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No problem


Great routine, really demonstrates Derrens creativity and how you can make an effect your own. You gotta love the "in" joke too!

shaneking wrote:What tricks would you do with them ?

I know there are plenty of ideas in RRTCM but what are you guys 'n' gals doing out there ?

Tee hee. I've been getting people to cut to a card, placing their finger on the face, then moving it about with mine, and telling them which card it is from my interpretation of their sense of touch. Pointlessly baroque, but tons of fun!

Tenko wrote:Rob,

Why is the Nudist Deck impracticable for daily use ?

I've used mine several times a night, several nights a week for over 15yrs.

My 100% ideal trick to perform for friends and in casual situations fulfills three quintessential conditions: availability, examinability, and functionality.

I'd like to see someone go over a friend's house or find a pack laying on a bar somewhere that just happens to be a Nudist deck (or Sven deck or anything else). If someone just says, "can you show me something," my first instinct isn't going to pull out a gimmicked pack; it's going to be to either pull out my own pack and let them examine it or borrow one from them.

Further, gimmicked packs aren't examinable. To use a gimmicked deck like the Nudist deck, though, you have to a.) use it for the entire performance, b.) switch decks, or c.) only do one trick.

That brings us to functionality. You can't do many effects with a gimmicked back as compared to a regular pack. The Sven deck is pretty practical in this aspect as you can do a several minute long presentation, but the deck can't be handled between phases or after the trick without a cumbersome deck switch, which takes away from its virtue of examinability.

If you're working professionally, it's certainly practical to use gimmicked decks several times a night, several nights a week; you have a different audience every five or ten minutes working tables or a new audience every hour or two if you're working on the street. I'd consider professional work a special occasion though, as it's outside the realms of what an average hobbyist would consider a performance venue. I don't have numbers, but I'm sure that the ratio of professionals to hobbyists is pretty low.

Accordingly, ungimmicked packs are superior when considering availability, examinability, and functionality. Gimmicked decks do indeed allow for some hard-hitting effects, but they lack in these three principle and quintessential aspects of an ideal trick.

Ciao,
Rob

BTW... My original post clearly explained that my opinion was just that--my opinion. I'm glad you all value my it so heavily as fact to get so bent out of shape about it

So many to think of:

Biddle trick
ACR
Cros Twist
Design For Laughter
Gambler vs Mentalist vs Magician (PH version of triumph)
Pheonix effect (if you have flash paper handy)
card to mouth
invisible palm
jumping gemini
reset

I'm off to bed

Right now this is the card magic I'm performing (with an ordinary deck of course). I figure that names on their own aren't worth much, so I'll give a bit of background as well:

Kick Start Aces
Which is my favourite Duffie effect - the participants find the Aces themselves in a direct and nicely structured two-phase piece.

Sandwich Aces
Yup, right from Wilson's Complete Course, and it really slays them. Everytime. I love it

Classic Eleven Card Trick
From Art of Astonishment - excellent effect! Lots of fun, lots of participation and lots of magic!

Degrees of Freedom
The Bannon effect which everybody seems to love from Dear Mr. Fantasy - and for good reason! Everything seems to happen by their choice which really hits them hard.

Power of Poker
Again from the Bannon book, but a David Solomon effect which is a brilliant take on the ten card poker deal with them making all of the choices - and despite that you still end up with the winning poker hand! It's fairness and hands-off nature from the performer means this also gets them.

Offworld
A David Britland effect and my favourite handling of OOTW.

A Tale of the Unxpected
Another Britland bit of magic and it's a superb handling of the Signed Transversal Triplet.

My ACR (Provided I've got a pen on me)
It's a classic and leaves them with an impossible item to take away with them...

My Speller
Like a fair bit of card magic I do, this focuses on the participant and their actions, and is pretty much hands off from me.

That's what I'd do right now if somebody hands me an unprepared pack. It changes over time of course, and there's jazz performances but that's that!

i never have anything other than a normal deck... havent used a gimmicked deck for years to be honest.

Ackermans 76 trick
my version of ACR
Larry Jennings oil and water
Biddle effect
Hitman
(cant remember the name of this one but 4 aces are placed onto 4 piles of cards and found in various ways.. on one of the ETMCM dvds?)

the_mog wrote:i never have anything other than a normal deck... havent used a gimmicked deck for years to be honest.

Same here actually. Although I do carry a BCS deck.

(cant remember the name of this one but 4 aces are placed onto 4 piles of cards and found in various ways.. on one of the ETMCM dvds?)

Henry Christ's "Fabulous Four Ace Trick"? Of which Bannon also has a lovely handling

My current list of regular deck stuff includes:

Departure Time
Last Trick Of Dr. Daley
Biddle Trick
My Ambitious Card Handling
Imposters (Great signed card routine from Sankey Sander's Sessions)
Invisible Palm
Invisible Cards (Amazing trick involving an ID of cards and a "Magician Failed" setup)
Partial Knowledge (Sankey's 3 Card Monte)
Out Of This World (Derren Brown's method)
All-In-One Card Trick (By a friend of mine, Craig Petty, has a triumph, collectors and signed card to pocket premise all in one trick, AMAZING!)

Although many people wouldn't consider it a normal deck trick I have been performing card to wallet alot recently as I carry my card wallet around nearly everywhere with me and often use it as my normal wallet.

shaneking wrote:What tricks would you do with them ?

my entire routine. which has mostly already been said.

I must help Tomo's sales with regard to the stripper deck book he sells. I shall do this by mentioning that top international magician Paul Potassy uses nothing but stripper decks at every performance. He purchased a lifetime supply from a dealer in Chicago decades ago and does not use regular cards at all.

I don't know the name of the trick, it's pretty simple. They pick a card, look at it and put it back in the deck. I say I will find it by sense of touch but as I fan through the cards their card is put in face up. I scold them for screwing the trick up and ask them to pick another card... same thing happens, I scold them again. I play it real dry and serious.

By the third time it usually gets pretty funny.

(I've even had some guy shove the spectator and say "come on, just let him do the trick!")

I say "forget it, I quit" and 9 times out of ten they so "no, do something else"

It has a nice way of turning bad spectators into good ones.

I know they say to never do the same trick twice but this one I do 3 times in a row but the move is so simple that as hard as they try to spot it they never do (as of yet) and it drives them crazy.

If anyone knows the name, if it has one, please tell me.

Some ambitious card is always good too ofcourse.

Normally I jump into tricks at school or something after we've been playing cards. I normally start off with something stupid like just fixing the deck and dealing myself four aces or something. Then I might go into A Poker Player's Picnic, then I do some three card monte, then two card monte, then Design for Laughter, and finally Ambitious Ace Through Five.

The Keymaster wrote:No problem


Great routine, really demonstrates Derrens creativity and how you can make an effect your own. You gotta love the "in" joke too!

This is a quality effect, but its done completley by the spectator, so mit cant be akin to 'out of this world' in terms of method, just wondering if its all done literally on the strength of feeling the undertaker gets from the pictures?

why can't it be akin to out of this world? The only difference is that Derren used pictures instead of playing cards.

Ziggy, if you're interested in seeing how it was done then get hold of the Devil's Picturebook by Derren. I contains some of the most original and interesting card magic you'll ever see. The thing he does with the pictures is exactly the same method he shares for his version of Out Of This World in DPB. In DPB it's a card trick, but in Trick Of The Mind he does it with a very different presentation even though it's the same trick.