Those of you who use a memorized deck and pinky (or thumb) count to place the named card into the proper position: Why don't you just edge-mark your memorized deck so that every fifth card is marked? That way you won't have to do so much counting.

And here's another secret: edge mark your cards at the inner end with inked dots of DIFFERENT colors: 5, 15, 25, 35 and 45 in blue; 10, 20, 30, 40 and 50 in black. It makes counting to the correct card very easy. (Edge marking cards in various colors--blue, black, red & green [originally for the four suits: Clubs, Spades, Hearts and Diamonds]--is something I came up with years ago after reading Thompson & Rutledge's "Between Two Minds")

Note: The above is still several steps away from the ultimate ACAAN effect, in which the performer does not touch the deck.

On 2003-02-15 03:40, chrismatt wrote:
Many cardicians and mentalists consider ACAAN to be the "holy grail" of mentalism with cards. I don't know how Berglas does his version. I don't have his book, and I'm not sure he even "tips" everything therein.

I've never actually done the following, but I've thought about rigging up a table drawer so that it would deliver just one deck (of several--each stacked in a different, cyclic order) into the drawer, which would be opened by the S after she names any card and calls out any number. As Richardson points out, by cycling the cards, you would need only 13 decks, although you do need quite a complicated crib, telling you not only which deck to use, depending on which card and number are called out, but which counting procedure to use. Can this number of decks be further reduced? Perhaps, although you would require an even more complicated crib.

How could this be done with fewer than 13 decks? Almost every card could be counted to in eight separate ways (using eight different numbers) in each deck. For example, the tenth card from the top could be counted to from the numbers 9 and 10 (counting from the top) and from the numbers 42 and 43 (counting from the face). By leaving the two advertising cards ("Rank of Hands" and the other ad card) on the face and the two Jokers on top, these cards could be included (or not) in the counting, so that the tenth card could ALSO be counted to from the numbers 11 and 12 (from the top) and 44 and 45 (from the face). The S (who does the counting) would either remove the advertising/Joker cards (or not) before he begins the counting. Mind you, I've never actually sat down and figured out if this would work, but I think it might. If the very low (1 and 2) and very high (51 and 52) numbers were eliminated, you might be able to do this with only 6 or 7 decks, but I'm not sure--it's just a concept I've had.

As for Ted Lesley's version relying on a stooge, I understand Simon Aronson also has such a version. The stooge concept is apparently hidden by employing two spectators, only one of whom is a stooge (one S calls out the name of any card and the other calls out any number), and by repeating the effect (in which the roles of the spectators are reversed).

Another approach that comes to mind involves a tricky card box that holds back or releases certain numbers of cards as you remove the cards from the container (performing sort of a mechanically assisted pass).

Instantly knowing where in the deck any randomly named card lies is powerful knowledge and the memorized deck achieves that goal. But that is only half of the ACAAN solution. Getting the named card to the randomly chosen number in a completely unsuspicious way is the missing piece.

On 2006-10-11 06:17, MField2000 wrote:

Quote:

On 2006-10-07 00:11, Chris SD wrote:
I know Berglas is supposed to have good work on the plot as well.

Yes, David Berglas's handling of "The Berglas Effect" is quite good. Superb, in fact. He's done it for me half a dozen times.

Matt Field

On 2006-10-07 08:59, tgplano wrote:
I use Barrie Richardson's Impromptu Card at any number with great success. It can be done on a moment's notice and is not too difficult. I like the complete impromptu nature of it.

On 2006-10-07 12:14, entity wrote:
The only downside of Born's method is that the Performer must handle the cards.

- entity

On 2010-01-02 13:17, david blown wrote:
Where is asi winds version available?