Lybrary.com: ebooks and download videos
Home / Magic & Mentalism / Cards / Self-Working or Sleightless

Card College Lighter
by Roberto Giobbi

$26

(15 customer ratings) ★★★★★

PDF | by download [3.49 MByte]  
Card College Lighter by Roberto Giobbi
This product is also part of:

Roberto Giobbi's newest survey of sleightless card magic, Card College Lighter, gives the famous Giobbi treatment to 21 baffling card tricks by some of the craft's greatest masters, including Vernon, Annemann, Leech, Maven, Fulves, Hummer, Vollmer and Krenzel. These tricks do not require sleights, but they all show the cunning perspective of a professional performer, guaranteeing astonishing and entertaining results.

Following in the footsteps of his Card College Light, Roberto Giobbi teaches the secrets of professional-caliber card magic, providing insights into the presentation, psychology and routining that make these simple tricks into seeming miracles. He gives the reader all the tools necessary for a professional-quality performance.

Giobbi also explains how these tricks can be arranged into highly effective and entertaining routines. The reader will learn the secrets of expert organization and combination that make good tricks even more baffling. These lessons serve both the beginner and the advanced card-magician who wish to do magic that allows the audience to stare relentlessly at the fingers without discovering a thing.

From the introduction:

This ebook is the second in the Card College Light series. The goal of this series is to offer first-class, effective card tricks to those who do not wish to use techniques requiring years to perfect. It contains card effects that demand neither the knowledge of nor the ability to execute card sleights. In other words, anyone can understand and perform the tricks described here after just a bit of study.

The ebook contains four sections. If you select a trick from each of the first three parts, you can use these three effects to perform a compact show lasting about fifteen minutes. The fourth section gives you guidance in how to do this.

You will find much more here than methods for doing tricks. To transform a card trick into magic, it is necessary to think about logistics, theatrical staging and communication. How can one construct a piece of card magic to assure it is interesting and fascinating to an audience? How can one interact with the audience instead of just talking "at" them? These concepts have nothing to do with methods, but they can turn a mathematical trick into a rare experience of impressive and stimulating entertainment. You should not be satisfied with anything less. To paraphrase a quote from Goethe, I think good sleightless card tricks are the best way to practice impromptu speaking and theatrical presentation.

I have nothing to add to the theoretical and practical thoughts presented in Card College Light. I suggest you read my opening essay on "The Presentation of Sleightless Card Tricks" in that volume.

I hope you have fun reading and rehearsing these tricks. Yours truly, Roberto Giobbi.

1st edition 2008; 176 pages.

  1. Thanks
  2. A Word From Potassy
  3. To the Reader
  4. Part 1
  5. Voila, Four Aces! Someone selects a card and returns it to the deck. One card mysteriously turns over in the deck and leads directly to the location of the selection. At the end, the four Aces are suddenly produced!
  6. The Australian Fives. Two previously selected cards reappear mysteriously with the aid of the "Australian Fives" and an exotic procedure.
  7. Fully Automatic Aces. The magician demonstrates the difference between coincidence and pure sleight-of-hand. Two Aces are then spectacularly produced by him. An audience member finds the two remaining Aces herself, apparently through sheer coincidence.
  8. Strange Harmony. Someone cuts off any number of cards. Two more people designate two cards from the remainder of the deck. The sum of their two cards is precisely the number of cards cut by the first person.
  9. The Thought-of Card. Someone merely thinks of a card in the deck. The magician proves he can read the person’s thoughts and determines the thought-of card.
  10. Six-Card Poker Played Here. The deck is cut and four people are each dealt six cards. Each of them removes five of his cards, leaving him with just one. When these remaining cards are disclosed, it is discovered that the four participants have successfully found the Aces—apparently without the magician having done a thing.
  11. Risk! Someone shuffles and cuts the deck. She looks at the random card she has shuffled to the top, and then puts it anywhere in the deck. She shuffles and cuts the cards again. This can all happen in a room where the magician is not present! In spite of these incredible conditions, he is able to find the chosen card.
  12. Part 2
  13. The Spectator Does a Trick. An audience member does an inexplicable magic trick: He finds a card previously looked at by the magician.
  14. The Cards Knew. After someone has scrupulously shuffled the deck, the performer divides it into several piles, four of which the helper freely selects by laying the four Aces onto them. It turns out that a number obtained from the cards in the four chosen piles corresponds exactly and without fail to the number of cards in the remaining piles.
  15. Senza Toccare (Look Ma, No Hands)! Someone looks at a card at a freely determined position in a shuffled deck. The magician is able to find this selection without ever looking at the faces of the cards!
  16. The Birthday Card. The magician states he can tell the birthday of someone he doesn't know. Although no one believes him, he proves it in an amusing way.
  17. A Condition of Balance. Someone cuts any number of cards off a shuffled deck and puts them into his pocket. The magician then cuts off a packet and tosses cards onto the table until he holds a number he judges right. The pocketed packet and the magician's are now counted—and both contain the same number of cards!
  18. Mental Three-Card Monte. In the spirit of a three-card monte game, someone selects one of three cards as the winning one. He then mixes them. Although the magician is turned away the entire time, he is able to find the mentally selected card.
  19. 10-11-12. The magician makes an open prediction by setting one card to the side, face up. Someone rolls three dice and deals the number of cards indicated by the dice. The last card dealt matches the prediction card!
  20. Part 3
  21. Infantastic. The magician predicts not only the name of a celebrity, but also someone's selected card that is connected to that celebrity.
  22. Subconscious Poker. The magician deals five hands of poker. He points to the middle card of the third hand (for example, the Queen of Spades) and explains that he will control that card to exactly the same position in the next deal. The cards are gathered and dealt again, and the magician keeps his promise. Moreover, he has controlled the other cards to make the Queen part of a royal flush in spades!
  23. PSI Con Carte. Someone freely chooses a card and returns it to the deck while concealing it behind her back, assuring that the magician has no idea where the card is. The deck is returned to its case, and the magician holds the cased deck to his forehead. To the astonishment of the audience, he determines the card. Moreover, he uses his powers to cause the card in the cased deck to turn upside down.
  24. Mr. King's Tapestry. A fascinating story is told of Mr. King, a collector of tapestries. Meanwhile, someone mixes the cards face up and face down. At the end, only four cards are found face up, and they present Mr. King's initials: the four Kings.
  25. The Card Sharp's Triumph. The cards are shuffled face down into face up. Nevertheless, the magician is able, in a fantastic record time of a few milliseconds, to right the cards so that they all lie face down—with the exception of the four Aces!
  26. Double S'Entendre. Without the apparent participation of the magician, two persons find each other's selected card.
  27. Your Fateful Hour. The magician determines not only the identity of a card chosen by someone, but also a time of day (the fateful hour) that was merely thought of by that person.
  28. Part 4
  29. The Ideal Composition of a Program of Card Magic. How to force cards—how to control cards to the top, the bottom and other positions in the deck—how to add stacked portions of the deck without being noticed—false shuffles and cuts—and how to switch the entire deck easily and without detection—all without any sleight-of-hand!
  30. Afterword. A list of recommended books on card magic.
  31. Notes Further background information on the tricks; the "fine print".

word count: 32352 which is equivalent to 129 standard pages of text


This product is listed under the following topics:

Magic & Mentalism / Cards / Self-Working or Sleightless

Magic & Mentalism / for Beginners