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Im learning a new routine where I have to be careful that I dont spread past a certain amount of cards. One spec needs to pick one of the first 10, then one from the next 15 etc.

Im not able to count as quickly as I spread them, so I thought a pencil dot would be a nice visual check, although I've never used them before.

Does anyone here use pencil dots in card routines? have you ever been caught? is there a best type of pencil? or do you have any other advice?

any tips would be a great help as the routine is amazing but i cant do it justice yet.

thanks

pencil dots.. use them all the time. In fact I go further, I use dots drawn on in blue biro. That way I don't miss em. just put them in the corner, on the white boarder close to the back design. Only you will spot them because only you know that they are there, and only you will be looking for them,:)

use red biro with a red back deck.

Thats a great idea, thanks

Rather than pencil dots why not use a thick card every 10th position ?
Fan and spread the cards from your left hand to your right
Your left fingers will feel the right side of the the thick card well before you open up the spread. Keep that lower portion of the deck 'closed' in your left hand
With thick cards you can even look away as if you don't want to see where their card was and you can perform this in places with bad lighting.

the downside to using locator cards, is you have a deck with thick cards in it. Using dots, the deck can be shuffled, handled by spectators, and used straight away for anything else.. and as a bonus, you can destroy that deck, in any way you want, and get another one made up in seconds.

Another possibility is a pinprick, just enough to give you a raised bump which you can feel.

Barry

if its envelopes, I use a single grain of rice inside. that raises a bump nicely. ( but I also dot the thing too, just in case)

Just to chuck another idea into the pot, I nail nick the edge of cards. It makes them easy to spot if you're spreading the pack as well as making them visible if you're looking at the deck side on.

I know that what I say only comes with experience. But I estimate. I roughly know what 10 cards looks like as I'm spreading the cards, I stop and hold out the deck and have them choose, As I turn to the next spectator I close that spread into the left hand and spread out the next batch.

Again, good to learn this stuff when you don't need it, so try this when openly allowing a spectator to choose a card for a different routine. It won't be long before you realize that it is not difficult and becomes automatic. Then go into the effect you need to use it on. (and of course that will be the time you screw it up, but usually only the first time). At least in my case anyway.

My pencil dots DVD is out next week, but here's a preview...
get a pencil
make a dot in the corner
done

I'm mean, really!?

Hang on, say that again slowly, I'm making notes....