I saw Juan Tamariz at FISM 2000 in Lisbon keep everyone spellbound for about an hour with just a deck of cards.

Roy Walton is amazing, definately him.Jerry Sadowitz is also a very good cardman, I suspect he'd have a lot of great material by now.

I trust you mean Gregory Wilson. Greg Wilson - Mark Wilson's son - is somebody different. Very different.

I thought Mark Wilson's son was a hard core card guy....

Ricky Jay and Persi Diaconis. For fun and chops... Steve Valentine.

Hi Vinny, Hi Pete.

Can you tell us more about Steve Valentine's performance?

Juliana Chen and An Ha Lim have amazing card skills but we normally think of card magicians as "on a table". What about Ricky Jay, Bill Malone, Richard Turner, Lennart Greene, Juan Tamariz? Wow, there are so many excellent performers. My full list is here: https://www.carnivalofillusion.com/best-......time.php

Hi Roland,
It's certainly an entertaining read but it would be nice to see another article focusing on whom you think the best close up card magicians are. Stage manipulation is obviously not the same and there were many masters conspicuously absent from your list. I hasten to add that really, such an undertaking is virtually impossible and will always invite debate. Your criteria were unclear with regard to the subject of this thread. I would offer that Bill Malone of course deserves to be on your list but your inclusion of Juliana Chen is rather curious.

I mentioned names. I'm curious why performers such as Harry Lorayne, Michael Vincent, Derek Dingle, Darwin Ortiz, Arturo Ascanio, Fred Robinson, Jean Jacques Sanvert, Dai Vernon, Ed Marlo, and Paul LePaul to name but a handful didn't even garner an honorable mention. The omissions of Vernon and Marlo are especially surprising if one of your criteria is technical skill. Vernon and Marlo could well be analogous to Shakespeare and Chaucer. I am not flaming you. Rather I am curious at your omission of these two titans who are widely held as the two who defined modern card magic. I'm also curious about the lack of discussion of guys like Andi Gladwin, Joshua Jay, Daniel Garcia, Dani DaOrtiz, and Kostya Kimlat again to name a handful.

Some of your choices were brilliant such as Juan Tamariz, Ricky Jay, Bill Malone, and the late master Rene Lavand; kudos for recognizing them.

Thanks for taking a moment to read my post and if you have a moment to reply, I would be grateful!

Best,
Vlad

Hello Vlad_77! My criteria was rather simple. At the top of the page, it states "our criteria for this list is for magical card entertainers, we're not looking at influencers, scholars, mechanics, historians, or other branches of card magicians." Entertainment was more important for the list than technical prowess.

It was quite difficult to order artistic ventures and as you state, the undertaking will always cause debate. In the end, I chose to list 10-6 for those with essentially one or two great entertaining acts with cards. 5-1 with much broader entertaining repertoires with cards. I didn't break the list into stage and close-up with cards as I felt entertainment is entertainment, it doesn't matter if I'm seated 3 feet or 30 feet away.

Roland,

Thank you for the reply! Yes entertainment is entertainment and magic is a performing art and in that sense your article was wonderful. I guess I should have read your criteria at the top more closely but I wanted to get to da list.

Best,
Vlad

Juan Tamariz and Bill Malone.

I was able to find some video of John Guastaferro.

That's some of Jamy Iam Swiss.

Eric Mead and Derek Del Gaudio are near the top of my list of today's best performers.

Jared Kopf.

The more I read this thread, the more I'm reminded about a lot of the greats that I still haven't seen perform in person -_-

AsL

I'm glad to know now about Jared Kopf.

For me its Helder Guimaraes, Dereck Delgaudio & Mike Pisciotta,They have skills like no one I've seen.. & are so down to earth that they will help you with moves & theory of magic. I personally have asked for help with everyone of them & never got a no. Their skills are so good I have been to lectures & workshops with these guys & you will learn something for sure.