Perhaps the big reason I don’t cheat at the card table and I find the talk of casino cheating boring is that if I used my technique to cheat at the card table it would not bring the people at the card table much pleasure. And I for one don’t find much pleasure anymore playing card games.

In fact I find it very boring. I don’t drink, I don’t smoke, I am not really into sports. In fact most sports I find boring. I like football and baseball and Indy car racing. But for the most part I have little time to waist watching things that don’t make me money. I see sports is a big part of show business and that is about it. And I see little advantage in keeping up on winning teams and buying sports merchandise and talking about it at the card table.

What I enjoy doing is entertaining audiences and having fun doing magic. The card sharp expo stuff I do is part of that entertainment. And I find the talk among magicians about that very interesting.

What the magician card shark MUST do when doing an expo is to take an idea that was used to cheat by an advantage player. An idea that IS or should be invisible at the card table. Then the magician must take it and use it. Or in other words make it VISIBLE but also do it well enough so that the audience THINKS that if the magician did this in a card game - he would get the money.

So the invisible has to become visible and yet be good enough to give the spectators watching the feeling that if they were in a game with the card sharp magician - they would lose. That is not an easy thing to do in a world of people where many feel that they know it all. Try doing that in a room full of magicians and you will understand the odd remarks by magicians in the forums and in the blogs that talk about this very thing.

Magicians that don’t perform are into technique and the argument of which move is “the best”. The performer is usually into simplifying the technique so that they can use the move as just a way to get to the performance of a magic effect. The important part of it is the magic effect. The move or the tool is just the way to accomplish this.

Or take a move that is invisible and then making it visible yet still leading the audience to believe that this kind of thing can be done at the card table.

Anyway just some thoughts

It is always a challenge to make a gambling expose routine entertaining. (ie. The old gamber vs. magician routine takes the idea and makes it entertaining even though the method is far from real "work".)

Our goal is to make this boring subject entertaining. How many times can you watch someone stack cards or do a bottom deal. You need to have an entertaining theme behind each cheating method being demonstrated.

Also mixing up methods comes in handy...such as saying that your are doing center deals and really your are doing seconds. Or saying that you are exposing block-out work marked cards and really your are using juice (without their knowledge) to make reading the marks faster and easier from a distance....etc. etc.

I have even been known to talk about culling and before the discuss culling I switch in a cooler after the spectator shuffled the deck. Now I don't have to cull, I just have to false shuffle and do miracle deals which I call a culling and stacking demo.

That is my 2 cents.

The interesting thing I find when I compare the magician to the card sharp is that they do some of the same things but both have different venues so to speak that they do what they do in.

I have met card sharps that say that magicians don't have the nerve to move in a real game. Or - that the way magicians do card sharp moves would not fly in the real world of cheating. In fact I just got an e-mail from a well know person in magic with a deck of cards that said the same thing about what I do.

He is right - when I do cheating moves they most likely would not fly in a real game. But If I was to use them for a real game and I NEEDED to make them fly - I think I am skilled enough to change that.

I look at it like fishing. Say a guy that deep sea fishes looks over at a guy that is fishing with light tackle in a lake or a river and says. You know that light tackle is great for this little river fishing but that fly rod would be useless for deep sea fishing.

Both places require different fishing tools or tackle so for me the argument is a little bit on the silly side. Magic at the card table won't work. We know that. But if I were to deep sea fish at the card table I would use the right tools at the right time.

A card shark uses the moves at the card table to get the money.

A magician uses the moves to entertain and then get the money.

Just some thoughts.

Hi Glen

You might not be a cheat but you think like a professional cheat thinks in my opinion. Your purpose is to entertain and the cheats purpose is to steal the money. The professional way you approach the work however is the same as the very best and most successful cheats. If we were to rewrite what you say but from a cheats point of view it might read something like this:

Wannabe cheats that don’t cheat are into technique and the argument of which move is “the best”. The real cheat is usually into simplifying the technique so that they can use the move as just a way to get to the money. The important part of it is the money. The move or the tool is just the way to accomplish this.

Your passion is in magic, that’s great but if it was gambling, I personally think you would make a great cheat.

I think this is great stuff Expert - I do a punch deal with the MB shuffle then do a demo center deal with the same four cards to any hand the spectator wants with the 4 cards face up. Then I ask them do you think you could spot the centers if the hand was dealt face down. Sometimes they say yes. But they wish they wouldn't have said yes when I turn over the dealers hand and show 4 aces - then let them think I center dealt them.

Hey Tommy thanks for the kind words. I look at a good magician with skill and the knowledge of card sharp technique and a good card sharp as sort of the same but being on two sides of the same coin.

I have nothing against a card sharp or any moral issue against a card sharp. If that is what they want to do and take that risk. In this magic forum I speak only as a magician and all magicians have reasons of doing magic. I also enjoy WATCHING people play cards and I do not find that at all boring. I enjoy watching Texas Holdem on TV while I am on the road as much as I enjoy watching people in an audience watch magic.

[quote]
"I have met card sharps that say that magicians don't have the nerve to move in a real game. Or - that the way magicians do card sharp moves would not fly in the real world of cheating. In fact I just got an e-mail from a well know person in magic with a deck of cards that said the same thing about what I do."

HI GLen, I would have to agree and disagree, "I believe" the main reason most magicians are criticized is not for the lack of skill, but the lack of credibility in their presentations...



He is right - "when I do cheating moves they most likely would not fly in a real game. But If I was to use them for a real game and I NEEDED to make them fly - I think I am skilled enough to change that."

HI Glen, Im not here to argue with you or to question your abilities, but why do pseudo moves when you can do the real moves and make it entertaining??I think that's what lay people want to "experience"




"A card shark uses the moves at the card table to get the money."
Yes, I highly agree!

"A magician uses the moves to entertain and then get the money."
I would have to disagree in a way with this one... I think if the people don't like the magician as a person, then no amount of skill will get even a penny...



jon

If you are talking about a very young magician that is doing poker deals and playing the part of an expert card sharp. It would be better and have more credibility if the magician is older or at least old enough to get into a casino. Age in magic has some advantages to being a person with some kind of authority when presenting magic effects.

Or if you are talking about doing a poker deal and not knowing what poker is or have the experience as to know the rules of the game. That can hurt a magicians reputation as a card sharp.

But if you are talking about a magician dealing with an Erdnase grip and doing clean seconds and then some guy coming up and saying that using the Erdnase grip is a tell - then that is different. On my DVD-4 I do a demonstration of the second deal and it is the grip I learned from Card Mastery by Mickey McDoogle. This grip is the grip Jack Pyle used for many years to deal a second. I also included other tips that Jack Pyle gave me.

Knowing what I know about cards - if I were using this as a way to cheat - this grip like the Erdnase grip could be a tell. Most people that I have known that have moved in real games would not use this grip.

Many years ago I was doing a show with Jack Pyle and he just wowed the room with his bridge deal. After the show we were talking and some know it all magician came over and told Jack that he could never move in a "Real Game" of cards with his second deal. After the guy left you should have heard what Jack said to me about him.


Yes and No...

First of all what are the pseudo card sharp moves and what are the "real moves" or the "real work"? A good question because I have seen some people move in a game and make money with just punching two cards in a game called spades.

And speaking entertainment. Jack Pyle spent real money collecting all sorts of dice and marked cards and card table cheating devices - spent a lot of money and put it together as an act and it was a flop. Why? People do not want to be educated in an entertainment venue they want to be entertained.

So Jack Pyle did card effects and mixed in poker and bridge deals.

I do card effects and I do poker and bridge deals - and the street swindles like three card monte and the shell game. Plus the classics like cups and balls. I do not consider myself an expert in poker or casino cheating. But I have played cards and I know a little about the game. Plus I know a little bit about cheating and cheating tools and I try to take those ideas and give them a MAGIC USE.

Also the interesting thing is when doing this kind of a thing. What you are doing is taking the invisible and make it visible to the audience. You have to show the move and do it well enough that it will make the audience think that you could get their money if they were in a game with you. That is what Jack Pyle did when he performed his show.

I have never met a real card sharp or advantage player that could demo a move like the center deal and then do it and make the audience feel that they would get the money. The reason cheating moves work at the card table is that the audience DOESN'T KNOW that cheating is going to happen.

Blackstone Sr once said that the reason magic works is that the magician is playing a game with the audience and the audience doesn't know what the rules are. If a magician does a magic trick twice then he has explained the rules and the audience has a better chance of spotting the secret.

But at the card table this is true. If the other players don't know there is a shark at the table it is easier for the shark to make the moves. But a magician when performing is EXPECTED to make some moves and audiences today LOOK FOR IT. How can you get away with doing moves when the audience is burring you hands? Or better yet you do the center deal in a demonstration and then the audience EXPECTES you to be able to get away with it again.

Magicians also don't have the time or a full evening to put the work in on a deck. They also perform under a spotlight with every eye in the room on them. I would like to see a card sharp get away with what they do if a spotlight was turned on their hands right when they try to move in a real game.

Leipzig said if they (the audience) like you they will like your act. This is true but I have also seen jerks make money in magic as well. I happen to be one of them.

[quote]On 2006-03-14 16:54, bishthemagish wrote:


exactly!





make the move, not, look like a move



Actually, it's done all the time! however it may not be the moves you are looking for. I have seen people do run-up work, while I burned their hands... nothing could be seen!

riffle culling can be used for slug tracking, without arousing suspicions.

Doc has said it before, even if people are burning your hands, most don't know what to look for. Glen, no doubt you have had someone burn your hands, while going deep, only to, still, get away with the move.

I saw Doc this past week work the punch, while I burned his hands... nothing could be seen.

most moves in gambling, have been devised to withstand close scrutiny... they have to! there are too many variables to contend with; i.e. eye in the sky, casino security, pit bosses, fast company, etc.

it is in my opinion, gambling moves far surpass magic moves. magicians use anything to misdirect; patter, turning, pointing, laughing, etc. cheaters, generally, do not have the luxury of such cover.

Halcon

You can't win and make the loser happy or lose and make yourself happy. If you want to gamble and be happy and make the other guys happy to, them you have a gambling problem. Go and see gamblers anonymous. Unless it makes you happy to lose money.
What has that got to do with "cheating"? Nothing! It's about "gambling". I was going to ask you the same question about this.

I am not sure what your question is Tommy if it is a question. Your right it has nothing to do with cheating UNLESS cheating would give a card sharp pleasure. The reason I do not play cards anymore is because I do not GET pleasure from it as a social activity. I like to do things that bring me pleasure. And if it brings others pleasure - often that can be sold as a service.

The REASON I do magic is that I enjoy it and it brings me pleasure. And the cool thing is that I can make money with it because it brings pleasure to others in the way of a paying show to a client - or a paying audience.

Also Halcon and Iamslow

I agree with a lot of what you say and one of the other things that helps advantage playing work at a table is the fact that if the player is a really nice guy with a great personality - friendly, the kind of guy others would like to know that I think you would agree that that would help him move in a card game.

Just as it helps a magician get booked - please the client and please and bring pleasure to the audience. Warmhearted friendly people can be very successful.

Just some thoughts.

Gambling on the square, is all about making the other guy unhappy by winning his money and making yourself happy by winning it. Gambling by it’s very nature is a selfish pursuit. So are you in principle against square gambling?
Or is it the cheating that the just cheating or both you don‘t like the idea of?

I think have got the wrong end of the stick.

Are saying something like: A magicians becomes magicians because it is usually in a magicians nature to want please and this is at odds with the gamblers nature. As the latter is of a competitive nature and not interested in pleasing any one but beating them? So I think I see what mean: A magician to be a card cheat would need to be a sort of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde?

Yes, You are right! Funny I said the same thing to Doc when I saw him...

Halcon

Just a few more thoughts about magicians and card sharps and such.

One of the big different things about the performing situations of each. A magician doing a card effect or a poker deal or a demonstration on stacking etc. When doing this in a room during a show all eyes of the room are on you and it just HAS to work. If you are stacking four aces or a royal flush it HAS to be there when you bring the routine to it's climax.

When your card sharp at a poker table if things go wrong like cards sticking together while stacking in the humidity or the hand is blown or the opportunity just isn't right you can just fold and wait for the next deal or the next game and there is no problem.

You can't fold the routine if your a magician and the cards stick together from humidity or your hot under the stage lights. The stuff you do MUST work. If it doesn't work you have to have an out - or you don't look like the pro in front of the audience and the clients.

Just some thoughts.

I can't speak for other magicians as they have their own reasons for doing magic. It could be for attention, to be cool, because it's fun, because they want to know the secrets. Lots of reasons and more.

I do it for two reasons - it gives me pleasure and I find it agreeable that I can make money with it because it gives others pleasure.

When I used to play cards I did it to smooze show people like people today pay golf. And then I played cards because I got show business contacts through doing it. The business side of show business does not give me any pleasure at all. I only do it because I must do it. But I do not travel in those circles anymore being tied to my family and my business needs the way that I do them today.

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde - that is me to the letter.