If Richard Osterlind had developed only one effect--the BCS--his position in the Magic Hall of Fame would have been guaranteed. It is the epitome of a well-conceived, clever and brilliant contribution to Magic .

I totally agree with you waltsal. I absolutely LOVE the BCS. When I watched it for the first time, I was FLOORED by the simplicity and ingenious thinking behind it. I have not had the pleasure of performing it yet as I am still writing my new show, but there are SO MANY ways to incorporate it, my mind has been just racing through all kinds of ideas.

I am also not quite fast enough to perform it in public yet. I honestly believe between BCS, and Richard's new improved Centre Tear, you could do an entire hours show with just those two techniques.

Smitty,

Here's the best way to practice. Take a deck and shuffle it. Spread it out into about 3 or 4 overlapping rows so that you can see all the cards. Then stack the deck by picking up the cards. If you make a mistake you pick another card and start from there. Pretty soon, you will have it.

Richard

Richard, I believe you've said in the past that you sorta "stumbled" onto the BCS. How exactly did you manage that? Did you simply play around with different formulas until one worked?

I'm a pretty smart guy, but I can't quite figure out HOW it works. I'm always amazed, when setting it up, that the King of Spades leads back to the Ace of Spades and completes the circle

Hi

Richard, I really love BCS. It was the 3 nd stack after I learn Nikola and stebbins.
And I knew that you launch your book about the MemoriZed BCS.
If I am not mistaken, Did you ever said that BCS is not purpose to be memorized ?
And I think without being memorized BCS is very great invention although you say that you didn't invent it, you just discover it (I really like those Words).
I learn BCS fast, and I used it in my proffesional repertoire.
And how about the piracy over Internet ?
I know that many of your ebook distributed freely from p2p software

Budi

Fred,

I put the whole story in an issue of Magic magazine and I might have put it in the book also. But here's basically what happened. I came up with the idea of getting the "values" pretty early in the process. That just seemed logical. The problem was the suits. That is what I worked on day and night for months. Finally I got the brainstorm to use the value of the SECOND card to figure the suit from the suit of the FIRST card. That was the big breakthrough that made it work. That was the mathematical principle that was never applied before. After that, working out the exact sequences came pretty quick.

You know, mathematically, it really is a thing of beauty. The idea that a perfect mathematical formula could lead to such a ramdom looking order, really is special!

Thanks for asking, Fred.

Richard

Budi,

Actually I have a manuscript where I teach how to memorize the Breakthrough Card System using the techniques and peg words developed by Harry Lorayne. (With his permission)

The advantage, as I see it, is that the straight mathematical formula is always there for the effects I have published, but you can also memorize the deck for those effects where you need to know at what number a card is, etc.

In all honesty, I find the former use more practical, but I have a couple of routines where I need to know exact positions. The good part about having a stack that works both ways is that it is a different mental process for each procedure. If you should forget part of your memorized system, you can fall back on the progressive mathematical system to figure things out. For instance, if you forget what number 29 is, you can go to 28 and then take it one up from there. Usually, when you do that, it jogs into place your memory aide. So one system reinforces the other.

About the piracy, yes, it is there and there is not much you can do about it. Hopefully most magicians will have more "honor" than to go there.

Richard

Oh... for a minute I thought Richard was working on the Bowl Championship Series.


;^)