talkmagic.co.uk

Hi everyone,

Firstly Happy New Year!

Just a quick question on controlling a card with the Overhand Shuffle.

I've been working through the Royal Road.. and have started to question my injog technique.

What is the best way to have a spectator replace a card to a pack, and then control it to the top?

The Royal Road suggests that you have the card replaced, run 3 cards onto this, injog the 4th and then shuffle the rest onto this. Then cut the cards at the injog. The specs card will be 4 down. The Royal Road suggests showing the bottom few cards, and also taking off the top 3 and showing them that "these aren't your cards as yours is lost in the deck". However I'm not convinced that this is good practice and can't be used every time. Since a lot of tricks rely on having a card replaced and controlling it back to the top, I'm a little confused at the best method for this. Could I just injog the very next card after the specs? - or does that look too suspicious?

Thanks!

I would suggest just doing a double undercut, and then if you still feel it needs to look fairer a few false overhand shuffles moving the card to top/bottom as required.

Simple always works well for me...

Thanks for the reply bananafish,

As a relative newbie still - when you say Double Undercut, do you mean have the card replaced to top of deck, take 1/2 from bottom and place on top (with pinkie break) and then take this top section and return to bottom?

If so, do you do all of this in one movement?

Thanks!

I agree. I simply injog the next card and then shuffle off the rest of the pack. I then square the cards keeping a break under the injogged card and perform a double undercut. You can then follow with a false cut or control the card to the bottom and back to the top again.
Alternatively you could have the card replaced underneath the top card, with the spectator thinking they were placing it in the middle (not sure how much i can say without it being edited. Message me if needed). If you have a friend who is also into magic, and knows what you are doing, then practice on them (I use my fiance for this). If it looks seemless to them, the layman will definately be fooled.

I control it to the top using the the techniques explaind later in royal road by injogging the next card getting a break from the injog then shuffling to the break.

You should really have as many methods of controlling your specs card as possible...
as a safegaurd...or when im just plain lazy..i generally bend my deck slightly after the spec has chosen the card then if they slide it back in the deck and then someone shuffles it ...witl a bit practice you can tell which card is the odd one out!!!

But i would really recomend trying every way possible, see what suits you and what you feel comfortable..and dont be put off by thinking your wasting your time...its all about gettin familiar with the deck and learning all ofthose idiosyncrasies which the layman would never spot.

Also try using a key card as a method....always a winner...

Hope that helps

Andy