Does anyone out there perform "Virginia City Shuffle". I began performing it about 2 years ago, and it has become a staple in my program. However, periodically I have had some people notice times when I do the reverse fan. Any advice on this, or is this just a hazard of the trick. Any help would be appreciated.

When you are doing the reverse fan, make sure the top right hand corner of each card is level, or below the top of the last card, about 1/3 of the way in from the left.

(hope you understand that!)

Then use your thumb on top, and your three middle fingers on the underside when you are displaying the aces- this way there is no way the specs could spot the aces.

Tom

http://www.rapidmagic.com -online card sleights and tricks database

I perform the Virginia City Shuffle all the time. I've never had that happen. It's possible that you are encountering unusually card-savvy people, but I suspect it's more likely one of two things.

First, there's really no reason they should ever pay attention to how you are fanning the cards unless you are paying attention to how you fan the cards. The fan should be casually done, not carefully done. It shouldn't be important.

Second possibility is that these are people who have seen you perform this trick before, and so they are watching for anomalies. Even here, I can think of why they would notice, unless they had a reason to suspect the fan.

Jim

Jim's suggestions about cover it, but if you lose confidence in the trick do Sidewalk Shuffle instead.

I saw Ammar do it on a videotape and give the cards away, which looked good for the tape but I thought a few moments playing with the cards and they would soon reconstruct the reverse fan aspect.

There are other displays in the routine showing the cards blank so as Jim says the fan shouldn't be that important.

Paul.

Thanks for all your help. I think that the couple of time that it has happened was because they had seen me do the trick before. Thanks again.