I realize the title of this post — Red Rover (Dan Harlan) vs Red See Passover (Simon Aronson) vs Double Crossed (Daryl) vs Strange Travelers (David Blaine/Paul Harris) — is a mouthful. But I’d really be interested in hearing from anyone who is familiar with these different variations of the same (or similar) effect: what are the strengths and weaknesses of each, relative to the other? Which do you prefer, and why?

Add to that list David Solomon’s “Thoughts Across,” as well.

Whilst it's not what your asking for as it's not self working and will require some practice I recommend you take a look at Thinking It Over by Paul R Wilson which can be found on his dvd Extreme Possibilities vol 2, not only is it very good but it uses a regular deck.

While I do not know the Daryl or Solomon version, I do have the Blaine, Aronson and Harlan version of the effect. They each have their own benefits. I do think the Aronson version is the most fooling although I think the Harlan version is the most practical and is also extremely fooling. The Aronson version has the added wow factor of the thought of card appearing as the only red backed card within the spread of blue backed cards. The only problem with this is that you have to use 2 decks of cards. One of the decks can be your normal working deck as it's left clean at the end but for pocket management sake, I've never carried this version around to perform. I really like the Harlan version because as he states in the manuscript, it is based on the Aronson version. He took all of the best parts that he could keep and compressed it into a single deck trick. What's really great about it is the routine allows you to end completely clean with a straight deck that can be used as your working deck going forward. Losing the visual appearance for the practicality was a worth while trade off for me. The Blaine version is also good and offers a cleaner display of the cards at the end of the trick but you end pretty dirty and would need to carry another deck to switch in or out of the effect for clean up and I don't believe that is built into the routine like in the Harlan version. Overall I would highly recommend Red Rover by Dan Harlan, but if you're using it for a parlor type one off performance, then Simon Aronson's Red Sea Passover is hard to beat.

~Steve