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Kings Incognito
by Stephen Minch & Martin A. Nash

$10

(1 review, 5 customer ratings) ★★★★

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Kings Incognito by Stephen Minch & Martin A. Nash

Kings Incognito is one of Martin's least demanding acts, in a technical sense. The sleights required are ones that will be found in the repertoir of the average close-up magician. Any sleights that you may not presently do can be learned within a reasonable time. The most demanding sleights occur, ironically, during the introductory sequence in which nothing happens. In this prologue to the magic, Martin demonstrates several methods in which people shuffle cards. While doing so, he executes a faro shuffle (which needn't be perfect) and a push through riffle shuffle. If these shuffles are not a part of the reader's repertoir, he can substitute any series of false shuffles and cuts with which he is comfortable. Since only an eight-card stack must be retained on top of the deck, such a series of shuffles is not difficult to construct.

Kings Incognito is made up of five well-integrated tricks. The opening item is a quick and striking Triumph-type effect in which the cards are mixed face-up into face-down. In a magical manner, the deck straightens itself, all cards turning face-down except for the four kings. The kings are removed from the deck, only to transform in a startling manner into the four aces.

The aces are then used for a demonstration of expert "invisible" palming, as done by card sharps. One by one the aces vanish from one location and reappear under an obviously empty hand.

Continuing the theme, the aces are caused to disappear again, this time from packets, in an ace-assembly style. Each ace is clearly shown in the packet just before it vanishes. All four eventually congregate under a spectator's guarding hand.

The act is concluded with an Ambitious Card sequence done with a five-card packet.

19 pages
word count: 8990 which is equivalent to 35 standard pages of text



Reviewed by Richard Zarin (confirmed purchase)
★★★★★   Date Added: Friday 24 November, 2023

Stephen Minch may well be my favorite author of magic books. I have not yet worked my way all the way through this, but as always with Stephen, the descriptions are clear and thoughtful. Also, almost all the elements of this routine are within the reach of someone who doesn’t have advanced skills. The other thing that jumps out right away is very thoughtful way that the various phases of this routine flow, with an inner logic and variety for the spectators. Also, although these were set up as lecture notes and referred to the Nash trilogy of books, which I don’t have and have been yearning for for years, there is enough detail here to have a clear sense of what needs to be done. I do expect that at least good chunks of this will be added to my repertoire after I get to spend enough time to think my way through and practice it sufficiently, and also figure out a presentation that suits me (mashes presentation is clearly described, but I’m not about to try to sell myself as a gambling expert).