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Hello all!

I want to put together a full suit production. This appeals to me because a) drunk specs can't mess it up as it's 'hands off' and b) it would be endlessly repeatable so wouldn't have to worry about that awkward spec who follows me around the whole time (there's always one!). I just think it would be good to have just one card routine that I can perform in any situation, stood or seated, surrounded, regular shuffled deck (maybe with a corner short card), etc. It would play like this:

* shuffled deck
* they name a suit
* I remove the cards of that suit to 'check they're all there'
* I apparently shuffle the suit into the deck
* I produce each of the cards in order

That third point, I think that is fine if I'm presenting the effect as 'this is how gamblers cheat by controlling the cards' rather than 'I'm so magical I can just produce any card at any moment'. I'd just take them out and put them in order.

I used to have a memorised stack, which could of course be used for producing an entire suit, but these days I just don't like carrying a memorised deck around. I already have the Extractor, a deck in Sam the Bellhop stack order and a shuffled deck for Ambitious Card etc; I don't want to have to carry a fourth deck. So, I'm happy to lose something if it means I can use the shuffled deck...

My question is, can anyone name a DVD that either teaches a really good full deck production routine or that just teaches lots of card productions? I'm not good learning from books.

To give you an idea of my skill level, I have some awesome force shuffles which even fool close friends after they've seen them dozens or even hundreds of times, I can do a pretty good one handed Charlier cut and hot shot cut (I think that's what it's called), I have no pass and my fan is a bit of a mess. I can faro perfectly with a bridge/waterfall.

Any help appreciated!

I guess it would be good to have a 'fair' way of losing the cards in the deck rather than just dumping them on top then false shuffling. But the main thing is the productions.

Past Midnight has a few good ones. They're on discs 1 & 2 I think.

you should also consider that there are many mechanisms for constructing your old memdeck from a shuffled deck.

8 Faro's returns the deck to original order, and if you want the cards to be returned fairly then you could just use a shift to control them to where you like.

the stackman wrote:you should also consider that there are many mechanisms for constructing your old memdeck from a shuffled deck.

True. But I think they're quite slow? I mean, there's not going to be a quick way to assemble 52 cards, surely? And I only need the order of 13 of them. I want to keep this quick and simple.

In which case, maybe a four Aces production is better. But that might be a tad TOO quick.

I want it to be like the four Aces production on Bill Malone On the Loose vol 1:
Bill Malone - Cheating in Las Vegas with the Aces
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J_VpTY4_Fi0

But with NO TABLE REQUIRED and with a full suit.

In practise, if I feel the need I could speed things up by revealing some of the cards in clumps, like, 'We insert the ace here and the cards start rising to the top' (side steal, riffle it to the top, start plucking off cards). Maybe reveal the first five all together like that, then reveal the next eight individually. More involving than just producing four aces but wouldn't go on forever.

And I'd like to be able to 'jazz' with this. So maybe I'm after a DVD that just teaches lots of ways to produce a card rather than a DVD that teaches a really specific routine?

phillipnorthfield wrote:8 Faro's returns the deck to original order, and if you want the cards to be returned fairly then you could just use a shift to control them to where you like.

Shift... is that where you fan the deck and insert the cards, then close the fan and cut the cards out, as on The Devil's Picturebook and on the Malone as referred to above? I could probably do that. Maybe I'd need to work on my fan a bit... So it can be done with 13 cards? I can't see why not actually.

Not sure how the faros would help as they'd have to be all together in the first place. Unless you mean:
- insert the suit into the fan
- multiple shift thingy
- 8 faros while I'm chatting about gamblers and stuff

Is that what you mean?

I guess, you don't have to fan the cards though if you don't want, you can just place them half in/half out and do the shift whilst doing a hindu-shuffle.

Also, I just had a quick attempt at that, I wouldn't do the shift with all 13 cards at once, makes the move far to obvious. I'd probably shift half the deck so the cards on the bottom are A - 6 with the ace on the bottom. Then take half the deck, place the 7 through the king on and reverse them by shuffling them one at a time so they are on the bottom. Then you have to halves with half a suit in order which you can shuffle together if you like, making sure the A-6 falls, then the 7-k then shuffle genuinely, or leave each half, and produce as you like.

Apologys if that sounds far too complicated Just how I'd approach it.

It would probably be easier just to false shuffle a stacked deck though instead.

I don't really like fans. To me they feel a bit too fancy-girly, like you're a geisha girl or something! I'm sure most magicians will disagree. And as I mentioned, I just don't seem to be good at it. So I'll prob do it as you suggest.

Not quite sure of the handling though. I just insert them into one of the long sides of the closed deck so they're poking out, then swivel them around as though I'm inserting them, and pull them out and dump the rest of the deck on top as I begin the hindu?

The Devil's Tailor wrote:

the stackman wrote:you should also consider that there are many mechanisms for constructing your old memdeck from a shuffled deck.

True. But I think they're quite slow?

the card ordering typically takes place during the course of a couple of effects, sometimes with a half stack effect in between. my memdeck routine always takes place from a shuffled deck. the absence of a table though really does present a problem.

perhaps a gambling demo is not the way to go if you are limited to in the hands performing?

I think it should be doable. phillipnorthfield's ideas (thanks for those, Phillip) for inserting and 'losing' the cards should work. Manually finding the 13 cards at the start might be a bit tedious, but I can easily think of some patter to keep the spec occupied. Then it's just a question of learning a bunch of productions. I already have about four or five. (Suggestions anyone?)

...

As for the stack idea, I might consider that, but I want to be able to do just this one effect. The way that you suggest, I'd have to do another effect or two first to set up the stack.

Having said that, I'm considering memorising the deck after four faros. That way I can:

* apparently shuffle the deck into order by completing those last four faros

* perform the four suit production with any named suit without having to manually search for the 13 cards, just by completing those last four faros as above but in this case not showing that the cards are in order

* perform regular memorised deck effects with the cards halfway through those eight faros, ie four faros away from new deck order

...

The question here is, after four faros does the deck look like a shuffled deck or are there obvious patterns? If I recall, there are clear patterns if you really look. (I don't have a deck to hand at the moment.) But maybe there is a way around this? Maybe you can displace, say, five of the cards to disrupt the order? Like this:

1 The cards are in new deck order, two suits running Ace>King, two running King>Ace

2 I subtly move a small number of cards in some way. This is the bit I need help with. What would be quick and subtle but would break up the patterns after the four faros?

3 I do the four faros

4 I can then show the cards face up and they'll look shuffled

5 I do a further four faros

6 I undo the displacement of the cards (do the reverse of whatever I did in number 2 above)

Anyone know what I could do to displace the cards so that the cards would look shuffled after the four faros? I once experimented with this a lot and couldn't figure it out.

you could use a mirror or stay stack.

Isn't that where you just faro four times?

a 'natural' stay stack is where the cards begin (and end) in fournier order:

AS-AK AH-KH KD-AD KC-AC

the end product is a stack where every card has its mate in it's numerical opposite possition. a very powerful tool.

it's main bonus to you is that it four faros from the above starting arrangement (ie. half way through the faro wheel) the mixture of colour, value and suit is a lot more deceptive than starting from USPCC set-up. obviously you can faro it into that starting position as well.

something else you may consider is the fact that if the work is taking place in your hands, nobody is going to have the opportunity to apply any real scrutiny to the order of the cards.

Maybe that's the answer I need. I just put the cards into Fournier order and do four faros and memorise that. If you can suggest something simple that I can do, such as reverse a small batch of cards, to make it extra deceptive, maybe I should so do. What if I took out just one card from one suit and put it in a different place? I'll try it when I have a deck to hand but if you already know of anything specific that would work...

heres a tip. get a deck and put it in fournier order and then faro four times and spread the deck. note how deceptive (or not it is). then cut the deck at any point. do this a couple of times.

now spread the cards.....