I'll propose a solution. Stack 13 cards of any suit at the top in order. Give these 13 cards a bend. Spectator can riffle shuffle twice. If the shuffles were even, the cards will be evenly distributed throughout the deck, but still in order. Now the gambler/magician can estimate, and because of the bend he will cut at one of the cards in the stacked suit. If another spectator/gambler also cuts, the cut will likely be at a card in the prepared suit. To beat that person, you only need to cut a bit higher/lower than them.

Out of interest, since you are writing a story for a novel, the method doesn't actually have to work, it just needs to be semi credible, you can just make it up right for story purposes sake? Or are you just trying to be authentic as possible? i.e. a gambler is presented with a brand new deck of cards, a second person thoroughly shuffles the deck and gives back the the gambler, the gambler cuts the deck to reveal an ace. For this example in a story, you wouldn't go into too much detail as to how the gambler cut to the ace? The Scarne scene you described, doesn't describe or suggest any method so does it matter if it can be actually done or not?

Pheew, I got hinted at the solution by a friendly Café member and although it is what I thought it was I actually had expected the 'code' to be a little bit more elaborated. But nothing wrong with how it is now, quite a precise description!

Do you have previous novels? I'd be curious to check them out if they are available for sale. Could you point me in the right direction?

Thanks for asking.

THE ZODIAC DECEPTION, published by Forge, which is an imprint of Macmillian, is currently available in a number of formats. In the acknowledgement the members of the Café are thanked generally and specifically, including some who helped create a few "impossible" effects for the book.

The novel I'm working on now, THE HOUDINI KILLER, is a prequel to THE ZODIAC DECEPTION.

Best,
gary

For a clean deck, the primary challenge is to preserve a stock after the spectator shuffles the deck, which contradictorily disturbs the order of the stocked cards embedded within the deck.

In Benjamin Earl's Less is More Bonus (2015), he put forth a brilliant idea called "Shuffled Ose Control, where the stock is controlled even though spectator shuffles deck, cuts and reassembles. The sleight was inspired by "Jay Ose's Cut" in Harry Lorayne's Close-up Card Magic (1962).

Thanks, Sam. Will have to get ahold of Earl's book and check it out as well as the Ose Cut.

Much appreciated.

Looks like everyone needs to cozy up with some Charles Jordan tonight and have their mind blown to bits.

True, but uninteresting.

Hi Gary,

Ed Marlo, the legendary Cardician, has a method to stack any called value into the named number of hands, or to locate four of this kind, from a new deck order stack, in his manuscipt "The Patented Shuffle" (1964).

Having the four Aces (or any called value) controlled and stacked in the regular shuffled deck, the Magician can tamper with the controlled cards sub rosa using the Magician's Ring under the cover of the natural action of squaring the deck.

When the deck is passed to the spectator, no matter how she examines the deck to her heart's content or shuffles the deck herself as many times as she wants, the Magician will have FULL and TOTAL control at all times.

Sounds too good to be true?

Watch the trailer of Jason England's Sub Rosa


Watch the uncut demo of Sub Rosa by Jason England

Sub Rosa requires a special deck: Sub Rosa

Dad Stevens control, ie culling cards while riffle shuffling, is the way to go I think.

Hi Gary, I know you need the theoretical ideas and principles to achieve the seemingly impossible effect in your novel.

If you are interested, take a look at The Myth by Ben Train that uses the principles I described previously to achieve similar effect like Sub Rosa.

I love the handling of the Myth, very clean.

To the OP, **edited** sent a PM

Marc

To all the wonderful Café members who have made such excellent suggestions:

I've gathered some greats

techniques but still not sure if I'm there yet. So I've decided to draft a rough version of the chapter the technique is used to to I hope make things even clearer. From this you might determine that it is indeed impossible.

If you're interested in receiving a copy of the chapter to refine your thoughts please PM me with your email. Should take me another day or so between everything else.

BTW, if any of you are good in electronic/DIY circa 1930 (as in 1930-31 components) have I got a challenge for you also novel-related!

Again, thanks for all the tremendous advice

gary

Still working on it. Came across a mathematical paper today and the intro, which follows, speaks of a card shark who possesses my protagonists ability. From the viewpoint of a cardician (or a mathematical magician), would you agree or disagree:


Suppose an honest player, Alice, is playing cards with a card shark, Bob, who has a photographic memory and perfect vision. Not trusting Bob to shuffle, Alice insists on shuffling the deck for each hand they play. Unfortunately, Bob will only agree to this condition if he gets to scan through the deck of n cards before she shuffles, so that he sees each card and its position in the deck, and if he also gets to watch her shuffle. It isn’t hard to realize that, even though several well-known card shuffling algorithms, like random riffle shuffling, top-to-random shuffling, and Fisher-Yates shuffling, are great at placing cards in random order, they are terrible at obscuring that order from someone like Bob who has memorized the initial ordering of the cards and is watching Alice’s every move.