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Hi,

I thought that I should share this one. Just in case somebody thinks his/her presentation went bad, yesterday I really had my worst performance ever. I'm sorry if it's a bit long, but you may get a good laugh out of it.

Was out with a couple of colleagues and finally decided to do a few card effects. I just had a regular deck with Osterlind BCS stack with me, no ID/BW or other backups (not good, not good).

I took the cards out of the box, did a false shuffle and asked my neighbor to open the deck somewhere in the middle, take the card and think about it. While I was trying to fish for the card (but asked her not to show any conscious reaction) I wanted to call her card. This is a 100% effect and cannot possibly go wrong. Or so I thought ...

First, she wasn't a native speaker and had troubles with the suits. Then I got her card wrong - I told her 8 of clubs, but it was the 6 of spades. Well, a near miss with luck, but I was totally confused. How could that possibly have happened?

Then somebody noticed that a card had stuck in the inside of the card box to the seal (it was a bike deck). And guess what? Yeah, it was the 8 of clubs!

The chance of not getting all cards out of the box and then hitting exactly this one card ...

Next, I tried the Corinda effect with another spectator, but this time he didn't follow my instructions and somehow the cards ended up on the table the wrong way with no cards being turned over. I don't think it was my instructions since everybody else on the table was able to repeat them to the guy handling the cards. But he just gave me a confused look and didn't understand what I meant by "turning the card over and inserting it in the middle of the deck". Apparently, he had turned the card along the wrong axis or something ...

Man, if I could do real magic, I should just let myself disappear or produce an ID out of thin air.

Hi rumburak,

Sorry you had a bad day but it happens.

Couldn't you have palmed their card off and produced it from your pocket/wallet etc etc...or taken the card from the cardbox and said "I know this is not your card but if you blow on it....." and then top changed it for their card....

I never carry a ID, I used to, but gave up on it when I found that any time I got the card wrong as long as I didn't panic....you can salvage the situation, if you panic the audience then knows you got it wrong.

I just make out that the mistake is part of the trick and do a palm, top change, mercury fold, or do anything that will make the mistake into another effect.....

Or when they say I got it wrong......I say keep thinking of your card I then do another trick...with another spectator.....and then come back to the first spectator and blatantly ask them what the card is, I then say that's funny, its now not in the deck, I look through the deck for their card, all the time saying it's definately not here and I palm it off or do the other outs I've mentioned. Not ideal but it works and gets you out of a situation....

Sorry Mods if this is exposure....edit as you see fit....rumburak, if this is edited I will PM you. If you want to know this, that is if you don't know it already....! If you want to show the card is not in the deck:

Cull it to the top, take a break under their card, turnover pass so the card is reversed on bottom, with the deck face up then show the cards in bunches, turning the cards face down to the bottom and stop on the last card face down(their card)....you will have shown all the deck and the deck will now be face down with the chosen card on top.....now palm it off if you wish.....

I hate carrying lots of different decks.....I only carry an ordinary deck now!

Jbmagic,

Thanks for your reply. These are some very useful pieces of advice. However, my skills with cards are not sufficient for some of the things you suggest.

I am practicing the DL now, this will give me access to at least one of the methods you propose. Palming is too difficult for me so far, so I have postponed trying to learn it until I have some simpler moves down. Your last suggestion - up to the palming - sounds feasible for me and I will check if this works for me.

To some extend I don't mind "missing" in mental effects. I just want the opener and closer to be 100% (although I claim "it doesn't work all the time"), while during the intermediate effects some misses may even increase credibility.

One of the things I have definitely learned now is not to let any spectator handle the cards during the 100% effects - and particularly not out of my view and control, and particularly not if he/she is not a native speaker - since this is asking for more trouble than the effect is worth

Thanks again for your feedback. I am going to do my homework now

Valuable lessons, sounds like you have learnt them too