After studying "T.N.T" and "Intuition," the first two effects in Roberto Giobbi's _Card College Lite_, I came up with the--perhaps not original--idea of using a separation of odd/even cards rather than red/black cards.

The downside: separation of odd/even cards is not as dramatic and eye-popping as the separation of red/black in "Intuition," while in the Tamariz effect "T.N.T," the location of the two cards will not be as "lightning fast."

The upside: the cards may be displayed face up at anytime without revealing the stacked nature of the effects, which is especially useful in both effects when the participants are given portions of the deck to shuffle and mix!

Any thoughts?

Hi Alan

I tried to use the concept for the first two piles being black and red (which we know they are not) and the second two piles being odd and even. I did find some solutions but I haven't performed it for long enough to be able to say if it is an improvement (seems shorter than the repetition of red and balck)

It is exciting but I couldn't say if it is really exciting, meaning more than the traditional OOTW.

I usually perform an impromptu version of OOTW with a shuffled deck.

Having impressed a friend with the effect, she kept hounding me to do it again for another person (while she was there). Not wanting to repeat the effect, I did the separation of odd and even cards instead. Initially, to my friend, it looked as though I'd messed up.. it became a great sucker trick.

That said, in most circumstances I wouldn't use odd/even separation as it is not as visually interesting.

Syd

I don't own card college lite, is TNT the same as Neither Blind Nor Stupid / Silly ?

If so, you need to be aware that that partucular routine demands the same number of cards in each set. There are more off than even cards in a standard deck, so you'd need to do something about that. There are plenty of things you could do, but it's something to bear in mind, and you may need to do some displacement between the 2 routines.

Yes TNT is the same as Neither Blind Nor Stupid / Silly !

Lawrence,
Your idea is absolutely brillant. I can imagine, that this is very troublesome and make very difficult to track back: because what is accomplished in the 2 part of the trick is different : first red and black, then odd-even. And I can imagine that the way you introduce the change in the procedure is motivate: you will do something different with the new "leaders" cards.

Personnally, I've done OOTW with the even/odd separation by asking the spectator to tell me 1 or 2 and I put the cards on the pile 1 or 2. At the end It appears that 1 is odd and 2 even. It's like their words guided the thing.