There are a couple of games that my magician acquaintances and I play occasionally to help hone our skills (when I encounter someone who knows the same things I do).

These are both my own creations, though I sure other people somewhere, sometime, have done similar things.

The first is Faro racing. Start from a fan with the cards in new deck order. At go, you close the fan, race through eight perfect faros, and end at another fan. If the cards at the end are out of order, you're disqualified.

The seconds is mus*** p*** marbles. You spread some coins on the ground and try to mus*** p*** another coin so that it hits one of the ones on the ground (or table). There is no distance limit, but the hand has to be palm up, or angled sideways (no holding the coin over the other and simply dropping it) when you mus*** p***.
If the coin on the floor is hit by a bounce or rebound, it doesn't count. If you hit the coin, you keep that coin. Whoever has the most at the end wins. (I don't play for keepsies, but I guess you could).

Do any of you have games you play with other magicians that are fun and hone skills at the same time?

My sister and I were throwing cards at each other for hours once like with this waterfall thingy (I don't know the English word for that one). It was quite fun...

Edith

You guys need to get out more often! Come to think of it, I should get out more often myself!

I already told this several people so here is just a quote. It was actually last weekend on easter monday. WE all were having so much fun with this:



It wasn't quite a game but still fun to do, we were thinking about pretending to play poker with Bierdeckels in a restaurant with serious money in the middle...

Edith
Posted: Apr 22, 2006 10:51am

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This will be a fun game to be played with skilled magicians.

In German it is called "schummeln" or any other equivalent of the word cheating.
Even when I was in 3rd grade it was popular among the students.

The basic idea is in this game that one has to cheat in order to win. There is no way around it.

All the cards get dealt equally to each person playing (It doesn't matter how many people play, but at least three). The goal of each player is to get rid of his cards. The first person without cards wins.

To get rid of cards people place a card facedown in the middle, one person after another. One card per person clockwise or counterclockwise depending on where you live. The cards are to be placed in the middle in their natural order Ace, two, three, four.... the suits don't matter.

All players are supposed to play fair and put the right card down and only one card. But that doesn't always work because one can't have all the cards they need to play fair. So they have to cheat. (They also can put down several cards at once or whatever people might come up with)

If the next person thinks the one before him/her cheated he/she can lift up the last card laying down. If the card is the one that is supposed to be there the person that didn't believe it was right has to take all the cards and start again with an ace. If the card was the wrong one or there were too many cards laid down the person that cheated has to take the pile in the middle and restart.

Have fun cheating, guys!

Edith