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I Cast No Shadow New user 71 Posts |
Has anyone here every heard of John Scarne being refered to as "The Professor"? We all know that Dai Vernon was called that (reportedly much to his chagrin), but I had never heard this applied to Scarne...
The other day though, I was looking through my copy of "Scarne's New Complete Guide To Gambling" and on the very first page of the introduction (page xvii, as it were) it says: "The honest gamblers must always know the angles in order to protect themselves from cheats, and the card sharps wanted to find out how John did his magician-bafflers for obvious reasons. It wasn't long before Scarne was calling these gentlemen by thier first names and they had given him the monicker "the Professor" -- originally because it used to be a term applied to top-ranking magicians and later because of his encyclopedic knowledge of gambling." Now granted Scarne did not write this intro, Simon and Schuster did. But still I wonder as to the original source of this information. I love reading about magicians and magic history, but the more history I read the more "stretched truths" and outright lies I see printed. Scarne is a pretty good example of this. A lot of his stories are, well, somewhat exagerated. Houdini is a good example too. In fact it was Houdini himself that told a young Scarne (after Scarne supposedly fooled the pants off him with cards, which is quite believable) "You will always be your own best publicist". It it obvious he took this advice to heart. Now please don't misunderstand me here, I'm not bashing either Scarne or Houdini. They're my heros too, but the fact is that wading through all the lies (most especially with these two it seems) can be often be difficult at best, which is a real shame. I want to know our rich history, but I want the TRUTH. So I guess my question is, does anyone here have any info regarding Scarne being known as "The Professor"? As I mentioned, the only reference I've seen until now was the one I just cited. Thanks.
"It is impossible to make anything foolproof because fools are so ingenious" - Murphy's Corollary
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I Cast No Shadow New user 71 Posts |
Wow, no one huh?
"It is impossible to make anything foolproof because fools are so ingenious" - Murphy's Corollary
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