Howdy again.

One of my favorite routines is the ever-popular effect: Ambitious Card. Like other routines of this kind the problem for me was HOW TO END THE DARN THING?

Conceptually the routine is best kept short, unless like Daryl one finds the humor in the doing every variant of the basic theme until your audience is beaten into submission. Daryl is the exception to almost every rule so let's go on…

Assuming that you are doing a routine with a logical and increasingly amazing structure, you simply come to the point that you need something that is MORE amazing than what has come before and that says, "See the trick is over and you can properly appreciative."

The solution to have the signed card appear in a LePaul wallet, etc. at the end is not a bad solution. It brings true closure to the routine and leaves a torn envelope on the table to point up the finale. Pretty dang good. In fact done correctly pretty much the perfect closer for a close-up act!

But, the Card in Wallet by itself is SOOO good that I just hated to use the two together. Also, I wanted something more immediate to finale the routine with. I wanted closure for the routine in way the moved naturally from the deck to...well, something that had a natural connection to the deck.

My solution was this and you can find it explained in depth in my Basics of Expert Card Technique vol. 2. Remove the two small flaps from your card box. In performance you would set the box thus ready for the finale: Remove deck and then close box. Place the box to your Right where your R.H. can reach it comfortably and about 6" in from the edge of the table. The box is BELLY up with the flap end pointing at your body, more or less.

Now, you get to the end of your routine. Do whatever you would do to misdirect away from the deck and onto a card on the table that the audience thinks to be the selection. Ask a spectator to turn it over and as they do Palm the selection from the top of the deck; drop the deck to the table with your L.H.; reach over and pick up the closed card box with your R.H. by softly slapping the card onto the box lined up with the box and then grasping the box with your First and little fingers. The R.H. picks the box off the table turns Palm Up at which time the L.H. grasps the box by the sides holding the selected card beneath the box.

This action should happen smoothly and without comment. Audience finds that the card on table is NOT the selection; YOU make suitable comment and open the flap of the card box with the R.H. and then, THRUST your R. Thumb all the way into the box and as you remove it at a smooth but not too fast speed you pull the card from beneath the box. I have done this in performance thousands of times and have never been busted. The illusion is so perfect that it just blows the audience away. There is a kind of immediacy to it that says there CAN BE NO MORE.

Have fun with it! [By the by, you can produce a vanished ring the same way, play with it.]

Brad Burt

I would just say that when you end it make it memorable and amazing than the previous phases. I figured out a way to end the ambitious card with a routine of mine "Magnetic Fusion", but that really isn't available. Listen to Mr. Burt!!! He knows what he is doing.

Andrew

I've found the pop up card move to be the defining moment to end this never ending routine.

I've seen Brad's AC routine on the video and must say that his routine builds well and his card to bax closer is a killer. His card tecnique video is awesome. Thanks for sharing, Brad.

Hey Brad, why are the small flaps removed?
I've done something similar without this step and I'm wondering if it's a subtlety that makes the illusion more complete.
Great closer, btw.

I guess you remove the flaps because if the card were really coming out of the box, it would push the flaps as it emerged; with the flaps removed, no such thing happens nor is it expected.

I learned a similar card from box move from Ray Kosby's Jack in the Box routine. Aside from the ever popular "pop up card" which I love. Another great ending is to have you sign the back of another card, and then have your signature jump to the back of the card they signed the face of. (Greg Wilson's Point Blank) He does it with blank cards, but it should be easy enough to figure a handling with normal cards.

The problem has been properly defined - "The Ambitious Card" has no ending! The solutions offered so far do NOT address the problem. In this trick, as in others, the same thing happens over and over and over, and then you are done. The fact that it gets more and more impossible does nothing to "end" the trick. So, an approach that looks for more impossible "endings" is the wrong path to take in looking for an ending. The spectator knows you are going to get the card, he just doesn't know how, or through what gyrations you will go to do it. There is no surprise, no conflict, no tension, there's "no nuttin" -just you making it harder to do what the spectator already knows you will succeed in doing - HO HUM! There are a bunch of other things wrong with this trick theatrically - for instance, there is no real premise. It is Show and Tell. The presentation is usually expository. Etc., etc., etc.

Try addressing the problem from a theatrical perspective, instead of a magic trick view - quit looking for better ways to find the card and start thinking about why you are doing this in the first place. Develop a premise, seek solutions to the problem you pose in the premise - conflict will develop and an effect may result. Otherwise, you will end up with the card: On the cieling, in your shoe, in your wallet, in the card box, under your drink, under your rear end, on your forehead, ad nauseum....

Best, PSC

I will go WAY out of my depth here, and ask for forgiveness in advance:

I personally like watching short versions of the ambitious card, and always thought it was funny and theatrical to see a card keep coming back to the top of the deck as if it were the Star of the show. The borrowed ending Ammar teaches with the card bent and visibly popping back to the top seems to rise to a nice climax and denouement, whether a narrative plot is added or not.

Of course, I am easily amused and also like to see Sam the Bellhop keep re-appearing to say, "Hey Fellas, I'm back!"

Peace.

alleycat

I suppose (and bear with me on this please)

because I don't have a solution yet,

but

"Ambitious" means; to strive to an end.

Now the Ambitious card allways wants to be on top of the deck, so for it to accheive its ambition, it must make its way to the top and stay there, for ever!

So maybe an ultimate way of finishing, would be to have it come to the top of the deck, and it having no way of being anywhere else.
Ie, doing some sort of deck switch to a deck that has been glued together with the ambitious card on top. So the only place it can be, is on top . Therefore accheiving its ambition.

Maybe?

That's a very interesting idea. The only routine I can think of that is close to that is Paul Harris's "Solid Deception", which ends the AC routine in such a way that it presents an impossibility factor AFTER you are already done with the routine.

Cardguy:

That is really a nice ending.Thanks.

Mago Mai

If you take the path of using a deck switch at the end of the routine, why not switch out to a one-way force deck which matches the signed (or unsigned) AC under the premise that "the AC was eventually so well known for its ambition and achievements (ie, rising to the top time and time again), soon everyone began to emulate it....." This presupposes that ambition is a good thing.

If using a signed card, you could employ a tagline that everyone soon wanted to "Be like Mike (or whatever name is signed)" But off course there was only one real Mike, etc.

Just some thoughts....

Alton

In one of Sankeys tricks he discusses a method which I sometimes use to end my ambitious card routine. I have the spectator put the deck in a case and have them push the card into the middle, take out the deck, and look at the top card. EXTREMELY EASY but also powerful. Another idea is to do rubber band haunted deck.

I don't really know how you should do it if you sign the card but you could do the routine and let them pick a card (force) and have a duplicate taped to the roof. Then as an ending, put the card on top of the deck and say "If you don't place it in the middle, it can't rise to the top, but it can still rise!" Then do a double lift and show that the card is gone and point to the roof and there is the card. Just thought of that ending. Maybe good, maybe not.

Try finding it folded up in one of those J. Kennedy boxes.

I suspect that in focussing in the antics of the card, many of the possible routines are being ignored.

Consider these questions;

How did the card become ambitious?
What specifically does the card desire?
What specifically demonstrates it's ambition?
How does having an ambitious card in the deck affect the performer and his routines?
How is this different from the 'homing card' theme?
What would happen if the card achieved it's ambition?
Is there a limit on the number of ambitious cards in the deck?

Getting a card to appear at the top of the deck is not a great challenge to an intermediete card manipulator. Finding your own answers to the questions above requires a different kind of skill. While a side-steal or pass will manage the card itself, answering the questions will require the very thing a theatrical performer needs in order to perform. The best place to start is with your own life and memories of your situations and those around you.

Eager to read your answers,

Jonathan

As magicians, we tend to think things to death - the last hanging coin, the final ambitious card's behavior, etc. The bottom line: audiences (other than, perhaps, those consisting of young children) don't *truly* believe the pateboard is ambitious. Consequently, the need for a perfectly cogent "narrative" is moot. Climaxing with an event *reasonably* aligned with the "ambitious" theme fits the bill perfectly well.

Card-to-wallets, color changes, etc. all invoke an adequate sense of surprise and astonishment - and all can easily be framed as a consequence of the card's attitude.

My rather strange ending - visibly melting my fingers through the deck to locate the card - works very well, and I can attest to many gasps and bulging eyes in actual performance. This is framed as "the only way to catch the card in the center."

jhostler - where did you get the idea of the melting fingers? Your own idea? I am interested in the method if it's published. Do people not just think its a gag?

It's published, but in a place no one will ever find it - page 78 of Jerry Mentzer's Card File Two. All the better for the folks who've actually picked it up, as it contains a few absolute gems by Michael Sibbernsen, Roy walton et al.