I'd like some feedback on this presentational idea. Let's assume that I've (apparently) put the black Aces on Kurt's hand and the red Aces on Kurtalina's hand. I ask Kurt to remember that the AS is on bottom and AC on top, and I want him to focus on swapping the two black Ace's positions with his mind.

Now I look at Kurtalina and say, "Ok, we're going to try the same with you. You had the two red Aces, but I don't remember which was on top and which was on bottom. Can you turn them over and check?" She turns them over and, of course, they're now black Aces. Kurt of course will now check his and find they're red.

So I'm asking for feedback about the order of the reveal. I showed this to a pro friend and he said, no, I should reveal Kurt's Aces first. But he didn't seem to have any reason to offer other than tradition.

Obviously, I can and will experiment performing both ways. But I'm curious if anyone else has tried this order of reveal, and what more experienced magicians might think of it. Thanks in advance.

I see an issue, not with the order, but with the fact that you are trying to use two spectators at all. I know that magicians always say the more audience members you can involve the better it is and the bigger your act looks but in the case of Dr. Daley's Last Trick I think it diffuses the effect. You should only have Kurt hold one set of aces and race to the point as directly and quickly as possible. The other spectators should experience the effect vicariously. Just my opinion, hope it helps.

The Dowser

Thanks, Dowser. Just for context, I'm an amateur who performs for small audiences, often children, in casual contexts. I find my audiences tend to enjoy the build-up, which makes them expect something to happen but then what happens is bigger than they expected. It's fun! Even this way, DDLT is a very short trick for my style, so I'm not too worried about trying to shorten it even more.

If I've read you correctly, though, would it be fair to say that if you were forced to do more of a build-up with this trick than a race-to-the-point, you wouldn't see the order of the reveal as having a major impact?

I appreciate your points and your performing conditions. To answer your question, I personally would add to the build up by using my words in the presentation with one spectator rather than dividing the attention of the children... so I guess for me the order still would not be an issue.

By the way... I still think that no one is better at enjoying an effect vicariously through one representative than a group of kids and it may be more powerful with an effect like that to allow a single child to be the complete focus of the effect and all the others to wish they were him/her... not that your approach is wrong... this is just the way I would go after it.

However,
If I had no choice but to do it the way you suggest, I would choose whichever participant has the most focus on them (whether it be because your presentation made them the focus, or because of their personality shining through at the moment) and reveal that person last.

The Dowser

Thanks. That's a great idea to personalise which spec reveals first and last in the moment, based on them. I like it!

You are welcome.
P.S. If you are putting this much thought into your effects, I'm sure your audience is going to love your performance either way. Experiment and see which way gives the best results...

Good Luck with it.

I've gone back and forth on which aces should be revealed first and in what manner myself, and it's something I still struggle with conceptually even though I've switched over to an entirely different method.

Assuming your method is foolproof, I believe it depends upon where you're going to be getting the aesthetic power from.

A similar problem arises when people try to figure out what the best way of revealing Triumph is. Do you do it face-down with the face-up selected card? Or do you do it face-up with the face-down selected card?

Darwin Ortiz puts out a strong case for the all-at-once punch to the face with the face-down spread and face-up selection. Ricky Jay does a four-ace reveal from a triumph-like setup, and he does it this way, and it plays very strong.

I'm personally a big fan of the face-up spread with the face-down selected card, because I like the two moments, with the line "you can see that" followed by a slower and deliberate spread with "every. single. card. is. face. down.... except for one." which you push outwards, and then ask for their card's identity, and then pause, and then turn over. I think the second is more reliable in getting a bit more of an applause cue.

What does Triumph have to do with this? Well, the all-at-once display has the advantage of being brisk if you want it to be brisk. Ortiz makes the point that the longer you drag it out, the more you risk the audience losing an emotional connection to the original state, which can dampen the reaction to the new state. So, for DDLT, after you've done the laydown of the Black Aces, the argument would be to show the Red Aces ASAP to get that punch.

However, a counter-argument could be made that you might want to delay it just a bit. I don't mind the two-spectator approach, but you'd want to justify that element by, perhaps, making sure that the colour of aces that each spectator gets isn't arbitrary. So, say you've got a larger audience, and you're able to choose a person with a black shirt and a person with a red shirt. You give the black aces to the person with the black shirt, the red aces to the person with the red shirt, pattering (for example) about how life sometimes feels mundane and expected, and that you see the role of magic as to disrupt the expected, whereupon you ask them to reveal their cards, and the person with the black shirt has the red aces, and the person with the red shirt has the black aces. You can delay a little bit because you've got clarity from the external elements in play.

This sort of approach is a bit more my style, but the added elements can create problems. First, you need to have spectators with those two shirts. Second, you have to hope those two people, who are chosen solely because of their shirts, are going to be compliant spectators. Third, you have to hope those two people, who may be compliant, aren't going to accidentally muddy the reveal by turning over the cards in a non-dramatic way.

But all that's just conjecture. The usual mantra is "you have to do what's right for you". I hate that advice because it's usually unhelpful, but I'd say it somewhat applies here, which is that you have to experiment to see how all the elements come together in your hands in your usual performing situation, and that in the course of experimenting you test other options to make sure you're not missing out. This is one of the reasons why the story of David Devant and his 8 tricks is so important. Sometimes you have to live with your material for a long time to really get the most out of it.

Thank you so much! I'll take all that under consideration as well.

When you say "aesthetic power," you mean what aspect of the effect do I want to make the impression. Something like that?

Certainly, the surprise that the cards have changed hands is going to come all at once. What I like about the way I've got above, is that it produces a result that, apparently, I myself was not expecting. I was asking Kurt to swap his two Aces around, not his two with her two. It then seemed natural that I might turn to Kurtalina and try to get her to do the same thing.

The excuse of asking her to turn her Aces to check which is on top is a playful way of disrupting the timing of the reveal. If I ask Kurt to turn his over before she does, then they're expecting the punchline then and there, even if it's a bigger punch than they expected. But if I'm apparently still setting up the trick and, boom, there it is, I get the little startle that I like.

I will think about it more and experiment, but my opportunities to perform are few and far between. So it's handy to run these ideas past you guys. I'm not set in stone about which way to do it, and I won't ever be, but I do like to think things through as thoroughly as I can! Thanks again to both of you for the help!

I agree with Dowser and feel that using 2 spectator's diffuses the power of the transposition. It is just as you indicate you are "disrupting the timing of the reveal" which I feel is not a good thing. Burnaby Kid's discussion on what is the effect is the important point. Yes, as a magician I too like the idea in triumph as showing the face down card and then the reveal, but it is delaying the effect. Of course, the best way check this is to do it in the real world and see what you get. I suspect that Darwin Ortiz has done this and thought about it a little more than I have.

If you want to use 2 spectator's with a transposition, then the classic effect where each spectator chooses a card and it looks like you have incorrectly placed each other's card in in front of each person. Only to magically correct the problem.

Inspiration here was John Bannon's Bullet Train, about which he says, "Card tricks have an internal clock that ticks along and anticipates that certain actions will happen in a certain way and at a certain time. But what happens if things don’t happen when they are supposed to, but a beat or two before? A double shock. First, we’re surprised at the impossible thing happening. But we’re also surprised that it happened when it did—before we were really ready."

Certainly I'm not going to pretend that my little tweak of DDLT compares to Bannon's work in any other sense than this one, the aim of toying with the timing for the "double shock." I get a good response from Iconoclastic Aces, too, similar to the one I get with this version of DDLT.

It's possible that this is a stylistic difference, rather than an objective question that can be settled. I think The Burnaby Kid was suggesting just that. On the other hand, the opinions of several experienced magicians are worth my heeding and weighing. And, as I said before, I'll certainly look to experiment when I have opportunity.

Another bit that suggests this may be stylistic is the two-card transposition. If I were to put it in my repertoire, I'd do it differently from a presentational perspective. Rather than my magically saving the day, I'd get it wrong and ask them to fix it, probably by getting them to say some very ridiculous magic words

I suggested a Perverse Magic presentation of this effect on the Perverse Magic thread of the Genii Forum on June 1, 2017 and on page 391 of "Gerald Deutsch's Perverse Magic: The First Sixteen Years".

Sort of.

At the risk of sounding super-patronizing, think of it like this. Apple-Cinnamon pancakes with icing sugar and syrup are delicious. Potato Pancakes with a little green onion in them are delicious. After the pancake itself, the dominant ingredient is apple for the first, and potato for the second. But, if you decide you want something sweet, it's not just about the apple, but also the cinnamon, icing sugar and syrup. If you decide you want something savoury, it's not just about the potato, but also the green onion and... er... lack of cinnamon, icing sugar and syrup.

You can choose the timing of the reveal in the same way that you can choose apples over potato or vice-versa. But, you also need to incorporate all the other surrounding ingredients skillfully in order to get a tasty final product.

If you want to delay the reveal, then to maximize its effect you want to set it up with the appropriate surrounding conditions. If you want to reveal it immediately, then again, to maximize its effect you want to set it up with the appropriate surrounding conditions. Either way requires artistic choices that may involve the presence or absence of details that would work in one but not the other.

Now, unless you decide that you want to start eating cards then this sort of recipe heuristic leads to an imperfect analogy, but hopefully the spirit of what I'm saying comes across.

I think it's worth considering a possible situation that can and does arise in this effect. It's this - You place the AS FD onto the spec's hand, followed by the AC. You ultimately ask the spectator about which one is on top. The spectator then says, "I think it's a red ace." This happened to me once and I ended up restructuring the presentation so it would never happen again.

I think we often forget that once the show is in progress and surprising and unexpected things are happening (magic), the spectators begin to expect the unexpected. When you say, "I'll put this AS over here after a double lift, some in the audience are thinking "I'll bet that's not the AS." If that thought turns out to be correct, they're even more likely to be suspicious later.

I think there's merit to Jon's idea of not asking a question, but rather pointing out what's on top. Then, before anyone has the thought "I wonder if that's true" he asks the other spec to check her cards. The unexpected moment that occurs should be very strong.

M

Thank you, sir! I devoured that thread a few months ago and loved it. I just went back and refreshed myself on this post. I really like the perverse magic style!

Yes indeed! I didn't find it patronising at all, and I think the pancake analogy is perfect. I'm off to the kitchen!

Thank you, Mr. Powers. I had a very interesting experience with this trick recently, where a bystander insisted afterwards that she saw the face of one of the Aces as it went into the kid's hand, and that it was black. She was extra dumbfounded by the trick because of that. Of course, I didn't spoil the fun by letting her know it was impossible, since I was sneakily placing a red Ace at the time.

I learned a couple lessons. One, I must have been careless if she caught a flash of the card, and I'll be more careful now. Two, she must have been very convinced it was a black Ace if her mind played a little trick on her!

I always make sure to drive it home in the patter which Ace is where. Some of this is the cinnamon I've already been applying to the apple pancakes, but I'll keep working on it.

For those who have Darryl’s Fooler Doolers series there is a nice presentation by Darryl. He uses a series of questions in performing Dr. Daley’s last trick. Darryl took this trick and made it where the spectator is gently led down the garden path and not made out to be a fool. Darryl was one special magician and he is sorely missed.

Asking whether the AS or AC is on top is a pretty standard presentation of DDLT. The reason it is surprising and amusing is because it is predicated on the false reality that the spectator holds the black aces (and therefore reinforces that impression.) But Mike has pointed out that this could go wrong.

Another common humorous touch in some effects is for the magician to "magically" transpose some objects, NOT reveal them, then "magically" transpose them back again. The shared joke is that the objects are "magically" back where they started - so they never moved at all.
I think maybe something like this might work with DDLT with two spectators? Especially kids in fact, because there is a kind of gentle teasing involved that they usually enjoy.

Nikodemus, I love that idea. It's kind of like the spongeball joke, "they changed places." There's another one I've sometimes done with cards. They name their card, say Ace of Hearts, and I lift up one card and say, "I have magically found your Ace of Hearts, and magically changed it to the Five of Clubs!", turning over my card to show 5C.

Naturally, a moment later that 5C will be the AH. At the risk of putting even more build-up in before getting to the point, I'm going to think about doing this suggestion of yours for DDLT. Thanks!

I've experimented with different ways of handling the reveal. In the original, I think you should reveal the cards on the table first because the focus is on the Ace of Spades' supposed location. This is what makes the transposition so surprising. I've reframed the whole trick as a short con demonstration. I've done this to justify the use of four cards when only two are actually used. I use the two black Aces, rather than all four, to make things easier on the mark, to begin with. This is, of course, all a ruse to set me up for the transposition.

I've also tried doing the trick with two people. If you do it this way, I recommend you concentrate on the colours of the cards only. Asking questions about the location of specific cards is too confusing for most people. As Mike has mentioned above, it can also make people suspicious and may lead to strange responses to any questions you ask.

Another weakness of this trick is people forgetting which cards are where. If this happens, no effect takes place. I have many ways to deal with this. Here are two of my favourite approaches using envelopes and multiple spectators:

Blackmail - Deal the red Aces (?) to the table and but the black cards in a black, opaque envelope. Ask your audience, "What do you call this? It's blackmail! Who wants to be blackmailed?". Give the envelope to someone to hold, then pick up the tabled cards and tap them against the envelope. Turn the cards face up to reveal the AS and AC. The participant then opens the envelope to reveal the red Aces. This approach has a few benefits: the envelope makes the transposition more impossible. More importantly, the envelope's colour reminds people of the red and black Aces' relative location.

Royal Mail - Similar to the above, I use the four Queens and two envelopes: one red and one black. The red Queens are put in the red envelope and the black Queens in the black envelope. The envelopes are handed out to two different male spectators. The black envelope is opened to reveal the red Queens inside, and black envelope is opened to reveal two black Kings! The presentation includes some lighthearted jokes about mail-order brides and finishes with the line, "those ain't no ladies!".

The envelopes slow things down significantly, so you need a strong script to support this approach.

Another way to handle the transpo when performing for a couple is as follows:

Stolen - Hand the AH and AD (?) to your female participant. Tell her that these Aces represent, "infinite love and good fortune." Hand the black Aces to your male participant and tell him that the black Aces represent, "death and taxes." This usually gets a giggle. Then turn to your female participant and say, "What do hearts and diamonds have in common?" They usually say that they're both red. Respond by saying, "No, they can both be stolen!" Reveal that she holds the two black cards and that her partner has stolen her diamond and her heart! This is my favourite way to present DDLT because it really connects with the couple on an emotional level, and makes the trick about them, not me.

I've also played with the idea of using kicker cards (10H and 10D). In this situation, I reveal that the man has "stolen" the two red Aces before revealing that he has left his girlfriend or wife with lots of hearts and diamonds. Needless to say, these approaches require compliant participants. If I'm worried that they will turn the cards over early, I'll also use red and black envelopes. I'd also do this to make the effect more visible if I ever performed it on stage.

When performing this trick for a child, I use the following idea:

Seated Switch - Have the child sit on the Black Aces (?). Tell them to remember the phrase, "black bottom". For some reason, kids find this funny. However, the alliteration subtly reminds them of the location of the black Aces. Give them the red Aces to hold. Tell them to shout, "Change places Aces!" and reveal that they now hold the black Aces and sit on the red ones. I structured this routine specifically to stop children from revealing the transposition too soon.

Anyway, I have a load more ideas connected to this plot that I hope to publish in a book someday. I'm not sure how interesting it will be to read, though!

Marty