I love card magic.
I love card tricks. Nothing is more satisfying knowing you can give astonishment and magic feelings to someone with a few pasteboards.
The last few years I have been addicted to SELF WORKING CARD MAGIC. The Semi Automatic series put out by Steve Beam is a gold mine. The Self Working Card Magic books put out by Karl Fulves are another gold mine. The most recent release from John Bannon is great too!
There are other collections of self working tricks by Stanyon, Jordan, Annemann and the list goes on for miles.
I recently released a download through Ellusionist called Self Working Card Magic with some of my creations. Two of my favorites are the Card Thru Shoe and a self working Ace Production that happens by spectator's own hands. http://www.ellusionist.com/self-working-card-tricks.html
But, I honestly believe I have created some of my BEST Self Working Card Magic most recently. I have a new collection of about a dozen effects that I'm in love with and can't wait to share with you.
Something I absolutely LOVE is finding a new card trick that is either VERY CLEVER, HAS A NEW METHOD, OR A NEW/FRESH PLOT.
I recently read this really cool card trick called "Match It" by Tom Osborne and Lu Brent.
The idea is soooo clever and simple.
Get any four of a kind, say the four kings, together and force one of them, cutting the others to the top of the deck. Turn your back, while the card is being displayed, taking this opportunity of pushing the three other kings up your sleeve or under your belt/in your waste-band.
Hand the deck to the spectator, have him replace his card, shuffle the deck vigorously and hand the cards to you behind your back. State that you are going to attempt to find the chosen card and the three that match it......with the cards behind your back. Face forward and pull the three kings back out of your sleeve and onto the deck and bring forward the top king and place it on the table face down.
Now false shuffle and cut and lay the second king down. Repeat so there will be three kings on the table. Repeat the false shuffle and deal an indifferent card to make four cards total. Three kings and one indifferent card.
At this point state that you believe you are correct but that you would like to check up before continuing. Fan rapidly through the deck, locate the 4th king, bring it to the top and blandly announce that you have indeed been successful.
Ask the spectator to name his card, pick up the 4th king from the top of the deck, flip over the indifferent card, executing a MEXICAN TURNOVER SWITCH and continue flipping over the other three with the indifferent card.
THE END
what a great trick right??? The idea of sleeving the cards, or putting them in your back pocket even, is brilliant. Not only is it a great way to control the cards but there is always that moment when you turn around "while they look at their card and show it around". This moment is always a great moment to do something sneaky because they are not paying attention to you at all.
SO. My goal, and my challenge to you is this.
Can we take out the Mexican Turnover? Can we make it self working?
One of my favorite solutions to a problem like this is to eliminate the move and replace it with a unique subtlety, unique movement or unique presentation twist.
There is really no wrong answer. But lets have some fun!!! I'll post my thoughts and solution in a day or two. : ) Have fun!!! : )
Kranzo
1
Peter Nardi’s Butterfly Effect is a pretty unbelievable selfworker. Check it out on Youtube or over at Alakazam.co.uk
The only thing I could think of was a top change but that’s not self working.
The Linking Ring had a card trick that was almost self working. You say that you are going to demonstrate card skills (after controlling the card to the top). Cut the cards in half (tow piles of 26 cards). If you are off by a few cards make an excuse. Count the cards face down on the table thus reversing their order. If you were off on your cut and only had 25 cards in the pile the chosen card is 25th from the top. The number 25 consists of two numbers, a ‘two’ and a ‘five’. Add them together and you get ‘7’ Deal down to the 7th card and it is wrong. Say, “Numbers are a bad way to find cards. The chosen card is 18th from the top. You just need a magic phrase now. If your phrase is 17 letters the chosen card is next. The phrase I use is ‘happy birthday to you’. At christmas I used ’Merry Christmas Baby”
I hpoe this made sense.
The sentence makes it crystal clear, now.
You get a lot for your money with John Bannon’s The Bannon Triumph. It’s really a sidelong glance at the triumph idea as the face-up cards remain face up but just happen to be the remaining 12 cards in the suit of the chosen card.
Hey Kranz,
There’s one self-working effect I’ve done so long I have no idea where I learned it. After making the four aces appear, lay them face up in a row, count three cards face down on top of each ace. Then turn the aces over so that they are face down as well. Pick up each pile and lay them on top of each other. Explain to the audience that if you were to deal the cards back out, every fourth card would be an ace, instead you are going to shuffle them first. Proceed to do so and then deal the cards face down into piles again. The aces will automatically be in one pile together.
(What’s the secret?) You must cut the cards, not shuffle them.
This allows you to do one of several things: If you glimpse the cards as you deal them back down, getting a look at which pile the aces are in, you can do a magicians force, having the audience pick a pile, etc. until the only pile left has all the aces. Or, you can simply let it play out and have them choose a pile. If they happen to pick the pile with the aces first or last, it’s a miracle but no matter what it’s still a solid effect. It’s one I’ve often taught people. A subtlety I’ve often used is to slightly push forward the pile containing the aces. You’ll be surprised how many people will choose it first.
Stay Groovy,
Tony Brent
Orlando, FL
I love self working/semi automatic card tricks. I am hooked on them myself. The truck you posted is a great example of a fun trick to do. Here are current favorites of mine I do regularly.
4 Way Coincidence – Murray and it’s many variations
The Contest-Dobrowolski/Oschmann variation of Poker Players Picnic in my lecture notes a couple of years back “Tom and His Merry Men”
Big 4 Poker- Dobrowolski
“Cheater Cheater Pumpkin Eater”- lie detector trick from my notes “The Experts at the Breakfast Table”
Deepest Sympathy – Steinmeyer
Missing Player – DaOrtiz
I’m always on the lookout for more!- Tom
I would corner short the force card making it easy to find in a shuffled deck. With a borrowed deck I would crimp the force card or make it a breather. To make it self working us the Cross Cut Force.
1.) Begin with three kings already sleeved or in your back pocket. After forcing the fourth king, you can now hand the deck to the spectator before you turn around and ask him to show his “selection” to the other spectators. It’s less suspicious to leave the deck behind when you turn around, instead of carrying it with you out of sight. And, it’ll then be particularly clean to have the spectator insert the king into a deck that he has been holding for a while, and for him to do that (and shuffle) while your back is still turned.
2.) Or, force a king and turn around taking the deck with you while that king is shown, as in the original handling. While your back is turned, switch the whole deck for another – the second deck has the other three kings on top, plus a juicy 48-card stack under it. When you turn back around, allow the spectator to very, very fairly insert the king anywhere in the deck, but omit the shuffle. Now you can perform the original effect as described, and then follow up with an effect that exploits a full-deck or nearly-full-deck stack.
The switch is easy if you’re wearing a jacket – Drop the first deck into your topit and have the second deck tucked into your waistband, for example.
Some ideas for the stack: (1) A red/black separation – it would be trivially easy to casually insert the red kings somewhere into the red half and the black kings somewhere into the black half after performing the first effect. (2) Have the rest of the deck organized into all the other four-of-a-kinds, in order. AAAA222233334444, etc. After you find the four kings, you can now immediately do a Spectator Cuts The Aces effect, or you can invite the spectator to just name ANY four of a kind, which you then promptly produce. A marked deck would be the best way to cut the deck at the right place for the named four of kind, but you could also estimate where to cut, take a quick peek to see how good your estimate was, and adjust as needed.
3.) Leave the deck behind when you first turn around, while the forced king is shown. Next, allow the spectator to insert the forced king anywhere in the deck and then allow them to shuffle, all while your back is turned. Turn to face the spectator and retrieve the deck. Now when you carry the deck behind your back to begin locating the kings, switch the deck – old deck goes into one back pocket and new deck comes from the other other back pocket. Alas, there’s more heat on the switch with this method, but it allows the spectator shuffle, and it eliminates the Mexican Turnover since the switched-in deck has all four kings on top, of course. (Plus that nice fat stack under them.)
4.) To eliminate the Mexican Turnover, just have the forced king be a short, corner short, crimped, or thick card. Riffle to locate it.
Or, give all four kings one of these treatments. Now you can use a safer and easier classic force, where you only have to force any one out of the group of four kings that you’ve maneuvered into classic-force position.
Match it seems borderline self working as is.
The little discrepancy at the end can be overcome with a time delay misdirect I would think.
Just take king #4 and lay it in the row on the table.
Recap what you have done then turn the cards over.
Presented well it will just fly by your Spectators.
My favorite self working piece is as follows:
A-10 of a suit (clubs) on the bottom of the deck
Card is chosen
Deck is cut and card is replaced
Stack is placed on chosen card when completing the cut
Cut until you hit one of the clubs
Card is that many from the top
Reveal as you see fit
I like to ask them to choose a number between one and ten
Then I just ensure the number of clubs is set to reveal their card at that number
This is very easy to do
I find that counting down with the cards draws attention to the fact they are in order by suit without calling it out
Then the reveal puts it over the top for them
I accidentally left out a sentence that made it confusing
Now it makes sense
Please re-read
I guess I’m confused by the “indifferent card” and the need for a Mexican Turnover. I’d just show their card and turn over the other three kings.
Of course you can. You have to force that card in the first place, right? Therefore, just corner-shorten it; cut it to the top of the pack after the spectator’s shuffling, & prior to adding the stolen 3 matched cards back in. Voila.
Thanks,
Quaid