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The Magician's Dream: a practical solution for any card at any number
by Tommaso Guglielmi

$13

(2 reviews, 5 customer ratings) ★★★★

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The Magician's Dream: a practical solution for any card at any number by Tommaso Guglielmi
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The Magician's Dream is a collection of two practical ACAAN's effects: Random ACAAN, ACAAN on Demand.

With Random ACAAN, you are able to perform ACAAN effect completly self-working: You can perform it without you touching the deck ever (before, during and after the effect). It works with any unprepared deck.

ACAAN on Demand is a full impromptu one to one ACAAN. This method is pefect when someone, in a informal situation, asks you to perform a magic trick. The method is very pratical and in 95% of the cases it works without you touching the deck from start to end.

Bonus effects:

Perfect ACAAN on Demand
After informally being asked to perform, the magician replies by simply asking the spectator to name any card and any number between 1 and 52. The spectator is offered the chance to change his mind as many times as he may like. The magician gives the spectator an uncased deck held together by a rubber band. In complete fairness, the spectator counts down to his number to find his card.

Mixed Revelation
In this version of ACAAN the spectators have an absolutely free choice of card and number. The big difference between this and many other ACAAN solutions is that with this version the spectators can examine the deck and cut or shuffle during the entire performance. In my opinion this increases the seeming impossibility of this effect.

Final Cut - ACAAN
With this version Tommaso wanted to create an ultra-clean ACAAN. The performer places a boxed deck of cards onto the table. He asks the spectator to name a card and a number (without any force). At his fingertips he slowly removes the deck from the box. In order to show that this is a regular deck he spreads the deck face-up, then he squares it and hands the deck to the spectator. The performer asks the spectator to cut the deck several times in order to destroy any possibility of a stack. Finally he asks the participant to deal cards face up onto the table, counting to his chosen number and the named card is found there.

Dream - ACAAN
The performer places a deck of cards onto the table. He asks the spectator to think a card and to another one to name a number (without any force) at the same time he spreads the deck face-up and hands the deck to the spectator in order to check that this is a regular deck. The performer asks the first spectator to name his thought of card and the second one to square the deck to deal cards face up onto the table, counting to his chosen number, the named card is found there.

Lucifer - ACAAN
The performer places a deck of cards onto the table. He asks the spectator to think of a card and another spectator to name a number (without any force). The performer asks the first spectator to name his thought of card and the second spectator to deal cards face up onto the table. Counting to his chosen number the named card is found there.

1st edition 2010; 39 pages.
word count: 6476 which is equivalent to 25 standard pages of text



Reviewed by Bruce Koren (confirmed purchase)
★★★★   Date Added: Tuesday 15 June, 2021

"A Practical Solution for Any Card At Any Number"? If you love mem deck and stacked mem decks, you may love this. But there a certainly no "practical solutions" here. All but two effects require a memorized deck. Both Joshua Jay and Barrie Richardson have excellent impromptu ACAANs. One of the things that makes them better than any effect in this booklet is simply the lack of laborious procedure, which these effects definitely require. Admittedly, I am not a cardician. And after being a magic hobbyist for 60 years, I'm always surprised by how many great card effects there are that don't require complicated slights, stacks, memorized decks or gimmicks. I love to be able to begin a trick by allowing the spectator to shuffle the cards. I love John Bannon's books on self-working card tricks that are light on procedure. This book certainly is not that. I'm only going to site one example, but I think it's symptomatic of the kind of thinking I'd rather not see in card magic. The example has the spec name any card in the deck and then to pick a number. Next step - In the process of spreading the cards face up to look for the jokers, place the selected card in the selected position. Really? I don't think so. For the most part, these effects seem to be pipe dreams rather than workers. The photography is mediocre. On the whole, a disappointment. And I should add, my only disappointment of purchased books during the whole pandemic.

Reviewed by Paul Philavong (confirmed purchase)
★★★★★   Date Added: Monday 21 November, 2011

There are eight tricks in this booklet and neither of of them is a full hands off "ACAAN" as the original Berglas effect.

The cards are being too much "handled" as in a self-working mentalism card trick by either the spectator or magician in the process to make the trick work. For example:

Trick #1 - Random ACCAN - This involves 2 sprectators: spec #1 think of a card, spec #2 think of a number. So far so good, but then the deck is introduced and spec #1 deal the cards down and when he sees his card he is asked to remember the number where his card falls and cut the deck a certain way. Then spec #2 is given the deck and count down to the number he was thinking of and remember the card that fall in that position, blah-blah-blah and etc.... In short convoluted, boring and definitely not close to the Berglas ACAAN.

Trick #2 - ACAAN on Demand - Cards are not shown from the get go, ask spec to think of a card, then get a deck of card and have a number chosen.

Trick #3 - Perfect ACAAN on Demand - Cards are not shown from the get go, then they come out of magician's pocket uncased.

Trick #4 - Mixed Revelation - After thinking of a card and a number, spec is asked to do something with a certain card and then guided to do a shuffle.

Trick #5 - Final Cut Version #1 - Memorization is needed, cards are not shown from get go, when they are shown the magician touched it too long.

Trick #6 - Final Cut Version #2 - No memorization needed, cards are not shown from the get go and a set pattern and some calculation need to be done to get the trick to work.

Trick #7 - Dream - Make use of the "Oops I made a mistake let's do over" excuse and use sleight of hands to get the card to the desired position and bet that the spec will stay with the same card in the do-over phase - silly.

Trick #8 - Lucifer - Make use of a different trick to get the card to the desired position and then suggest to spec, let's do try and ACAAN trick - as silly as the one above.

Overall review: very disappointed.