Sorry Vandy - Dai Vernon was not the "only" magician that talked highly of the content in Erdnase as being useful to magicians. Considering it was a worth while book that was about cards and published "more over years" (even under different book titles) it seems that it has been published more than any other card book in magic history.

I don't think that it's re-publishing (over and over again) is just due to Vernon's 80 years of proselytizing.

Just an opinion.

Tommy, it's been a while since I sat down and watched all the tapes. Perhaps I'm projecting some of the material in Forte's Poker Protection book back into what I I saw on the tapes the last time I sat down and watched them.
I'll have to watch the vids again.

The point I failed to make was that I thought his BOOK on poker to be the most complete resource available on poker specific moves.
I should have left it at that.......but I will watch the vids again.

(whenever anybody comes in the room while I'm watching Forte's tapes they always wince and ask what the heck I'm watching, note Steve's accent and comment on the poor production values......they just don't understand that the tapes are GOLD.)

Vandy, actually I know who Doc is.



Yes, I fully admit it. I also fully admit that I have not quite yet mastered writing in such a way that people can hear my tongue in my cheek. It gets me into trouble sometimes. That and my fondness for exaggeration and hyperbole. It's OK for you to call me on it.

Still, I think I'm right about people wanting to be remembered (which is what I mean by immortality), even anonymously, and my *speculation* (which is exactly what it is) that Erdnase fits into this category is just as reasonable as the *speculation* (because the other theories are also that) that he was in fact a magician and not a gambler at all.

But as you said, it really doesn't matter.

Jeff

Maybe. But Vernon was on the bandwagon very early. Who was singing the praises of Erdnase as early, as loudly and for as long as Vernon? Who was the first person to annotize the book for magicians? It was his influence that sent a lot of people to the book, and does to this day.

Until the day he died Vernon said that "Expert" was the greatest book ever written for card magicians. The first thing he suggested to anybody intrested in card magic was to read and STUDY "Expert". He never talked about books on cards without pointing out that he considered "Expert" to be the ultimate text on the subject. As I said before, he spent 80 years writing about,lecturing about, and directing every single cardman that would listen, to the book. He wasn't the "only" one, he was just the most influental and most vocal one. Not even Marlo is as closely associated with "Expert" as is Vernon.

Without his EARLY and constant praise for the book, coupled with his immense influence on the world of card magic, I doubt the book would be anywhere near as widely read by magicians as it is now.

Apologize.
There is a book by Gerritt M. Evans "HOW GAMBLERS WIN" what was written on 1868.
Inside this book there is chapter THE VALUE OF "PAPER" TO THE GAMBLER where Evans wrote: Second Dealing - the best. Erdnase show only manipulating methods and he suppose the best is Bottom Dealing, what wrote on Greatest Single Accomplishment. Some of things on Expert possible understand only after reading Evans. Evans always supposed like book what all peoples know, and usually Erdnase begin where Evans finished. Erdnase always discussed with Evans.

Right thank you. I will look out for it.

Vandy - I suggest you get into the history of the time a little more. Vernon was not really a big name in magic back in those days. If my memory is right he wanted to teach a course on Erdnase in New York and Hugard said something like Vernon was trying to peddle old material.'

The group that Vernon hung out with, Cardini, Downs, Baker, Miller, Daley and others some of them were also a fans of the book.

If my memory is right I think I remember reading TN Downs talking about how great Erdnase was in a early Sphinx magazine when it was first advertised. At that time in my opinion Downs - his name carried more weight in magic than David Verner did at the time.

As it was said Erdnase - it was not popular at the start because it was to hard and was like reading geometry. Also you have to take into the consideration of when it was published. Magicians made a living at magic doing "stage" magic. The "stage" magician would find little use for what is written in Erdnase.

From my understanding it did not start to get popular until the years "after" Drake published it. And that took years of publishing it and re-publishing it.

Vernon did not really start to get known to magicians until later. What got him known was his published routines in the Phoenix, The Tannan stars of magic series before it was published as a full book. And things like that but that was later.

Vernon in "The Vernon Chronicles" Number 4 - talks about how he read Expert at the card table when he was a boy. The book made it's rounds in magic - before Vernon came to New York and started to get known.

As most magicians know Vernon talked about it as "the" book. And wanted to do a book called Revelation. The earliest info on this I have found is an advertisement of Vernon doing a book called Revelation in my copy of Early Vernon dated in the early 60's.

Yes Vernon "helped" make the book Erdnase popular in magic - but so did a lot of other magicians. And in my opinion the reason the book is remembered is because it is good. And there is mystery about ES Andrews and who he was. And it is a subject that magicians still talk about today.

Just my opinion.

Yeah, you're probably right. It odd though, the book is more closely related to Vernon than any other magician. By far. I don't have to check into any history to know that. Ask 100 magicians what writings were the biggest influence on Cardinis card work, or Downs, or anyone, and I bet they don't have any idea. Ask any card guy what Vernons biggest influence was, and I'll bet they will say Erdnase. I think Vernon talked about Erdnase constantly and through the years a lot of people parrotted his remarks.

It may be way off to say (as I did) that if not for Vernon the book would have "faded into oblivion". But I also think it would be way off to think that most modern magicians were lead to the book by TN Downs or Cardini or anyone like that. And by modern I'm talking about anyone who has taken a serious interest in cards in the last 50-60 years.

Also, just as an aside, I think there are things in the book that a stage or platform performer (who uses cards in his act) would find useful. Most of the shifts in the lederdmain section that are useless for card table artifice and even close up magic, would be fine for stage/platform work where unusual handling and certain noise issues can be easily overcome.

Didn't Vernon have some excessive time on the grift before he got deep into magic? someone was telling me a while back about all the famous signitures they got off reciepts for crooked gambling equipment.

http://books.google.com/books?id=JWie7AT......PA173,M1

Here is a cute little story that paints Vernon as a magician...imagine that.

I never heard that. I know he had a keen interest in gambling as a youngster and that he assosicated with gamblers (both straight and crooked) all his life. But I don't think he was ever hustling regularly. I think he claimed to have cheated at cards only a couple of times in his life.

Stoneunhinged you know that me and you are cool and all that. I was just clarifying things for my readers sake so there would be no way they can misinterpret that Erdnase wasn't a good read and that everybody just can't go from kindergarten straight to college. As Mr. Lombard said previously "if you can get one thing from a book or video it was worth purchasing. If it wasn't for Erdnase I wouldn't have invented my Infinity Pass, a lot of wisdom is in that book but on the same note if it wasn't for "The Phantom of the Card Table I wouldn't have learned how to make a punch or punch deal and if it wasn't for Seconds, Centers and Bottoms I wouldn't have learned how to Second, Bottom and Middle deal and so on and so on.

No, no one hustler knows everything about everything especially me. This is why I don't speak in a lot of post because I honestly don't know all that ya'll may think I know so I shut up. Yes I'm still a student too, and a student must shut up and listen in order to learn. All I was saying about Erdnase was that it was time to move on nothing more, nothing less. Note: Revelation's and Darwin's Annotated clearly clarify that there were a lot of problems that had to be cleared up in order to understand that book so I'm not being bias in this area.

My Immortality

Stoneunhinged you are absolutely correct about me wanting to be immortalized in this field and it's for a number of reasons 1. Mainly because blacks are never noted for their accomplishments especially in this field and 2. There was a need in this particular area for magicians to understand certain things about what was right and wrong regarding learning gambling sleights especially to use at a table.

Walter Scott knew of this as well "If you're a cardsharp, you've got to understand the business...When you cheat a man out of his money, it's like stepping on his face into mud. So it's more than just cheating cards. It's experience. And fifty years of experience can't be taught to you in twenty-one minutes. Magicians don't realize this when they visit me. They really don't want to learn anything. They just fancy knowing how it's done...Magicians weren't interested in playing poker; they only wanted to know the moves that got the cards from the deck and on to the table.

Bottom Line: In Scott's eyes, most of your expert magicians of his time "were nothing more than cheap expose artists, not clever enough to play, too scared to cheat, and selling what was never theirs" and this is exactly what some of you here want to do. You just want to show off that you can do gambling moves to get praise that you're an expert to the unsophisticated in this field.

But Doc You Show Stuff?

Even though some of you may say that I show stuff and Steve literally wrote about it in his books, ya'll don't understand that those moves won't come to life for you unless you actually do them in action. It's like practicing choreography and then the day comes when you have to do it on stage before thousands; you can't make a mistake. That's the thrill we get when we perform our ruses and for doing our performance, we get paid.

Doc why don't you do a video or write a book? Because enough is enough. Everything that ya'll need to win the money is already in all of the DVD's you just got to know where to look. All I would be doing is going over that which has already been shown and all ya'll would be doing is learning my stuff just to show off with and in the interim get us killed. As Steve wrote in his book "You will find professional hustlers of all ethnic persuasions. Since each culture favors certain games, certain scams are more common within the different groups.

"Yes I can show stuff that's not out but to be honest with you, it wouldn't be for ya'll, it would be for the blacks and other cultures who cheat at games such as Tonk, Poker Tonk, Knock Rummy, Brag, Sip Sam, Georgia Skin, Whoppi, Coon Can, Set Back (Pitch) Oodles, Low Ball, Padookie, Low in the Hole, Dealer's Choice, Deuces Wild, Wild Card games such as Dr. Pepper, Jacks or Better, 5 and 7 Card Stud etc.

Yes even though Steve exposed cheating methods in his book, he basically just exposed the ethnic games that he plays and since this forum is predominantly white and ya'll play in the same circle of ethnicity this is why this Texas Hold'em and Black jack literature stands out as being important. Now that this Texas Hold'em thing has become world known and shown on T.V. everywhere I have to learn how to cheat as a stationary dealer in order to get paid. Help...

Take Care

Respectfully,

Doc

P.S. Yes some of you would purchase my stuff out of respect for me but that will not be enough money for me to live off of.

Can this move fly in a card game? Heck I doubt it could fly in a magic act!

The horrid obvious body turn, the weird completly telling moving down of the hands.

I have no idea if it would work in a game or not, but if I saw it in a magic act I would certainly spot it.

I agree. Actually, the magician8 does it pretty well in that video. But it's just an odd move that is not all that useful. It seems particularly ill suited for the card table (and I'm talking cheating at cards or doing seated table magic.).

As he said: "This is another outcome of our constant but ever failing efforts to devise a perfect shift,..."


I think it is a good effort. Its quick and in a heads up game like Gin you might find the right moment. It only takes a waitress to distract you for a moment.

Possibly. Or, as I mentioned above, in a stage/platform sitaution where turning the body and holding the deck perpendicular to the floor like that could be routined in such a way that it appears fairly natural.

Doc,

I must say that I'm having a great time reading your comments and insights. I'm more in to magic than gambling, but your passion with regard to the use of your infinity pass and other ganbling moves and ploys keeps me waiting for your next post.

I think a shift in Holdem is a bit of waste of time in any event. If you know the top eight cards before the cut, you are almost guaranteed to know what the board will be after the cut. That would be enough advantage for me to not bother risking doing any shift. I guess it depends how much of an advantage you want to get and how much risk you want to take to get it.

I fully agree with you tommy ****s is Holdem are not as necessary as they can be in 5 card stud. Other techniques may be used instead. I don't think that Erdnase would recomend use the open shif for this purpose.

Vandy it is not about being right or wrong it is about keeping things in a realistic perspective. You bring up some interesting points - My opinion of Cardini and TN Downs that they were also great with cards. So was Manuel the master of the all mighty dollar.

Manuel was talked about in the book Phantom of the card table as being great but did not - for unknown reason's, move in a card game - even when I have heard that he was a heavy card player.

But - and this is a big but - Cardini, TN Downs and many professional stage performers often avoided magicians because they would copy their acts.

Vernon really was never in the same league as a performer in the same way - he did not have an act to worry about getting copied. His strong point was his close up - he could do stage but his close up was his strong point. And performing close up and making a living performing close up was a "new" idea that was just starting.

Bert Allerton, Dr. Jaks and other close up magicians were just starting out.

So in short show business was changing as the vaudeville performers went into night clubs. Later Vernon was getting published and still later the Vernon Touch stuff in Genii that did a lot to give him the reputation he has.

So to make a long post longer - many of the guys that did acts - did not publish their stuff and today - many of them are the magicians that seem to fall into obscurity.

Where the magicians that publish seem to be more remembered.

Well a lot of these people don't even know who Cardini or TN Downs was. And Dai Vernon lives on because of his published works.

Le Paul did an act of all cards and even in the small night clubs he did close up as a stage act. Nate Leipzig also did close up on the Vaudeville stage. Yes there would be some things useful for stand up magic in Erdnase.

But it has never been considered as a stand up book on magic. Greater magic and Modern magic and books like that were more popular with magicians of the day. Today close up is more popular because magic is more of a hobby that it is a profession

Just my opinion

I personally think magicians are more skilled with cards than cardsharps. However I think a lot of cardsharps become top experts at the odd few moves that they specialize in. Walter Scott could not do many things it appears to me but was probably one best at what he could do. If guys like Cardini or Vernon were cardsharps and only had to master a few moves to get the money, then they would probably be the best cardsharps we have ever have seen.