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The Magic Cafe Forum Index » » The workers » » Top 5 from Royal Road (3 Likes) Printer Friendly Version

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k_pablo
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Hi, I agree with evryone with the tricks they put but my favorite are as follows:

1.-evry where and nowhere
2.-desined for laughter
3.-obliging aces
4.-ladies loking glass
5.-card in pocket

Smile
marko
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You know what, you could literally make a living from doing just the effects from Royal Road (if you do them well). That's how good they are! A few of my favs:

Everywhere & Nowhere
Ladies Looking Glass
Do As I Do
Thought Stealer
26th Card (Paul Wilson has an awesome spin on this)
Thought: Why does man kill? He kills for food. And not only food: frequently there must be a beverage.
Tom Gaddis
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Niels,

I've witnessed several guys here in the Detroit area under the tutelage of Ron Bauer become known as "card guys" in a very short time. One of the books Ron recommends is "Royal Road to Card Magic."

But what tricks from that book have earned these guys that reputation?

NONE.

Ron recommends RRTCM because of it's clear explantions and drills on how to handle cards.

By not trying to learn every trick (he does recommend you read them though, but there are better methods out there) and focusing on the correct way to handle cards you'll find an amazing thing happens. All the slieghts you try to learn become easier! For a more detailed analysis see "Fair and Sloppy" from the Ron Bauer Private studies Series.

Tom

P.S.

Just a quick bit of history, RRTCM is where Ron got the first seeds that lead to his narrative for "Fair and Sloppy."
"The dumber people think you are. The more surprised they'll be when you kill them."
aranaza
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Great thread!

I enjoy poker players picnic as a great self working effect.
The Lucky card is a trick I get a lot of strong reactions from.

After reading these posts I'm off to practice 'design for laughter' right away. I hope I get the same reactions as you guys, you just have to be good at acting out dissapointment I suppose!!!
hockey
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Now you see gets great reactions for me. I too do not use many effects from this book, but this trick is prop my fav.
Mach
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Hi all, I'm just wondering if anyone ever performs the effect: Telepathy Plus? It's the one that appears just before 'Thought Stealer' and follows the same sort of premise. In the book, it is recommended that the spectator should freely select the 5 cards that are used in the effect as this 'free choice' greatly enhances the effect (for which I strongly agree). However, whilst the example quoted will invariably lead to the cards ending up at the desired positions prior to the reveal as described by the instructons - I'm just wondering if anyone has deduced a system whereby this can be worked out on the fly for whatever 5 spot cards are chosen by the spectator - so that they will end up in the right position?

Thanks

Mach
*Mark Lewis*
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About 50% of my card trick repertoire comes from The Royal Road to Card Magic. It is the most valuable book I have ever read. At least to me personally.
Vlad_77
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It is so good to see such keen interest in this classic. Best of all, it will serve you for the rest your magic life when that one trick pony DVD has a beverage coaster.

To Mark: Love your Svengali work sir. Just curious to know what other magic books you have found useful to you either directly as far as repertoire or indirectly in terms of theory and ideas.

Ahimsa,
Vlad
*Mark Lewis*
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Vlad. Where card work is concerned I am a big fan of Harry Lorayne and Dai Vernon. And I do a fair bit of their material too.So of course their books have been very important to me. Alas however, I got to the Royal Road first so purely by dint of that I use a massive amount of Royal Road material.

Naturally I have read Bobo's Coin Magic and Slydini's works. Those books have been helpful to me also. As far as theory is concerned I have always sworn by the wonderful section on presentation at the back of Expert Card Technique particularly the first few pages where it explains that it is not so much the tricks that matter but the illusion you create about yourself.

I consider Hugard, Harry Lorayne and Lewis Ganson to be the greatest magic writers of the 20th century. Only Harry is left for the 21st century and I hope he continues for a long while yet.
Paul H
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Thanks guys, this is a very helpful topic. I have now rediscovered 'Thought Stealer'. Playing around with it, I have noticed you can actually name the card after its been silently spelt but before it is revealed. This allows for a patter line which runs 'If I now tell you the card, you might believe I just got lucky. So, I will create indisputable proof. Take the deck and spell silently your thought of card etc'. Name the card and then reveal. It also helps if you can lose the cards in the deck after the card is selected. My favorite method is a variation of the Nash multiple shift but any multiple shift will work well. With an easy style of presentation this is one killer effect. My top 5 are

Thought Stealer
Design for Laughter
Now You See It
The Changing Card
The Good Luck Card

Regards,

Paul
Leland
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I somehow missed the "Thought stealer", I have to go back and rediscover that one. My #1 is Topsy Turvy. Easy to do and blows them away.
Life of Magic!
*Mark Lewis*
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There is another way of performing thought stealer that I have not yet mastered. It is probably more effective than the Royal Road version. You fan the whole deck in front of the person and it appears that he thinks of any one of the 52. In actual fact you get him to think of one of the six cards. I think it is described in the Henry Hay Amateur Magician's Handbook and there is also a version in the more recent Paul Rosini book by Chuck Romano. I suspect there may be an error in the description though.

As for everywhere and nowhere I have found two other versions of the trick that I prefer to the Royal Road version simply because they require no duplicate cards which I do find an irritation since I am an impromptu worker by nature. One version is by the illustrious Dai Vernon and the other is by Bob Weill. The first is in one of the Vernon card books by Ganson and the second is in the excellent "My Best" by J.G.Thompson.

Oddly enough there is a little known version of the trick using a Svengali deck written up in a small manuscript by Ken De Courcey. I don't think it was a big seller because of the following incident. I saw it on the shelf of the late Herb Morrissey's magic shop. Since it involved the Svengali deck which I am associated with and since I liked the Everywhere and Nowhere trick anyway I took it to Herb and asked the price. He looked furious and said, "It's got a red sticker on it" I asked him what he meant. He then nastily opened the cash register took out 50 cents and gave it to me and then angrily slammed the register shut again.

I didn't know what the hell was going on and he snarled "A red sticker means that I have to give you 50 cents to take the book away because it is such a slow seller!"

He looked genuinely upset throughout the whole conversation. Herb was a character.
Vlad_77
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Thanks Mark for the anecdote! A good lesson I believe on why we need brick and mortar shops. After reading your anecdote I could well imagine Denny Haney or Buck Bressler doing something quite similar.

With all the talk about Thought Stealer I guess I should give it a whirl.

Paul H., thank you for the cool tip in your earlier post.

Ahimsa,
Vlad
Paul H
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Hi Vlad, you are most welcome.

Regards,

Paul
*Mark Lewis*
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Coincidentally I was thinking the same thought as Vlad when I wrote the anecdote. We NEED brick and mortar magic shops for that personal touch. Alas I am sad to say that within 5 years they will be greatly diminished. The internet is quite a terrible threat to them as is the recession. But the recession will be gone sooner or later. The internet is here to stay. Only the sharpest of operators are going to be able to compete with it. I find that very sad.

Alas you can even get the Royal Road for either free or virtually nothing on the internet and it sickens me rigid.
R.E. Byrnes
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Quote:
Alas you can even get the Royal Road for either free or virtually nothing on the internet and it sickens me rigid.

Who should get the royalties? How much should it cost?
*Mark Lewis*
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The copyright holder should get the royalties. And the price should be more than thieves can afford. I recently read that even the recent David Berglas book came up on a torrent site. No wonder Richard Kaufman is so bad tempered and miserable. Still, horrible as he is, even he does not deserve this kind of rampant thievery.
The Burnaby Kid
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Royal Road to Card Magic is now being published by Dover Publications, which deals almost exclusively with material in the public domain.
R.E. Byrnes
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Which of means the copyright has expired, and there is no "copyright holder"; by law, no one entitled to royalties. it's not comparable to purported piracy of the berglas book. also, everything "comes up" on torrent sites, lots of them. that's a long, long way from people actually registering for a service; dowloading a book; and doing so to the exclusion of buying it, particularly a book like the berglas book that can't be closely replicated. apart from that, another fine grasp of the issues by mark lewis. alas.
The Burnaby Kid
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I will say that I contacted Dover about whether or not they could confirm whether or not RRTCM was public domain, and the answer I got was a bit vague -- they said they were confident in their right to publish it, but didn't out-and-out say whether or not it was public domain. So there might be some ambiguity there either way.
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