Hi all! I've been road testing a new trick and thought I'd share it with a few folks on the Café to get their thoughts.

I call it the Anti-Card Trick because this routine does the complete opposite of your typical card trick leaving no room for sleights, forces, confusing procedure, etc... Basically, all the things we use to get an edge when performing card magic. It has simple and impossible conditions that create an effect so clear and clean that you literally beg your spectator to try and backtrack it.

- It's completely hands-off, so no sleights of any kind.

- The spectator shuffles the cards several times before a selection is even made.

- You can turn away while they shuffle and make their selection, so there is no way you could follow any of their actions.

- The identity of the selected card remains a secret from everyone including the spectator. They select it and immediately cover it with their hand or the card box, so you couldn't possibly trick them into giving you any clues to what it is. You couldn't use marked cards because you will never see it until the end.

- the card is not forced

- no math or memorization

- No gaffs of any kind

- Easy to do

- Works 100% of the time



Here's the effect:

Magician hands the spectator a deck. They cut it as many times as they want and then riffle shuffle. The magician has them split the deck into two halves. They pick one of the packs ( free choice ) and puts the other in the card box. They shuffle their chosen pack as much as they want. The magician looks away and has the spectator choose a card at random and hide it somewhere so the magician can't see it. The magician takes the pack from the spectator and explains that there is no way he could gain any information about the card. He says that he will have to use his intuition to pick two cards out of the pack that will represent the value and suit of the chosen card. He spreads the cards and pulls out two cards. The first one he pulls out is the same value of the chosen card A-K and the second card he pulls out is the suit. The spectator pulls out the chosen card and it is a perfect match!

Let me know if you are interested in learning this and giving me feedback. I will share it with the first few people that contact me.

PM'd you.

The effect Mr.Brad Ballew described is very similar to Charles T. Jordan's 'Long-distance Mind Reading'. But the big difference is that Jordan's version can't be performed in Face-to-face condition. So I guess Brad-san has a good stack system. So I struggled to find stack system for the effect and found a good one.

In Brad-san's description of the effect, there is one point which causes the case you can't detect the hidden card. It ocuurs about 15%. If you read the Jordan trick, you will know how it can be avoided.

Thank you for the inspiration, Brad-san!

Hideo Kato

Couldn't a version of this be achieved with the four cards index system used in "The Selective Touch" out of Royal Road avoiding the need for a stack entirely?

Magically

Aus