talkmagic.co.uk

25 Amazing Magic tricks with a Stripper Deck

(Available from most magical retailers)

Price: £9.99 (about $20)

Difficulty: 2 (not really sleights, more getting used to handling a stripper deck)

They say:
“The Stripper Deck is one of the most ingenious magical tools ever devised. This broadcast quality DVD teaches you how to use the special secret of the Stripper Deck to perform 25 miraculous feats - just as if you were a professional sleight of hand artist.

With DVD technology, learning magic is easier than ever. By freezing frames and jumping to specific explanations and performances, it becomes simple to master the fundamentals of these marvelous magic tricks.

This DVD will teach you how to:

Force someone to choose a card you already know!
Cut directly to any card in the deck - even after it has been shuffled!
Cause a card to mysteriously rise from the deck!
Magically separate the red and black cards from a shuffled deck - in seconds!
And much, much more”

I say:

For the price, this DVD isn’t going to be an serious, in-depth examination of the possibilities the stripper deck hands to you, but it should give you enough that, with some practice, you can become a competent handler with a small armoury of effects upon which you can build using the techniques taught.

Presented by Dave Hudspath, the only production glitch is the speed at which the guy talks. It reminded me of Paul Daniels going at full pelt during one of his sideshow routines. Having said that, his explanations are very clear and his handling is precise enough to overcome this.

He starts with the basic strip, and gradually advances through various techniques for finding or forcing an object card. One for the restaurant worker uses a butter knife and a paper napkin. After stabbing through the length of the wrapped deck with the knife, ripping away the napkin reveals the object card. That one stands up as an effect in itself, but because the stripper deck is useable as a regular one, it’s also worth knowing for the regular card mechanic. Rubbing your finger, placing it on top of the deck, pulling it upwards and extracting the object card with "static charge" is impressive too.

If it inspires you to go further, you’ll outgrow the first handful of tricks on this DVD quite quickly, but the techniques underlying all the effects have scope for development. Though this DVD never really gets into combining techniques into something more complex, by the end it gets into some interesting areas. Multiple object cards, for instance, allow you to repeatedly cut an odd or an even number of cards, or cheat at poker on demand with a genuinely shuffled deck. As sleight-of-hand magicians know, the key card is a particularly powerful technique, and here it is too.

This DVD favours stripping over shuffling techniques, which is a good indication of the target audience. That’s not to put the DVD down, but with simple shuffles, you can control the object card to tight areas of the deck making the use of the gimmick look more natural when you do call upon it. Exclusive use of the gimmick, I feel, raises undue suspicion. My own research among the friends I bored while learning the basics myself shows that, because the strip and the turn are moves with which people are not familiar, they stand out if you use them too much. This gets people thinking, and that’s not good for inducing that “magical” state in your spectators.


Overall

This is probably a DVD for someone who has had a stripper deck for a while, knows its basic handling, but hasn’t really used it, rather than one you’d buy if you’ve never touched a deck of cards before. If you’re learning card magic already, the routines contained might inspire you to get into the deck’s own unique possibilities in more depth as well as learning traditional sleights. If you can figure out how to use an independently shuffled stripper deck to produce a royal flush later on during a regular poker game, you’ll probably want something that starts a little more in-depth and goes deeper.

Score:

As an introduction to the stripper principle and its possibilities, 9/10.

Thx, i found yr review interesting. the stripper deck is the first deck of cards i bought. i like it because the cards are "truely examinable" (to a point) and so as i am learning it is a helpful thing to have.

i dont understand yr ref to "static" and a stripper deck. can u pls give me a little more info??? thank you for the review.