the form of some guy saying something like "Hey, his deck is rigged") I will offer the deck for inspection and usually I use that guy as my assistant in any effect which involves me destroying money. I always love the reaction when I rip someones 20 in half.

There are lots of tricks that could be ruined if a spectator was able to look at the order of the cards before it is started, some tricks could be ruined if the spectator gets ahold of the deck at any point. Some of these tricks are extremely popular and done all the time. I don't see how this trick would be worse than any of the others.

I personally dislike this trick because I am forced to do it as an opener, yet I need to make sure that the spectator can do a decent riffle shuffle (most of mine can't) in order for the trick to work, which I can only do if they use a different deck.
This forces me to do the shuffling for the spectator which ruins most of the effect in my opinion.

Soulnafein wrote:I had a discussion with a friend of mine (wannabe magician like me) about the trick "An instinct for card". He seems to be against it because the prearrangement is evident if the assistant wants to look the cards. What do you think about that?

The very first thing you should do is to ensure that your assistant decides that he doesn't need to see the cards. An immediate and thorough false shuffle as soon as you unsheathe them while you're chatting, before you even appear to think about performing an effect, is a good way of signalling you've destroyed any order in the deck left over from the last time you used them.