Undercover Jokers is a totally improvised and self-working card-magic effect that can be performed with a borrowed and freely shuffled deck, with the addition of the two Jokers. It tells the action of two investigative jokers acting undercover in search of a particular pair of cards, two figures representing two dangerous fugitives. The last sighting takes place inside a small, mysterious, and crowded club, the Card Club, popular with magicians and gamblers. After identifying and capturing the first criminal among the many people in the club, the two jokers, thanks to their intuition gained from years of experience, manage to spot the second member of the pair among the crowd of people intent on leaving the Card Club. The protagonists of this crime-themed effect are the two jokers and two figures (Jack, Queen, or King), freely chosen by a spectator from the freshly shuffled deck. The four cards of the deck have to be inserted in as many different places, through some free cuts on various decks made by the same spectator; once the deck is reconstituted and after a series of dealings, the main figure (the leader), the first of the two chosen by the spectator, is intercepted and captured (face up) by the two jokers at the back, under cover. In the second phase of the effect, during the search for the second fugitive figure, despite the spectator's shuffling and various free cuts, the two jokers will show all their investigative skills by capturing the fugitive in a classic open-face sandwich, finally bringing the pair of criminals to justice.
The effect is completely automatic and requires no deck preparation, technical knowledge, or special dexterity. The mathematical principle governing the effect is perfectly hidden and difficult to detect, probably even by those who frequent the magical world.
1st edition 2014, PDF 12 pages.
word count: 4835 which is equivalent to 19 standard pages of text
