talkmagic.co.uk

I know you guys will say ' It's your own fault for going on there ', but some chap on the Dan and Dave Forum claimed that the Pass was an ' over rated sleight '.

Can anyone else share my exasperation?

Yes, though it's your own fault for going on there.

It is overrated in todays sense. Hundreds of youtube videos showing us the many different "Invisible" passes these kids can perform. They barely learn to handle a deck of cards before learning the pass.

If learnt properly and used at the right time sparingly, it is an amazing sleight.

I'd take comfort in the realisation that people who glibly dismiss difficult things tend not to have the wit and intelligence to understand them properly

it's a very very useful sleight but I do think that quite often there are better and easier ways to achieve the same outcome.

Most things on the Dan & Dave forum are over-rated. The way they fawn over things like the clip-shift and the le paul S spread, for instance...

The pass is certainly over-rated, too, but only because lots of people who are newer to card magic talk about it like it's the best move ever invented. Something can be brilliant and still over-rated if people insist it's more brilliant than it really is. A bit like Dan and Dave themselves, when I think about it...

Yeahum. The pass is what the pass does. I'm not sure, in that sense, that any sleight can be over-rated. As Lady of Mystery says, there are often other ways of achieving the same effect, but even then the idea of sleights "competing" seems at odds with the idea of particular sleights being overrated.

That said, the webcam cowboys and those that market to them are caught in a vicious circle of puff. Not sure the opinions of the former or the marketing of the latter can be used to judge how sleights are regarded.

EDIT: Oo! Magic automatic debreviation!

queen of clubs wrote:The pass is certainly over-rated, too, but only because lots of people who are newer to card magic talk about it like it's the best move ever invented. Something can be brilliant and still over-rated if people insist it's more brilliant than it really is. A bit like Dan and Dave themselves, when I think about it...

Yes I agree it's a brilliant move. There's nothing quite able to match it for it's purpose (in my humble opinion, of course). But yes, people do tend to bang on about it.
And I think a lot of cardies develop an obsession with it at some point. I know I did - and I remember it all started when I saw the move used properly for the first time. Brilliant!

Mind you, what were you doing on th D&D forum anyway, Grimshaw?

Marvo Marky wrote:Mind you, what were you doing on th D&D forum anyway, Grimshaw?

I feel like i should be standing in some kind of virtual corner it's true.

I too got obsessed with the pass, and still am to some degree. I agree there are easier ways to control cards, and maybe better ways too but thats down to the individual.

I was all chuffed with my pass until i saw Oz Pearlman do his. Better put some more practice in i reckin.
I like watching Derren Brown do his on The Devils Picturebook because it's graceful and unhurried, the complete opposite to how i started doing mine.

For some reason I'm reminded of the kid we mocked on YouTube, who spent all his birthday money on stuff that was too advanced for him. "I've been into magic for almost a month now. I got Card College, it's these three huge books, they're too hard, I can't even read them, they're garbage. And I got the Pro PK kit, they say it's like what David Copperfield uses, I thought it would be neat but it sucks. And I got In The Trenches by Paul Green, it's too hard, it's garbage. You have to know all this hard stuff like palming. It sucks."

I've been in magic since 1990. I've worked for a magic company and I've lectured abroad. AND I've never found a reason to learn any versions of the pass. Each to their own. If you want to learn it, learn it. If you don't, it will never stop you being a good magician without knowing it.