I had one of these the other night... I was out with the Mrs and a friend of hers, and did a couple of things with cards for the friend. As it was a fun night out, I wanted to keep it short and snappy, so I did Lee Smiths Ice Breaker. What could go wrong???
Well...
If you don't know it, it's a short sharp three phase routine where cards seem to jump in and out of the spectators hands. It's a piece of magic I've can't count how many times I've done and got great reactions from. But not this time. It appears that despite my best efforts, the plot of the first phase of the trick was a little to complex for the young lady in question, so that when the card she was holding became the card I was holding, she really didn't understand what was happening... That said, she did seem surprised that the card she initially picked was between her hands in it's place...
Never mind, I figured I'd soldier on and stun her with a twirl change!
But she was burning my hands so close, that after she'd returned her selected card to the pack, there was no way I could do a half pass to get her card to the top... I was just stood there, holding a break in the cards, trying and failing to distract her attention from the pack so I could do what I needed to do. It wasn't looking good...
But I'd had an amazing piece of luck. Without realizing it, as she'd put the card back in the pack, she'd given me the hugest glimpse of the card she had!
So I just put the cards down, and read her mind instead! She was rather stunned! (And I was rather relieved!)
I guess I'm just saying this because even when things go wrong, sometimes they go right as well
