The Effect: six different coloured poker chips are placed colour side down on the table, the spectator moves one to the side, placing it on an envelope which has been in full view the whole time. On opening the envelope the spectator finds a piece of card predicting the colour of the chip chosen.
Cost: About £12 I think, not sure where you can get it.
Difficulty: 2
(1=easy to do, 2=No sleights, but not so easy, 3=Some sleights used,
4=Advanced sleights used, 5=Suitable for experienced magicians only)
Review: Well, it is easy to do, and from the spectators point of view it plays as described. Obviously there is a gaff involved but the chips are pretty much examinable at the end of the trick.
My main problem with this effect is that it seems a little unsatisfying, as a magic trick there is no real magic, you happened to get it right. As a mental trick there is no aspect of reading involved, (at least if you play it by the instructions) you knew beforehand what was going to happen so how could it be mind reading? This sort of mentalism leaves me a bit cold. However, that doesn't mean that it is not a good set of props for a mental routine, you just have to forget about presenting it as per the instructions, so if anyone out there has this and would like to hear my simple changes to the routine let me know and I'll post in the MO section.
The chips themselves don't look all that nice, they are made of plastic with inset sticky labels on each side, one side coloured and the other patterned. If they had been made of brass this would be a brilliant prop, as the working behind the trick is pretty clever (think Black and White surprise or Checkmate) and the idea is good even if the presentation isn't.
Then ther is the printed prediction, you have a choice of two printed prediction cards (a slightly unnecessary addition I thought, but it does allow you a bit of scope for personal preference) which look like nothing other than a magicians prop, my personal advice is to ditch these immediately and write your own.
In fact the whole set looks like a prop since the chips don't really look anything like real poker chips.
Overall: Like I said, a nice idea, but some more effort could have been put into the production and the presentation could be improved. As it stands, if you do it as written it is more of a clever trick than a piece of magic or mind reading. Overall I would probably give it 8/10 for the idea, but only 5/10 for presentation and 4/10 for quality of props, however, it is very good value for money and with an improved presentation it could be boosted to an overall 7-8/10 just losing out for being plastic.
Nick
