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Hi All

One of the things I enjoy about putting a card act together is that it can sometimes pay dividends for tricks that require a particular set-up.

Here are some examples of these 'trick-combos'. Most of the material is either taken from Card College (Vols 1-5) and the works of Darwin Ortiz.

1) Start with a a shuffled deck. The 4A's are on top of the deck. False shuffle and cut, retaining the top stock.
2) Perform 'The 4 Seasons' (Card College Vol. 3, p525). At the end of the routine 1 A will be on top of the deck, the remaining 3 A's on the bottom.
3) False shuffle and cut, retaining the top and bottom stacks.
4) The deck is now prepared to perform 'Spectator Cuts the Aces' (Card College Vol. 1, p51)

Another:
Start with the deck in the case, with a DF card on top of the deck. Remove the deck from the box, retaining the DF in the box. Close the box and place to one side.

1)Perform 'Jazz Aces' (Ortiz, At The Card Table). At the end of the routine, replace the cards in the deck such that you have 8, 9, 8 ,9 on the bottom of the deck.
2) False shuffle and cut, retaining the bottom stock.
3) Remove the cards for 'Jumping Gemini' (Ortiz, At The Card Table). Place the deck in the box, ensuring that the DF goes to the bottom of the deck. The rationale I use for placing the deck in the box is to explain to the specs. that the next trick is so incredible, that people often accuse me of somehow switching cards with the deck.
4) Perform Jumping Gemini.
5) Remove the deck (plus the DF on the bottom)from the box. Replace the Jumping Gemini cards in the deck.
6) False shuffle and cut, retaining the bottom stock (DF, 8 ,9 ,8)
7) Perform 'Ultimate Fusion' (Ortiz, Scams & Fantasies)

Anybody else have any 'trick-combos' they wish to share?

The beauty of having a card act is the ability to avoid culling and stacking midway through tricks, thus minimizing a delay and generally looking like a more polished performer.

I am particularly fond of - Matching the Cards
Daley's Last Trick
Twisting the Aces with Queen kicker
Repro Retro/Reset

Vernon, Daley, Guastaferro and Harris/Bebel

I am not a card man, but I do have a card routine that works great in a parlour or stage setting, and also kills with older kids. It lasts ten to fifteen minutes and three effects are blended.
I produce cards from the mouth (eighteen of them - though the audience is not told that). I then do six card repeat. Magicians tend to avoid this but look at Paul Daniels or Michael Finney doing it (or Wayne Dobson for that matter) and you can see it has its place.
Now I have eighteen cards scattered on the ground. I take two volunteers and there is a bit of comedy as they race to pick up cards. Finally I divide the cards evenly and they pocket them. I then do cards across, pretending to be a pick-pocket.
For kids this routine can be done with soccer trading cards or whatever is in at the time. It can also be done with business cards, so I can do a card routine even if I don't have a deck of cards.

I think one of the finest examples of a card act that really fits together well is Doc Eason's from Vol.1 of his Bar Magic DVDs. Although there is no real link between the effects in the sense that one does not naturally set up a specific order or placement of cards for the next, all the effects within the routine are strung together brilliantly with the continual reappearance of a signed card under a glass at the end of the bar.

I don't mimic the routine as is on the tape but I do use the theme of one card continually popping up in different places while you are performing effects long after it has been selected.

If you think about it, it's kind of like a more subtle ambitious card theme. Rather than getting the card to "jump" to the top of the deck under ever more impossible circumstances, you're putting a signed selection in open view of spectators again and again without them seeing.

It gets a great reaction and it's really good fun to perform as it keeps you on your toes as well!

I put a small set of tricks together a while ago, I will admit it starts out using other peoples tricks, but I can then move into two trick at the end, that I'm sure are someones out there, but I didn't learn them from books, I put them together myself.

1-Riverboat Harmony (Past midnight Benjamin earl)
2-Out of this world (the handeling from the Devils Picture Book)
3-A trick where the deck is fairly shuffled, a card is removed without me seeing, I can then spot which card is missing after only glancing at the deck for a split second.
4-A body language reading trick where I find the card the spectator is thinking of.

I play this off as a gambling set as it alows all the tricks to fit together, I'll link them all together by explaining the various different ways you could cheat at cards, from a control to making the other player do what you want, to having a crazy good eye, to finaly reading tells.

Sounds abit crappy just reading it back, but it runs like a well oiled engine. If you know the tricks (excluding the last two), you'll see.

There's an effect of Maue's called A Touch of Curry that involves openly removing two complete suits from a deck. You can simultaneously do an angle separation on the remaining two suits while removing the selected suits. The selected suits remain separated for the Curry effect, meaning you can be sure of ending up with a red-black separated deck. Should that be useful.

I like to go from riverboat harmony to out of this world because the first effect is a way of seperating the suits and putting them in order, so at the end you have the deck basicly in new deck order, so then you can just riffle the top into the bottom very fairly or even get someone else to and you're left with an almost perfect half and half deck, maybe the middle few are a little mixed but there are ways to sort them.