Yes but if deck is borrowed, you need to count how many cards...less impromptu ;-)

You could do Clock of Doom by John Bannon instead, which doesn't require you to count the cards but isn't self working.

On Roberto Giobbi's Card Collage DVD there is an effect he calles Belchou Aces Revisited, I think its great & I believe it is another take on The Spectators cutting to the Aces. Then he goes into a great poker deal.

The Biddle Trick, uses a minor sleight, practically self-working. You can add in false counts etc., but not necessary.

My favorite changes a lot but right now I would pick this one.

At a magic club picnic some years back, Harry Lorayne once showed me his Impromptu Out of This World from "My Favorite Card Tricks" (1965). Like a lot of performers, I had this book in my library, where the effect remained hidden until it was brought to my attention by the author.

Wow!

Hello everyone ,

I have often been told that self working card tricks with no gimmicks are dull, repetitive and only for hobbyists or newbies and not real workers.

Personally I have never prescribed to this general point of view . However the proof is in the pudding as they say and so I put together am effect which met the following criteria .

Borrowed shuffled deck
No gimmicks
No manipulation to the cards I.e nail nicks , cri*ps etc
No stooging or duality
No set up
No memorisation
Spectators can burn your hands
Pretty much impossible to back track


The above are the standard criteria met but I wanted to set a higher bar

That leaves a long lasting impression on the audience
When asked for a repeat performance it can be done with no fear of the audience becoming any the wiser as to how the impossible is done
An effect good enough for a pro to put in their working repertoire

The effect in question is "The Crusade " and already has a 7 page thread in the latest and greatest with numerous reviews and testimonials which show an ungimmcked self worker can stand equal to a sleight of hand effect

What I did no expect was for the effect to be doing so well on the best magic release of 2013 .

Long live the self worker !!!

Andrew

"Devastation" from Geoff Williams is exactly that.

Richard Vollmer has a lot of good self working tricks.
You can find some of them in Apocalyspe...

He wrote a lot of books (compilation from others magicians and creation by him) on the subject but most of them (maybe all) are in french

+1 for Aldo Colombini site to pick up Killer Koncepts for only $10. Thanks for all your suggestions Vlad-77.

The above criterion also works with Spellbinder's Impromptu version of Grant's Slate of Mind, as described in his e-Book in his Mini-Mysteries Book 1 treatise on "Evolutionary Slate of Mind." Any borrowed shuffled deck may be used, as can any slate or substitute a writing pad for the slate. At the end, all the cards are back in the borrowed deck and all can be handled by spectators (read "examined"). Can be presented as a card trick or as a mentalist's prediction or brain control. The outcome is different each time it is performed.

I think Harry Lorayne's Stop! falls into the category, an AMAZING effect with very little effort in my opinion, quite ingenious.

Follow-up from my August 27th post:

Wiz Kid Qua-Fiki just made a video demonstration of Spellbinder's Evolutionary Slate of Mind. In the video, he's using a Dollar Store slate as a prop, but this can easily be replaced by an ordinary pad of paper, as described in the e-Book found in our Mini-Mysteries Book 1 on The Magic Nook.

Whoever brought up Con Cam Coincedincia, thank you! Just checked it out, and it is quite good - one I'll use a lot. Great effect

"think stop" would have to be one that's very ez to do , no set up at all , you can be handed a deck and go right into it , RRTCM , an impossible turn over card in deck from which the spec only taught of ,
gets my vote

Rouge De Noir, From a old Abbotts catalog. Not even listed on the web site any more.

An Impossible Conclusion by John Carey– An amazing effect. It is a very clean trick where a card vanishes, and reappears on the spelling of the word Impossible. It does not sound like much, but is amazing to laymen and very visual can be done with any deck of cards in fact you don't even need a full deck.

Once you've done a trick a couple hundred times.... aren't they all basically self-working?

I must agree with "An impossible Conclusion" by John Carey... An amazing trick!
It is not completely self working, but there is nothing difficult to do, there are some great principles inside, the trick itself is really great, you can use a borrowed shuffled deck (which I always love since you are really clean), it is always ready to go, no complex procedures or counting, all in all, have a look, you won't be disappointed!

merlin

I just came across this one recently by Andrew Normansell called "High Five" and must say it is quite a fooler and looks impossible. The spectator does most of the work and gets surprising results. Easy to do but has the look and feel of real magic.