I was at SAM PA #1 meting and David Roth was there. He showed me two card tricks, yes card tricks. In one the chosen card was found by making 4 piles. The construction of the piles had a simple rule, cards were dealt face up as the magician, or spectator counted backwards from 10 to 1, if the card matches the number named that pile is done. Picture cards count as 10, if no cards match the number when you get to 1 then the pile is dead and you place a card face down on the pile. Once four piles are dealt the result is totaled up. The spectator counts down that number from the remaining card and finds their card.

David said that this was Vernon's favorite self working trick, but he didn't give me the name of the trick. I thought the trick was in RRTCM but I was mistaken. A Google search found a few videos that exposed the trick but gave no credit I kept searching various terms and found this article https://www.futilitycloset.com/2015/04/30/all-roads/ that gives credit and calls the trick "All Roads".

Does anyone know where the trick was originally published or even if the article is correct in it's credits?

Thanks !

Look in Scarne on Card Tricks for number 63, the Allerchrist Card Trick. This is the trick you are looking for. Here is what the author says in the intro to the trick:

"This trick is credited to two great performers: Bert Allerton, whose magic is known to all visitors to the famed Pump Room in Chicago; and Henry Christ, the New York magician, who developed the principle used in this trick and other tricks of a similar nature."

It is a great little trick and the procedure for getting the chosen card to the right position is nicely thought out. There are other methods of doimg this, one of which I personally use often. I would have loved to have seen how David Roth got the chosen card to the proper position and whether or not he used a joker in the deck as is required in the version taught in Scarne. PM me for more discussion on this if you are interested in methods.

Here are a few other references to teh same principle:

Prophetic Card Discovery, Tarbel v2, p215.
Impossible Prediction, Peter Warlock, The Magician Monthly, January 1939.
A Baffling Prediction, M.Gardner, Mathematics, Magic and Mystery.
Arithmancy, TLR March, 2006, p93.
Really Fit For Kings, MUM Mar 2007, p44 & TLR Dec 2007. p 104.
Estimated Prediction, TLR Apr 2007, p97.
Good Fortune, TLR Oct 2007, p98.
Allerchrist Fix, TLR Dec 2007, p 115.

Murf