daniel madison the card cheat handbook ................................................................... daniel madison the card cheat handbook ...................................................................daniel madison the card cheat handbook ...................................................................daniel madison the card cheat handbook ...................................................................daniel madison the card cheat handbook ...................................................................daniel madison the card cheat handbook ...................................................................daniel madison the card cheat handbook ...................................................................daniel madison the card cheat handbook ...................................................................daniel madison the card cheat handbook ...................................................................daniel madison the card cheat handbook ...................................................................daniel madison the card cheat handbook ...................................................................daniel madison the card cheat handbook ...................................................................
Trang 1THE CARDCHEAT HANDBOOK
by DANIEL MADISON VOLUME 1:
Marking Systems | Stacks | Deception at the table
Trang 3THE CARD CHEAT HANDBOOK by DANIEL MADISON
VOLUME 1: Marking Systems | Stacks | Deception at the table
Page06 Chapter 12 – The Blood Deck
Page07 Making The Blood Deck
Page08 Marking The Blood Deck
Page09 Marking Systems – Bicycle Rider Back Arc Page11 Marking Systems – Bicycle Rider Back Birds Page13 Marking Systems – Bicycle League Back Page15 Marking Systems – Tally-Ho Circle Back
Page17 Marking Systems – Tally-Ho Fan Back
Page19 Marking Systems – David Blaine Split Spades Page22 Learning The Markings
Page23 Checking For A Marked Deck
Page24 Effects With A Marked Deck
Page25 Basic Card Selection
Page34 Falling Pariah
Page34 Pariah Swami Alternative
Page37 Chapter 13 – The Blood Stack
Page38 Stacking The Deck
Page38 Learning The Stack
Page40 The Hein-Shuffle Variation
Page44 Effects With The Blood Stack
Page45 The Blood Stack Card Selection
Page46 BSSS (Blood, Stack, Swami, Sinker)
Trang 4INTRODUCTION ENTER THE BLOOD SYSTEM Welcome, and thank you much for investing in my ideas Printed here, are chapters 12 + 13 of a book I started over 5 years ago, initially titled HOW TO BECOME A PROFESSIONAL CARD CHEAT, which spent a long time under scrutiny from an unmentionable authority The ethos of the book was rejected and restrained from publication on account of its potentially dangerous material My intentions were innocent yet the information translated as a direct source of training for card cheats and therefore deemed irresponsible and dangerously suggestive Needless to say, the ironically titled book was banned from release The book was re-written and renamed as THE CARD CHEAT and was once again bound from publication as the re-penned work still upheld as far too suggestive for the training cheat
The Card Cheat Handbook epitomises the foundation of a model that I have applied to most of my repertoire since
2000, a model which thrusts effects to an elite level of performance, allowing the magician to perform flawless miracles and impossible card magic under the fairest of circumstances The effects herewith pay due attention
to the process of the effect rather than the effects themselves, as it is the method behind that supports the madness, and not the madness itself
What you are about to read is the final two chapters of The Card Cheat Handbook and the only two chapters granted publication by the said authority, the other eleven chapters remain on lock-down until further notice, some of which will be approached through the lecture notes ‘3’ and a yet-to-be-titled DVD, and some others are already lined up for The Card Cheat Handbook Volume 2
Trang 5THE CARD CHEAT HANDBOOK PREFACE Throughout Chapter 12 I will cover how to mark your own cards of the following designs…
Bicycle Rider Back – Red, Blue, Black, Green, + Special additions
Bicycle League Back – Red, Blue, Black
Tally-Ho Fan Back – Red, Blue, Black, + Special additions
Tally-Ho Circle Back – Red, Blue, Black, + Special additions
David Blaine Split Spades - Red, Blue, + Special additions
The marked deck is perceived as the most powerful utility of the cheat, it may be a tool of limited in-play opportunities, but when given and able, no cheat would miss the chance to take it for a spin It is not my place
to teach one how to adapt such an instrument of subterfuge to a poker session, and the powers that be have banned me from doing so, I am however granted the right to teach the willing how to adapt card-cheating techniques into the world of magic and illusion, through which I boldly borderline the adaptation of sleight-of-hand within the gaming sector, not something I can or would want to promote or advertise, but am still happy to share the transition within these pages
As a young veteran of gaming deception, I have experienced first hand the wealthy benefits of employing cheating techniques within performance magic, for which the use of a marked deck offers far fewer risks than at
card-a live poker tcard-able Mcard-any mcard-arked decks hcard-ave been shcard-afted into the mcard-agic orifice over the yecard-ars, from blcard-atcard-ant shit
to hidden gems, the spectrum being either or very few between The problem with bad decks is that most are produced as unique designs, usually for cheep tricksters, Christmas-crackers or granddads and in no way appropriate for the cheat, or illusionist The phenomenal gems are clever and clean yet way too expensive for the likes of the magician who spends his gigs ripping cards or having them signed by the suckers As over 90% of marking systems are made for the poker table, they don’t always bode well for the magician The Card Cheat Handbook was initially built for the card-table yet developed over the years to better suit the performing illusionist and in my modest opinion is the most compatible system for the modern magician
Throughout chapter 13 I will cover The Blood Stack, how to stack the deck, how to memorise the stack and more importantly how to use it for flawless effects In this chapter, to support the stack, I will also tech some false-shuffles and sleights that will allow the deck to appear to be shuffled
If you have yet to read any of my previous entries, you will only now be discovering my kind nature, I sincerely empathise with those performers who spend a hard earnt wage on tricks to find that most magic products on the market can be made from the price of the plastic bag they come in Each and every product I release is designed to save you the hassle and the dollar and as with each of my previous ideas, the Blood Deck was taken
to the printers, manufacturers and finally mass-distributors so that I could round up a final product price The lowest price that a manufactured Blood Deck would have cost would have been £15, per deck, and the most expense would have been £25, and that’s just for the printing And so, with these instructions and teachings you have a system that will allow you to make as many of these decks as you desire, for the quoted price of one, (plus the price of a regular deck.) The Blood System can be applied to a normal deck within 10 minutes; its design is subtle on the readers’ eye, yet invisible to the spectator, and most importantly it eliminates both the expensive and crap marked decks… You can use the deck as you would any and not worry about tearing or having any signed simply because you know that within 10 minutes you can make a new deck The deck has minimal conditions outside of the marking system and with the model of effects in the final section of this work, you’re repertoire may just supersede your every performance expectation
Enjoy
D
A magician who can cheat at cards is a good magician, a cheat who can do magic is a dangerous man
Randal Freeman
Trang 6THE CARD CHEAT HANDBOOK CHAPTER 12 THE BLOOD DECK
A card-cheat is only so when he is caught cheating
Troy ‘Scales’ Simpson
Trang 7THE CARD CHEAT HANDBOOK CHAPTER 12 THE BLOOD DECKMAKING THE BLOOD DECK
Before hitting some of the achievable effects with the system, you will first need to construct the deck…
The Blood Deck is a deck of playing cards manipulated with a series of individual deceptions ultimately offering a tool for flawless performances In it’s basic description, the blood deck is a marked deck The other secrets of the deck include a shortened Key card, a Cornered card and two duplicate cards Throughout this chapter I will explain how I make the deck exactly as I have for MY performances, once you get a glimpse at my system, you will
be able to begin developing your own to better suit your performances Lets get to work…
THE SHORT CARD
This is a card that is 1mm shorter than every other card in the deck and is used mainly as a location card Key cards are very common in magic and in my opinion are highly underestimated A shortened card has many
valuable uses, which will be covered throughout
The most ideal way of achieving a cleanly shortened card is with the use of a steel ruler, a sharp art-blade and a rubber surface to cut on although a steady hand can cut the card equally as acceptable with a pair of scissors Make sure the edges of the card are rounded and not left sharp or squared
In the deck the card is located by riffling up the back of the cards, due to the shortened card the riffle will
automatically stop wherever the card is My shortened card is always the Queen of Hearts; this is mainly for the use within the Blood Stack, which is covered much later on in this document, but it’s also the most commonly named card when asking a woman to name any For now, I would advise you use the same card merely for the purpose of the Blood Stack explanations; you can change this once you are fluent with the system
THE CORNERED CARD
The Cornered card is another key/location card which adapts the same concept as the short card Looking at the face of the card, the index corners (top left and bottom right) are cut shorter by about 1mm creating a wider curve to the corners This is achieved by the simple use of sharp scissors
When cutting the corners, make sure you don’t cut to deep creating an angle too wide, which will stand out as a manipulated card You want the card to blend in and go unnoticed if ever selected you only need to lose a
millimetre off of each opposite corner
In the deck the card can be located by riffling up/down the index corners of the deck, the riffle will automatically stop on the shortened corner The shortened card I always use is the 7 of Hearts, not only another commonly named card but an essential attribute of the Blood Stack, which again, will be covered later
THE DUPLICATES
Within the deck is a duplicate of the 4 of Clubs as well as a duplicate of the 3 of Diamonds The 3 is hidden in the box, tucked under the box flap, and the 4 is always at the bottom of the deck I’m sure you’re already aware of the many advantages of having duplicate cards, something not uncommon to magicians, once again; uses for the duplicates will be covered much later This addition to the deck is an obvious amendment to the system since its transition from a device for the card-cheat
Trang 8but some systems have taken to the manufacturer where the marked decks are actually printed making them more failsafe, however, as covered earlier, these decks tend to be too expensive for the modern performer In some cases, the same ink used by the card manufactures can be obtained offering the safest marking material possible
The Blood System uses ink readily available to most magicians, an ink so simple that nobody has ever thought that this could actually work…The Sharpie
The Sharpie has become a magic wand to the magician, a utility that can advance an effect from good to outstanding, and it’s about to gain far more value to you than ever The sceptical of you will assume this a cheap and tardy method for a marking system, cheap it may be, but it is far from trash
I have tried, tested and been 100% successful with each deck covered in this document in the colours RED, BLACK and BLUE; conveniently the most commonly available coloured Sharpies Should you be performing with a Green deck, Green Sharpies are also easy to obtain
Obviously you will need a sharpie that matches the same colour as the deck you wish to mark By a matter of concept, each of the three common inks are perfect matches for the inks used by the USPCC decks covered by the Blood System allowing for a near-flawless marking system I do advise that you do not rely on any other form
of permanent marker, many have been trailed and most do leave a tan on the face of other cards
The quality of your markings will rely on a few attributes that you have to be strict with…
The pen must have a sharp end
The pen must be new, recent or ideally unused
Do not rush when marking your cards… Keep your patience
Mark your cards under a good strong light
As long as you fill the required area of the card, use as little ink as possible
Allow each card to dry for a minimum of 30 seconds
Always practice on the advertisement cards first
Here’s how to mark your deck…
Trang 9THE BICYCLE RIDER ARC BLOOD MARKING SYSTEM
This marking system is the only reason I’ll ever use Rider Back Bikes, in my opinion, it is the most easily
accessible to read from a spread deck and marked so subtly It will take a little longer to get used to the grid, but it will be worth it
There is a small
white arch just
below the upper
left and lower right
angels This is
used as an
indicator for the
suit of the card
The white arch is unmarked to indicate a Spade
The white arch is missing which indicates a Heart
The lower half of the white arch is marked to indicate
a Clubs
The upper half of the white arch is marked to indicate
a Diamond
The five white dots
inside the circling
arch as shown
above are used as a
clock grid to
indicate the value
of the card The
dots, from left to
right will be named
The next white dot (dot 2) as marked above indicates a 2
The next white dot
as marked above indicates a 3
The last dot is marked to indicate
a 4
All cards from Ace to 4 (as above) are the most recognisable as counting the unmarked white dots to the left of the marking tells the value of the card
Trang 10As all dots are used
for the other lower
remaining cards;
these are filled 1 dot apart starting from dot 1 The 2 dots filled out above indicate an 8
The 2 dots filled out above indicate a 9
Below are a few examples of marked Bicycle Rider cards…
ACE OF SPADES JACK OF DIAMONDS SEVEN OF HEARTS FOUR OF CLUBS KING OF SPADES
The 1st dot in the
value grid is marked
indicating an Ace
The 1st 3 dots are marked to indicate
a Jack the upper
Dots last 2 dots are marked on the value grid indicating
The last dot on the value grid is marked indicating a 4 The
No dots are marked
on the value grid indicating a King,
Trang 11THE BICYCLE RIDER BIRDS BLOOD MARKING SYSTEM
This version of the system isn’t ideal for some of the effects suggested in the covering chapter but is by far the easiest to read…
The two birds in the
third quarter of the
central angel circle
holds 2 flying birds
as shown in the
image above; these
are used as
indicators for the
suit of the card
The card remains unmarked to indicate a Spade
Both birds are filled
to indicate a Heart The lower bird is filled to indicate a
Club
The upper bird is filled to indicate a Diamond
The 4 birds on the
final quarter of the
angle circle (to the
left of the angle) as
shown above are
used to indicate the
value of the card
Bird 1 is filled to indicate an Ace Bird 2 is filled to indicate an 2 Bird 3 is filled to indicate an 3 Bird 4 is filled to indicate an 4
All cards from Ace to 4 (as above) are the most recognisable as counting the unmarked white dots to the left of the marking tells the value of the card
As all birds are
used for the other
lower values, values
The 2 birds filled out above indicate a
9
Trang 12Below are a few examples of marked Bicycle Rider cards…
ACE OF SPADES JACK OF
DIAMONDS
SEVEN OF HEARTS FOUR OF CLUBS KING OF SPADES
The 1st bird in the
value grid is marked
indicating an Ace
No birds are filled in
the suit grid
indicating a Spade
The last 3 birds in the value grid are marked to indicate
a Jack The upper bird in the suit grid
is filled indicating a Diamonds
The last 2 dots are marked on the value grid indicating a 7 and both birds in the suit grid are filled indicating a Heart
The last bird on the value grid is marked indicating a 4 The lower bird in the suit grid is marked indicating a Club
No dots are marked
on the value grid indicating a King,
No birds are filled in the suit grid
indicating a Spade
Trang 13THE BICYCLE LEAGUE BLOOD MARKING SYSTEM
The Bike League design was without a doubt the hardest deck to find a suitable marking system for, initially I developed markings on the bike wheels but eventually decided that this was too much of an obvious place for one
to look should one fall suspicious Eventually I discovered a natural grid printed within the design of the card…
The two white lines
boxed above are
Both white lines are filled in to indicate a Heart
The lower white line
is filled to indicate a Club
The upper white line
is filled to indicate a Diamond
There are 4 white
lines close to the
left edge of the card
below the back
wheel of the bike as
shown above These
are used as a grid to
indicate the value
Each white line represents 3 different playing cards depending on where it is marked
The 1st white line is filled only on the left
to indicate an Ace
Moving consecutively down, the left of the
2nd white line is filled
to indicate a 2
The left of the 3rdwhite line is filled to indicate a 3
the left of the bottom white line is filled to indicate a 4
The middle of the top
white line is filled to
indicate a 5
The middle of the 2ndwhite line is filled to indicate a 6
The middle of the 3rdwhite line is filled to indicate a 7
The middle of the bottom white line is filled indicating an 8
The right of the top white line is filled to indicate a 9
Trang 14The right of the 2nd
white line is filled to
indicate a 10
The right of the 3rdwhite line is filled indicating a Jack
The right of the bottom white line is filled to indicate a Queen
The King is the only card that has no markings
Below are a few examples of marked Bicycle Rider cards…
ACE OF SPADES JACK OF DIAMONDS SEVEN OF HEARTS FOUR OF CLUBS KING OF SPADES
The top white line of
the value grid if
marked to the left
The top white line of suit indicators is marked indicating a Diamond
The middle of the 3rdline is marked indicating a 7 Both white lines of the suit indicators are marked indicating a Heart
The left of the bottom line is marked indicating a
4 The lower white line of suit
indicators is marked indicating a Club
No dots are marked
on the value grid indicating a King, the suit indicators are also unmarked indicating a Spade
Trang 15THE TALLY-HO CIRCLE BLOOD MARKING SYSTEM
The Tally-Ho Circle deck offers quite a few possibilities when creating a marking system, and as with all others covered in this chapter, I’ve steered clear of the obvious and first thoughts and avoided the clock-face idea…
The two points
shown above are
used as indicators
for the suit of the
card
No markings are applied to indicate a Spade
Both points are marked to indicate a Heart
The right point is filled to indicate a Clubs
The left point is filled
to indicate a Diamond
The horizontal lines
shown above are
used to indicate the
value of the card
The first half of the top line is marked indicating an Ace
Moving clockwise from the Ace, the
2nd half of this line is filled to indicate a 2
The first half of the lower line is marked
to indicate a 3
The right half of the lower line is marked
to indicate a 4
The entire top line is
marked out to
indicate a 5
The lower line is marked out to indicate a 6
The left half of both lines are marked to indicate a 7
The right half of both lines are marked to indicate an 8
The left half of the top line and the right half of the lower half are marked to indicate a
9
Trang 16The left half of the
bottom line and the
right half of the top
half are marked to
indicate a 10
The top line and the right half of the lower line are marked to indicate a Jack
The top line and the left half of the lower line are marked to indicate a Queen
No markings are applied to indicate the King
Trang 17THE TALLY-HO FAN BLOOD MARKING SYSTEM
The Tally-Ho Fan deck has to be the most hidden and devious marking system, and as with all others covered in this chapter, I’ve steered clear of the obvious and first thoughts and avoided the corners …
The flowers shown
above are used as
indicators for the
suit of the card
The top dot is filled to indicate a Spade
The middle dot is filled to indicate a Heart
The lower dot is filled to indicate a Clubs
No dots are filled
to indicate a Diamond
The flower above is
used as a clock grid
to indicate the value
of the card
The filled dot above indicates the start
of the Clockwise grid, this indicates
an Ace
Moving clockwise from the Ace, the
The 5th and final dot
on the clock grid
indicates a 5
The central dot on the clock grid indicates a 6
As all dots are used for the other lower values, values 7 to
10 continue clockwise filling 2 dots The 1st 2 dots indicate a 7
The 2nd 2 dots indicate an 8
The 3rd 2 dots indicate a 9
Trang 18The final 2 dots in
the clock grid are
filled to indicate a
10
2 dots are also filled to indicate face cards; these are filled one dot apart starting from the Ace The
2 dots filled out above indicate a Jack
The 2 dots filled out above follow clockwise consecutively indicating the next face card… Queen
The next 2 dots are filled in the same way to indicate the King
Below are a few examples of marked Tally-Ho Fan cards…
ACE OF SPADES JACK OF DIAMONDS SEVEN OF HEARTS FOUR OF CLUBS KING OF SPADES
The 1st dot on the
on the upper flower grid, indicating a Jack
of Diamonds
Dots 1 and 2 are marked on the clock grid indicating a 7, the middle dots on the upper flower grid
is marked indicating a Heart
The 4th dot on the clock grid is marked indicating
a 4 The 3rd dot is marked on the upper flower grid indicating a Club
Dots 3 and 5 are marked on the clock grid and dot
1 on the upper flower grid is marked indicating the King of Spades
Trang 19THE SPLIT SPADES BLOOD MARKING SYSTEM
The Split Spades deck offers very little opportunity for marking, which in most cases makes the deck more
discrete as a marked deck Looking at a Split Spades card, you see a lot of fine detail which commonly denies such marking systems as the Blood System, however, it’s because of the fine detail that allows the markings to remain bold and obvious to the reader, yet hidden to the naked eye – as all marked decks should be
On each corner of the design you will see an angel covering her face with one hand and yielding a sword in the other, which penetrates the split spade drawing blood It is the top left/lower right angel that offers our marking opportunity Notice the folds/pleats at the feet of the angels garment as squared in the first image below
(VALUE INDICATORS.) Each pleat has a fade to it as the material of the garment folds over, it is within these faded pleats that that Blood System hides
bottom faded areas
of each fold are
marked to add a
distinct fade to
indicating card value
The first pleat/fold is column 1, more shade is added to this column as above
to indicate an Ace
Shading is added to column 2 to indicate
a 2
The 3rd column is shaded indicating a
necessary if you struggle with your vision Although such attention needs to be applied to the marking process, the marks themselves, although subtle will appear very clear to the trained eye
As all 4 columns
have been used for
the previous values,
a 5 is indicated by
shading both column
1 and 2
The 2 central columns (2 and 3) are shaded to indicate a 6
Columns 3 and 4 are shaded to indicate a
Trang 20The two outer
The last 3 columns are shaded to indicate a Queen
No columns are shaded to indicate a King
Below the angels left arm - which holds the sword – are two white dots, these dots offer an ideal indication grid for which the suit of the card can be identified…
The two white dots
just below the
angels arm are used
as indicators to
identify the suit of
the card
2 white dots indicate a Spade No white dots indicate Hearts One upper white dot indicates Clubs One lower dot indicates Diamonds
Below are a few examples of marked Split Spade cards…
ACE OF SPADES JACK OF DIAMONDS SEVEN OF HEARTS FOUR OF CLUBS KING OD SPADES
Column 1 is marked
and there are 2
Columns 1, 2 and 3 and one lower dot
The last two columns (3 and 4)
The end column and the lower dot are
No markings appear
on this card,
Trang 21It’s quite important that your markings appear to be part of the design so make sure you don’t just leave a dot
on the marking area Below are a few bad examples of markings that will go noticed
2 - BAD EXAMPLE 3 - BAD EXAMPLE 4 - BAD EXAMPLE 6 - BAD EXAMPLE ACE - BAD
Make sure you get the shading right
Don’t be to bold with your markings, these markings are not subtle enough
Be careful and steady with your hand
If you are using a Sharpie to mark the deck, the ink will dry very quickly, but be sure to give the cards chance to breath and dry before touching the marked area, as once a smudge dries there is really no repair
Trang 22instantly invites speculation It will feel quite natural at first to look at the card two or three times, once to get the value, again to get the suit and once more just to check This isn’t at all ideal as again it invites suspicion that’s not needed Anything more than a single glimpse is too much of a risk so you need to get confident with the cards before you use them There are a few routines further in the document that allows you to take your time with reading the cards without any suspicion; also offering good practice for reading the marks
It’s wise to get used to reading the cards from a spread deck, as it is possible to read the markings as your spectator chooses their card, although this will come with experience and sheer practice and depends on your deck and marking preferences
Trang 23CHECKING FOR A MARKED DECK
If you know what to look for in a marked deck, you’ll better know how to handle one Commonly, when somebody falls suspicious of an illegitimate deck, two cards will be held up next to each other and the designs will be compared at an attempt to distinguish a difference between the two seemingly identical designs Only a seriously redundant system would fail this as such a system would defy it’s own purpose The most common method for checking a deck for markings is often referred to as the Movie Test, or more commonly known as the
Riffle Test The suspicious would riffle the cards with his thumb (as if it were a cartoon flip-book) whilst keeping focus on the back design of the cards As each card in a marked deck has a different marking, a change in the patterns consistency will occur and the riffled deck will become animated Knowing where your markings are you can try this with your deck; the markings will almost jump out at you Although there are marked decks designed
to combat this, there are only a few who would know of this testing method and should you follow the system rules correctly, nobody will ever think that anything other than skill (or magic) is in play
Trang 24magicians who simply developed their effect to a point of something so far beyond trickery that it needed it’s own label beyond magic, just as running is an advanced version of jogging, and a jogger next to a runner just looks lazy However, lets focus on the line that divides the two, who decides where jogging stops and running begins? There’s no form of distinction other than he was going really fast so he was running or he was running, but just running slowly so he was jogging.
Mentalism was wise when it arrived, it’s name alone categorises it apart from magic thus leaving behind all the shitty stigmas of magic, yet essentially mentalism and magic are two different types of magic Any mentalist who claims he is no magician is no mentalist either Try to find a mentalist shop that doesn’t also sell magic tricks, in fact, try find a mentalist shop at all, they are few and far between simply because all mentalists shop
at magic stores
If I had the time and could be arsed, I’d claim to the world that I was the worlds fastest jogger, I’d also be the worlds smallest giant and the worlds tallest hobbit at the same time, I’m the most intelligent stupid person ever, who decides?
The main idea of the Blood System is to make the impossible even more impossible without becoming a mentalist The concept was born from my self-analytical style of developing magic effects; to ask one if I were to meet myself, how would I amaze me?
To achieve the impossible in magic only leads to developments in magic that ultimately become effects of
mentalism When I took mentalism by the psychological balls it only meant that I had to leave behind magic, for the effects I was performing were far greater than magic and could have never been dressed down by the
perception of magic, the very essence of magic is that it is trickery, it’s not real, and I wanted to perform real magic, and mentalism was the closest thing But my magic would keep getting in the way, reactions were
different and my repertoire was missing the sheer dirty sleights and deceptive ways of magic that I just love… I couldn’t be a mentalist who also did magic, that was for Derren wannabes, and I didn’t want to be a magician who also did mentalism, for it’s these performers who draw attention to the fact that mentalism is just trickery; shame on you
The Blood System borrows the physical art of magic and is essentially a system for magic; it also borrows the thought process of mentalism A mentalism effect that borrows attributes of the magician is only a mentalism effect, yet a magic trick that employs the ideas of mentalism is magic truly beyond belief
The most common summary of magic, as most recently described by Christopher Nolan as… The Pledge, The Turn and The Prestige It is these three stages that most magicians do not follow but expect to be a natural system, which is quite a common and big mistake You can make a coin appear, or you can show an empty hand, then the coin appears in it, and then it vanishes… it served a process rather than simply appearing to be put back in a pocket…
The basic terms of a card trick require multiple stages…
1: A card is selected and unseen by the magician
2: The card is returned to the deck
3: The deck is shuffled thus losing the card
4: The card is revealed in a magical way
In this process the introduction of the cards is the Pledge, the Turn is the card being returned and shuffled, the Prestige is the revelation This is the most basic of card effects that follows the rules; it’s very poor for a magic trick and by no means reputation making However, with the appliance of the Blood System and due attention to the rules of magic, this same effect can be tweaked to the kind of trick that changes a spectators’ life forever
Trang 25BASIC CARD SELECTION
Following the same rules as the basic card effect, we can make a simple effect an ingenious one
1: A card is selected and unseen by the magician
The basic card selection requires the magician to present his cards and invite somebody to select a card If we challenge the way this is done we can heighten the atmosphere of the effect from the word go The very
presence of playing cards calls for attention; people see somebody remove a deck of cards and want to see what’s going on, simply because it’s not of the norm for a man to go everywhere with playing cards The cards alone suggest that he’s a magician, and who doesn’t want to see magic? Even if it were crap it’d be something
to witness
Whenever I’m shown a card trick by a magician and invited to remove a card, unless the selection is fair and not done in the obscure style of most forces I’ll be rather bemused and left in hope that the sake of the force was worth the effect, and even with the most fairest of selections I always assume a classic force However, this is not a process that requires a force, we will deal with forcing later
The idea of this simple effect is that a card removed by a spectator must become know to the magician before its point of revelation, and the level of intriguing ignited by the trick is based on the spectator wondering at which point the magician became aware of the identity of the selected card, and therefore if there never
appeared to have been a point at which the magician could have seen the card, the trick will seem more
believable, and more to the point, more impossible
At the end of the trick a spectator will backtrack…
Did he know the position of the card in the deck? Yes = Shite No = Next Question Did he know which card was next to mine? Yes = Shite No = Next Question Did he peek the card before shuffling? Yes = Whatever No = Next Question Did he see the card somehow when I was looking at it? Yes = Cheat No = Next Question Did he know which card I was going to pick? Yes = Clever No = Next Question Could the deck have been in order? Yes = Crap No = Next Question
The idea of diminishing any speculation will go a long way in any performance, and so we begin with the most acceptable card selection possible…
Give the deck to the selected spectator
Here, I want you to check that this is an average deck of cards, that there’s nothing strange or different about it… Once you’re satisfied I’d like you to mix the cards up as much as you like, and to make this fair – because I don’t want you to think that I’m cheating in any way – I’m going to look away so I can’t even see the shuffle
It is here that you begin to diminish the questions that could later arise: the deck cannot be in order nor can it
be a trick deck Looking away offers the suggestion that the deck could have had no order nor could the magician have somehow followed the cards as they were shuffled
When you’re done I’d like you to spread the card across the table facedown so I can’t see them, so that nobody can see them Now, when your ready I want you to just place your finger on the back of any playing card, once you’ve done that I want you to pull it toward yourself away from the other cards I’ll cover my eyes so I can’t see where you’re taking the card from…
The fact that the spectator is doing all the work will have already got the spectator/s at a positive level of
intrigue
As you cover your eyes with your hand, you need to leave an open gap below your hand so that you can still see down over the cards, the hand over the face merely suggests that your eyes are closed Be careful not to leave
a gap too big as this will suggest deception, practice a few times to get an acceptable cover glimpse
The time that it will take from the spectator landing on a card to moving it away from the deck should give more than enough opportunity to read the marked card However, you will still need to ask the spectator to gather up the remaining cards; a little extra time in which you can catch a further glimpse of the card without the possible obstruction of their finger It is vital that you glimpse the card at this point Once glimpsed, you can completely cover your eyes and eyen slowly edge away to offer further conviction to your blindness