The one David Blaine does, where he puts a card in center of deck and riffles the cards and the card returns to the top of deck. What is the book or video that has it and how hard is this trick to do?

It is know as The Ambitious Card. Check out Daryl's Ambitious Card Video/DVD from your dealer.

Dan

Many books have this effect compiled into an ambitious card routine. The Royal Road to Card magic is an excellent source for this material and much more.

Amazon.com is probably the best place to get value for money for the book.

Billy

Card in the middle jumps to the top is generally the AMBITIOUS CARD ROUTINE. I've never seen David riffle the cards in an Ambitious routine. He did riffle the cards in his first tv special and BRANDY'S card rose to the top. For a moment, I thought WHAT A GREAT RIFFLE PASS!! However, he cheated in that routine, but I can't say how. Anyway, if you're a beginner, nevermind that I just mentioned the riffle pass. Just get Daryl's Ambitious Card Routine video/dvd.

If you want this material in written form, get yourself a copy of 'Expert Card Technique' by Hugard and Braue. YOU WANT THIS BOOK. Repeat 'I....'

Seems to me that 'The Royal Road to Card Magic' and 'Expert Card Technique' have become automatic recomendations, despite being somewhat dated and dry. In my opinion, for learning the Ambitious Card, the best source by far is Daryl's tape. To answer the second part of your question, I would say that the Ambitious Card is rather difficult. It is fairly easy to perform badly. Also, although Daryl gives a wide variety of methods and moves, he doesn't give you absolutely everything there is to know about this trick. Yup, there are ambitious card moves out there that are not on this tape. Daryl does a great job teaching the stuff that is on there.

The riffle part that Blaine performed...the basics of that can be found in Jean Hugard's Card Manipulations series. It is a Frederick Braue move. 'The pop-up card'. Also in Card College somewhere, probably other sources too. I don't recall seeing the 'ripple' effect explained anywhere though, just the bending and placement of the card, and the bit where it pops up on top. D'you know what I mean?

cheers, Paul S.

"Dated and dry"? Hugard and Braue would double turn over in their graves. Then is 'Card Manipulations' series not also dated and dry? I don't think so. These books are classics because they are cheap, informative and portable.

The 'pop-up card' is found in 'Expert Card Technique.'

Besides RR and Expert, I would highly recommend Card College. I haven't come across a better book(s) that teach techniques. In my opinion I would start here rather than Royal Road.

Yup, this is the ambitious card. There are many amazing moves - check out the card college series to create your own.