talkmagic.co.uk

I have only just got one last week (sold to me by an extraordinarily grumpy Jerry Sadowitz...but, hey, I would be grumpy having to work in London)....anyway.....I digress....

didn't like it out of the box!.......so now, trying my best to not give anything away (this would be a lot easier in the restricted section)..

odd black to 5, then even black, even red to 6 then odd red...

....if it doesn't make sense then good..if it does you probably have either made similar changes yourself or NOW have a more visually appealing way of handling the deck

If a moderator thinks that I have tipped the gaff then by all means edit away

odd black to 5, then even black, even red to 6 then odd red...

Beer4 - not sure what you mean by this - maybe you could pm with some details if you are worried about giving anything away. To be honest though - on the occasions where I do the ID - it has always gone very well with absolutely no one suspecting anything.

There are "improved" versions with even bigger kicker endings. (like Sankey's for example) but I still the the ID is pretty good as it is.

I also don't follow, and have never had even the slightest problem with my ID. I feel that it handles fairly naturally as is, and wouldn't change it at all. The only thing I can think that you mean is that you have re-stacked the cards so that you have an inkling of where the chosen card is to be located before you start to run through the deck.

I too am slightly confused (but that's quite usual before the coffee kicks in), but I think that you must be (as Nick suggests) trying to re-stack the deck to make location easier?

It's obviously possible to stack the deck as you wish... but the kind of 'random' approach makes it FAR less suspicious.

We are in danger of crossing the line as far as tipping the gaff goes, so as the other guys have said, PMs will probably be the safest route from here.

decided to delete it......will pm

...you'll probably be dissapointed as it it is as groundbreaking as mushy pea falling off a spoon....

Ah. I mean what you see.

But you're probably suffering from a little thing called 'magi paranoia'.

OK, so I made that bit up, but it's how I'd describe the paranoia and fear that a spectator 'knows what you know'.

Be honest, before you buy a trick, you think 'how the heck did they do that???'

When it arrives and you read the lowdown, you are suddenly enlightened and aware. But remember: your spectators are virginal and innocent (sometimes...).

It is important to put things in context, and the context is that you are the magician, they are the spectator. You are 'acting' - seeing and doing something TOTALLY different to what you need to be PERCEIVED as being seen to do.

This is the art of illusion, obviously - and yet it is sometimes something we need reminding of.

Think of it in the context of the ID, from the spectators viewpoint, you're simply spreading the cards and showing one card to be face down.
This is basically all they're expecting. What YOU'RE really doing is unknown to them, as it's not even an issue, as they don't know what's about to happen.

And even when they DO (i.e. when you repeat the effect), they're certainly not counting cards. They're watching for you TURNING a card over - which is something they're EXPECTING the second time around.

Obviously, you don't - which they will find even more profoundly baffling.

And, there's no heat on you whatsoever as to whether the deck is in order - because they choose a random card each time - a choice of 52.

There's a lot of psychology and confidence involved in tricks like this - and it's only when you get the jaw-drop of a bunch of folks that the REAL magic starts and your confidence builds.

my ID goes spade to heart and club to diamond and the numbers add up to 13 ( done as bast as i can to write it without giving too much away) if you need more help then you can always PM me

I have felt much more comfortable now that I have changed things around and it is working very succesfully....but you wouldnt BELIEVE some of the explanations I have had as to how I did it!

The best one was that I have TWO decks in my back pocket, the first is in deck order and while I am getting the ID out, which takes all of half a second, I riffle through and COUNT to the right card in the ordered deck. Take it out and out and put it in the case of the ID....THEN I have still got to put into the middle of the ID upside down!

...AND ALL OF THIS TAKES A FRACTION OF A SECOND!!!!.....bloody hell, if i could do that I would change my name to Scarne!!!

When I get weird and wonderful explanations such as that - I just say "Yep - thats how I did it" - as a) this stops them from thinking any more about how it was really done, and b) as you said yourself, if we could do some of the things they suggest it really does make us extraordinary performers in anyones book.

I usually explain by saying - "it's a weird fact, but everyone chooses the 3 of spades (or whatever card)".

Know what you mean, squire...

The most awkward (and perhaps most inventive and credible) explanation I've heard from a speccy for the ID is that I looked for their card and when I find it, I rotate it beneath the pack with my fingers.

The reason that this was so funny is that due to the nature of the effect, I was unable to let the spectator see beneath the deck as I spread it out (I think you all understand my point).

This further frustrated him, as he kept insisting that because I wouldn't let him see what was beneath, he must have been correct.

So, later on, after a few more tricks, I happened to have loaded upon myself a card index - and only one card was missing from it, after a prior effect.

So, I whipped out a deck of cards and went 'mano y mano' with my suspecting spectator and told him I'd try and do something miraculous... I spread the whole deck face down on the table, and asked him to mentally visualise a card (a-la-invisible deck). I stood back away from the cards - hands in pockets innocently (yeah, right). Luckily, and there was a 1 in 52 chance - he didn't pick the card which had already been taken from the index.

Seconds after he'd said his card, I palmed it out of the index as I asked him to gather the deck from the table and square it up. I reached over and grabbed the face down deck...

"So, how could I turn your card over if I can't even see what the cards are?" and during the ensuing eye contact, I loaded the face-up palmed card onto the bottom of the face-down deck. A quick 'pass cut' to get the bottom card into the centre, and I re-tabled them.

The whole thing took about 5 seconds - and the deck remained face down the whole time. I put my hands in the air and said 'So, you agree, there's NO WAY I could have rotated your cards?'

I turned the deck face-up and ribbon spread it - one card was face down, and to my absolute joy, it was also the only blue card in the red deck (a real bonus - the index set is all blue!).

"OK, so there's ONE card turned FACE DOWN and it's got a different coloured back!"

The guy reached in, took out the card and smiled - 'Fair play! OK, so I was wrong, how the f&&k did you do that???'

Ahh, memories...

just remember it as
"I went to a diamond club last night"

i always find that handing them an ID to shuffle is good. especially if they start shuffling and you tell them they havent even taken it out the box! then they inevitably drop one and it happens to be the one in your pack.
you could always pretend to put a card into their head, if its someone you dont really like then you can shake their head aggresively to do this!

This 'magi paranoia' thing crossed my mind too with the Invisble Deck... my Mum asked why the card she chose just 'happened' to be at that point in the deck, almost in sequence

Having spent a week working away from home, in a B&B, with no-one to talk to (no, please, stop crying, I don't want your sympathy...), I spent some time practising my magic.

I found that with the ID, simply pulling the face down card out of the pack a little, then squaring the entire deck except for the sticky-outy facey-downy card, which is, well, sticking out and facing down, you can then pluck the card from the deck, and your spectator will not notice the matching sequence of cards around it.

Does that make sense?

*cough* buy brainwave!

Move the cards around it around, no sequence is necessary for the method to work. As regards Brainwave, it is very good first time but it isn't really repeatable like ID, I would go for the ID everytime.