Self-Working or Sleightless in Cards: page 5

This effect was created by Bruce Cervon who gave Aldo permission to teach and release it. It is a wonderfully simple and unique poker deal demonstration that never has to be reset, because at the end of the routine the deck is ready for a repeat - ideal for table hoppers. Uses a regular deck of cards with an additional set of aces.

Aldo also teaches a number of easy false cuts and shuffles which you can use in combination with this demonstration, but they are not necessary. With a good presentation this can be just as effective as other story routines, such as "Sam and Moe" or "Sam and the Bellhop",...

Have you ever wanted to hypnotize someone to have a photographic memory? Now, you can create this illusion using a fantastic principle applied in an innovative way. This effect uses only a deck of playing cards (which can be borrowed, no set-up required at all...in fact, you don't even touch the cards). After the spectator randomly shuffles the deck, you ask her to quickly glance at each card. Under the premise of a hypnotic induction, you then cause her to remember the location of any cards. Let's assume she is "tested" to locate, for example, the 2 of hearts and the 7 of spades. If she says...

After the huge success of the first DVD on tricks you can perform over the phone (Can You Hear Me Now) here comes the sequel with new exciting stunning routines to perform over the phone (or for live audiences). This time, not only with cards but with other objects as well.

Here’s the contents and the contributors:

• SIXTH SENSE (Werner Miller)
• THROW IT (Ken de Courcy)
• DELIGHT (Werner Miller)
• SIX CARD INTERLUDE (Peter Duffie)
• SANDWICHED (Tan Choon Tee)
• EVERYONE’S WIZARD (Werner Miller)
• SMART ELIMINATION (Rachel Colombini)
• TELEPHONE DIVINATION (Kinos)
• VERSATILE DEAL (Aldo Colombini)
• ASK THE CARDS! (Werner Miller)

Poker Deals includes two self-working card effects, ideally suited to performing for spectators who are familiar with the rules of poker. Both effects utilize the StayCard Principle and were first published in OCD and Other Effects: The StayCard Principle.

Ten Card Poker Deal Variation

A procedural variation on Arthur Buckley's celebrated Ten Card Poker Deal. The magician and a spectator are each dealt five cards (either person can deal). The spectator decides whether to keep his cards, or whether the cards should be mixed by dealing again. No matter how many times the dealing is repeated before the cards are examined, the magician's hand wins....

After seeing several effects from this ebook, author and collector Doug Edwards said:

"The stuff you do with a shuffled deck and one or two key cards borders on the miraculous!"

2. TALONS OF THE HAWK: Two volunteers each think of a card from a group of ten. The packets are lost in the deck by the volunteers themselves. The performer...

A Further Collection of Impromptu, Sleightless, Mathematical Tricks

Nick Conticello is proud to present the third and final installment of the Potpourri series. Herewith is another collection of impromptu, sleightless, mathematical effects with cards. Each book has a theme, and this one is no exception. The entire ebook is devoted to what Nick calls the Australian Shuffle. (You may refer to it as the Down/Under Deal.)

The present work is concerned with three placement concepts. George Sands devised one in the mid-Twentieth Century. Nick published the second in Tarbell 7, and he is releasing...

A collection of sleightless often mathematically based tricks and routines bundling three of Nick Conticello's ebooks.

Author and collector Doug Edwards said:

"I know a good trick when I see one, and KNOW-ALL NEALE is a good trick! It's impromptu and direct. And I like A COUNT, A BILL as well. The divination of the three digits comes as a complete surprise. Two real winners."

Tarbell Course contributor Nick Conticello returns with a new selection of close-up magic designed to be performed for small groups of friends or acquaintances.

1. Know-All Neale: 3 coin divination with fourth coin kicker

2. A Count, A Bill: Based on "It's the Principle " (Bob Longe, Sept. 2001 Linking Ring) with bill used...

An unbelievable prize winning routine with a regular deck of cards!

A stunning self-working routine. Three different predictions are taken from a pad of paper and given out, one to each of three spectators. A deck of cards is shuffled and cut into two halves. A spectator cuts a portion from one half, turns it face up, and shuffles it together with the other face down half creating a topsy-turvy condition (a packet of face up and face down cards.) The spectator cuts any amount of cards from this face up and face down portion, turns it over, and shuffles it with the remainder of the deck which...

This effect is a variation of an effect called ACAT (Any Card At Any Time), extracted from CLUE ebook. It can be presented with playing cards, or special cards (like the Vernet PSImbol deck, or movies (like Directors's cut or Screen test), French postcards, etc.), or just with blank index cards or your own business cards (with drawings, symbols, words, numbers, etc. on the back). It is not a card trick, but rather a mystery or paradox.

It is hands-off, automatic, self-working, can be done over the phone or sight unseen, stand up, close up or stage (with jumbo cards). It is easy, practical, and...

[Eddie Joseph and George Armstrong both published this effect in 1949 under the same name: Premonition. The effects are identical and the methods are also pretty much identical except some minor details. Since George Armstrong describes his inspiration and when and where he developed it, while Eddie Joseph does not, I believe George Armstrong to be the inventor of this method. George Armstrong's inspiration was an effect from Greater Magic by Bill McCaffrey. But already Hofzinser has a similar routine Domination of Thought from his Card Conjuring.

A spectator names a card. He is asked to take a pack of cards from the table, remove them...

Henry Hardin's plot has been around for 107 years and his initial three methods are explained in The Art of Magic (1909). Card tricks of this kind were atypical when Hardin devised his trick. During his time, spectators physically picked cards. They seldom, if ever, mentally selected them. Because only five cards are used in "The Princess Card Trick," Hardin strengthened the challenge by finding the mental selection by tactile means while the five "possibilities" were in his pocket.

This is how the his trick appeared to audiences: Five cards are shown to a spectator who is asked to think of one of them....

"I really like how you made a psychological force more surefire. It is really an interesting concept. Well done." - Luca Volpe

"At it's core this is a VERY direct way to verbally make a spectator think of a specific number. It's a useful and clever idea to know and an important contribution to the area of propless mentalism." - Marc Paul

The effect from the participant's view: The performer sends some...

PSI-POKER is the latest creation from Ben Harris (co-creator of 2010’s hit X-RAY).

This new effect is totally self-working, requiring no skill or gaffs. (Unless you are calling 'peeking the bottom card' a move.) The secret is ancient, but it’s never been used in this manner before. Magic’s leading historians and card experts have confirmed this claim. (To be precise, it is a new property of an old principle. Very clever indeed.)

So, what is PSI-POKER?

The effect is a multiple prediction of how a game of “Texas Hold ‘em” will play out from a shuffled deck. You hand a prediction...

A retrospective look at Dai Vernon's Five-Card Mental Force.

• Introduction
• The Prototypal Version From Early Vernon
• A Woolgather's Aside
• My Skirmish with the Five-Card Mental Force
• 30 Years Passed
• Five Card Mental Farce / David Acer
• Max on Five-Card Mental Force / Max Maven
• Outtings
• Rescuing the Five-Card Mental Force / Allan Slaight
• The Ultra Effect / Paul Rylander
• Dai-Cipher / Phil Goldstein
• I Have It / Edward Marlo
• Psyboards / Tom Frame
• Indisputably Predictable / Jon Racherbaumer
• Post Mortem

Psychic Self is a three-phase card routine wherein you NEVER touch the deck. The deck is borrowed and shuffled multiple times. Yet, the routine is entirely self-working and will work the majority of the time. No risk; no reward. Yes, there is a chance of one of the phases not working; and even lower chance that none of the routine will work. There is a simple scripting for why one or all the phases did not work. The majority of time, you will have a three-phase miracle routine.

The scripting of the routine is what really sells each individual effect. The methods are essentially the effect...

Two sets of 10 cards are counted out fairly and openly onto a spectator's hand before being dropped into two glass tumblers where they can be clearly seen. One at a time three cards are invisibly moved from one glass to the other, and when the piles are counted back onto the spectator's hand again, the first glass only contains 7 cards and the other 13.

This is the classic cards across effect using a method that is completely move and sleight free. Everything happens at fingertips and there is no palming required, nor any special counts. Designed for a close-up or intimate parlour show,...

From the introduction:

It's a devilishly clever method with four different presentations. You'll likely think of several more. There's a You-Do-As-I-Do effect, a Card Climax, a Phone Miracle, and Scarne's Best Prediction. No sleights. Simple, sure, and direct. Can be worked surrounded by spectators and dead easy to perform. All you require is the instructions, as no gimmicks are used. Use anyone's cards.

If you think that the pandemic is limiting your performance opportunities, you'll especially like Scarne's Phone Miracle. All you need is a spectator with a smartphone or landline. And, unlike virtually every...

This may well be the easiest Torn and Restored card ever created. With absolutely no sleight of hand what so ever you cause a torn card to reform inside your spectators very own hand! After watching this 17 minute download, describing everything in great detail, from the deviously simple gimmick to the 'self contained' set up, you will be carrying this pocket sized miracle with you everywhere. Get Reform today. By tonight, you'll be blowing people away - it's honestly that easy!

runtime 17 minutes

During the first lockdown period, we lived separated from the world, connected to friends only with the phone; to please my friends I started looking for effects to be presented remotely to people connected, without phone videoconferencing, so that they can use their deck of cards or objects at their disposal, without my possibility to operate, except by checking the game instructions.

I searched for automatic effects and found principles that in some cases were a few centuries old; others, more recent, often conceived by famous and illustrious names; many of these, when they were published...

THE ABBOTT'S TEN PRINCIPLE: The principle, generally called Abbott's Ten by the Americans, actually dates back to an Italian manuscript about five hundred years ago (Mariano Tomatis - Messmer in pills - La Lollins and the magic of the sixteenth century - Episode 206).

This publication first describes the standard 10-card routine; I then analyzed the possibility of doing it with a different number of cards, even with tarot cards, and I studied the possibility of doing it in all conditions: in close up, on stage (two versions, one with billets and the other with the Tarot) and even on the...

Due to the "fault" of the lockdown, I began to collect effects to present on the phone to my friends, using their deck of cards or the objects at their disposal, without any possibility for me to intervene, except by carefully checking the game instructions. Many are the mathematical principles used, some "old" of a few centuries, others revised over time, others, contemporary, just as original. I tried, for each of them, to invent a story, a suitable setting, which was unique and original, fantasy, and which was consistent with the operations that performer and spectator were going to perform,...

The effect on the phone has always intrigued me: you cannot arrange the cards, nor do you see them, the deck is that of the spectator, you cannot touch it or see it. Then there is an insurmountable difficulty: you have to explain each operation in a simple, step-by-step way and, not being able to visually check, you are forced to prepare, in the presentation, control "stakes"; all this, however, provided that your description is perfect and, at the same time, flawless, without danger of misunderstanding.

And then there is the "revelation" mode: it can only be presented as an effect of mentalism,...