Hello Mr. England,

Considering you are one of the most well posted card man in the 702 area code, I was hoping you could identify a sleight for me.

For example, you have a deck in new order or possibly a particular stack, maybe one that takes a long time to arrange. The deck is sitting in front of you, minding its own business. You get a call, stand up to greet an old friend or even get up to order some fries for a really cool guy. When you return, the deck still looks normal but as you go to fiddle with the deck in preparation for an effect, you'll find the deck is now in a faceup/facedown condition.

What is the name of this Slight?

References would be appreciated.

Thank you for any assistance,
Not Superman

You got "gaffled."

I'm fairly sure it was Ed Andres that coined that term.

Great story about "gaffling" someone's deck: I was once having dinner with Ken Simmons in Colorado Springs. During dinner, he briefly turned his back to talk to the waitress and I managed to gaffle his deck in record time. He turned back around and we started talking. When the waitress came back, she asked what the cards were for. Ken immediately said "he's a magician" and pointed to me. "If you ask him, he'll show you a trick." In other words, he put me on the spot, something we often tried to do to one another.

So naturally the waitress asked to see a trick and I performed Triumph for her. She was amazed as most laymen are, but right as the effect was ending I had a flash of insight. I continued my presentation by ad-libbing: "Of course, that chaotic, face-up and face-down mixture isn't just allowed to vanish forever - it has to go somewhere. In fact, it went into his deck." As I said this last line I spread Ken's cards across the table to show the face-up/face-down condition and the look on his face was priceless. He had no memory of ever taking his eyes off his cards and had no idea what had just happened.

Ask Paul Wilson his story about taking out a gaffled deck and trying to perform for Terri Hatcher. Derek Delgaudio was the culprit in that one.

Jason