The Trick That Can Be Explained

EFFECT: Spectator shuffles the deck while performer takes a small envelope from his pocket and places it on the table. The spectator is asked to cut the deck into three piles and then choose one of them. The top card of the chosen pile is turned over; it is the King of Spades. The envelope is opened. Inside is a playing card. It too is The King of Spades.

METHOD: This is nothing more than a simplification of Ted Lesley’s excellent Kismet Connection, a marketed trick that you will also find explained in Ted Lesley’s book Para Miracles.

When I first saw Ted perform this trick I thought immediately of Dai Vernon’s The Trick That Cannot Be Explained. To my mind Ted’s use of the Will de Seive gimmicked card meant that the Vernon effect was at last within the reach of ordinary mortals. Anyone could shuffle the deck, cut it and you had a chance of predicting the identity of the top card. This is because it is very likely that the Will de Seive card will be cut to the top.

As mentioned before on this blog the Will de Seive gimmick is a card that has a slightly raised centre portion. It is described in Greater Magic. A good way to make the card is by pressing a small coin, the size of a quarter, onto the face of a court card. If you shuffle this prepared card into the deck you will have no problem cutting the card to the top of the deck. The raised back creates a natural break. Even better, if a spectator is asked to cut the deck, there is a very good chance that they too will cut the prepared card to the top.

For this trick you need two prepared cards: the King of Spades and the King of Clubs. Both cards are marked on the back so that you know one from the other. In the envelope you have a King of Spades with the same back pattern as the deck you are using. This is all you need to perform a very reliable version of Vernon’s miracle.

HANDLING: Give the deck to the spectator and ask him to shuffle it. Take out the envelope and place it on the table. When the spectator has finished shuffling tell him to place the deck on the table. Look at the back of the top card. If either of your gimmicked cards is there you can proceed straight to the revelation.

If the King of Spades is on top you say, ‘You gave the cards a good shuffle? Good. Because this morning I also shuffled a deck of cards. And I placed it on the table. And I took the top card. I didn’t even look at it. I promise. And I put the card in that envelope. Turn over the top card of the deck. What is it?’

The spectator turns the card over to reveal the King of Spades. ‘Okay, now reach inside the envelope and remove the card. Turn it over. Let’s see if I’ve been lucky.’ It’s the King of Spades, a perfect match.

Now for the second scenario. Let’s assume that the top card of the deck is the King of Clubs. In this case you alter the patter slightly, saying, ‘You gave the cards a good shuffle? Yes. Good. Did you notice anything odd about the deck? No? Well, there’s actually one card missing. Because this morning I also shuffled that deck of cards. And I placed the deck on the table. And without looking I took the top card and slid it into this envelope. Let me show you.’

You open the envelope at fingertips and slide the card out face-down onto the table. ‘They say like attracts like. Let’s see if that’s true.’ Turn over your prediction card to reveal the King of Spades. ‘Will you turn over the top card of the deck?' They turn over the top card and discover the King of Clubs, the mate to your card. A spooky coincidence.

To clean up put both cards back on top of the deck, palming away the duplicate prediction King of Spades and returning it to your pocket as you put the envelope away. If you don’t want to do any sleight of hand, it is easy enough to steal the card away under the envelope as you chat to the spectators.

MORE HANDLING: Of course the spectator won’t usually shuffle one of the gimmicked cards to the top. You will know the situation as soon as he puts the deck on the table. If no gimmicked cards are there, ask him to cut the deck and complete the cut. This gives him another chance of bringing a gimmicked card to the top. If that happens, proceed as described earlier.

If there is still no gimmicked card on top, ask him to cut the deck into three piles. This gives you a couple of more chances of him cutting a gimmicked card to the top. As soon as you see that one of the piles has a gimmicked card in position, use Equivoque (Magician’s Choice) to force that pile.

This is actually the best outcome. The spectator has shuffled the deck, cut the deck, divided it into three piles and then chosen one of them. It looks like he has made a lot of choices. This makes the prediction look all the more impressive.

If you are unlucky enough not to find either of the gimmicked cards on top of any of the three piles, then this is definitely not the day for you to go gambling at the race trick. But you can still bring the trick to a successful conclusion.

You now cut each pile once and complete the cut, saying, ‘Okay, you’ve shuffled and cut, now it’s my turn.’ Having a more delicate touch than the spectator you will have no difficulty in bringing one of the gimmicked cards to the top of one of the piles. You might even bring both of them to the top of different piles. Use Equivoque to force that King pile, saying, ‘You have one more decision to make.’ Finish by revealing your prediction. It’s still a very strong trick.

Do check out Ted Lesley’s original handling. It takes a little more preparation but it is very good. When Ted rediscovered the Will de Seive gimmick I think he found one of the best devices a card magician could ever hope for. It makes absolute miracles possible.

NOTES: Nikolai Friedrich gave a good tip on the Will de Seive gimmick in his Sympathetic Decks routine (Genii, December 1997 ). Make the card it into a short card. It increases the chance of it being cut to when required.

Here is a photo of a young Will de Seive taken from The Conjuring Record (August, 1914).

The Trick That Cannot Be Explained

The Trick That Cannot Be Explained is described in Dai Vernon’s More Inner Secrets of Card Magic. The author, Lewis Ganson, having witnessed the effect said to Vernon:

‘Dai, I saw the effect. You wrote a prediction on a cigarette packet and placed this on the table. Al Koran shuffled the pack (and made a thorough job of it!). You told him to turn over the top card – which happened to be the Six of Hearts. You then told him to turn over the cigarette packet which had been out of your reach since you wrote the prediction. Al himself read out what you had written – The Six of Hearts. It was a knockout.’

He was trying to persuade Vernon to describe the method in the book. Vernon’s reluctance, as anyone who has the book will know, is because the method depends on a series of outs. The effect never plays the same way twice. And Vernon admitted he got pretty lucky when Koran shuffled that Six of Hearts to the top of the deck.

Which brings me to June 1978 and I’m watching Lewis Ganson give a lecture at a convention in Newcastle. He takes a pack of cards and gives it to a spectator to shuffle. And while this is happening Ganson writes a prediction on a slip of paper. The shuffle finished the top card of the deck is turned over. Unbelievably, it matches the prediction.

For a minute I thought I’d just seen Vernon’s legendary card trick and that Ganson too had got lucky. I was wrong. This wasn’t Vernon's once-in-a-while miracle, it was Ganson's works-every-time miracle. And Ganson explained it during his lecture which is why it amazes me that no one seems to know about it.

It wasn’t until much later that I found Ganson has been using this principle for a long time. He described it in the March 1954 issue of The Gen magazine. See Ganson’s Mickey Fin routine. And now, I’m going to describe it to you because it is just too good an idea not to know about and if you try it just once in front of your magic buddies you will be thankful that the genial Mr Ganson chose to give it away.

METHOD: It’s easy. You use a rough and smooth forcing pack. And yes you actually hand it to the spectator to shuffle. Best to indicate that you want them to give it an overhand shuffle but don’t be scared because it really does work. The pairs of cards will stay together. After a short shuffle the top card is almost certain to be a force card. Marking the backs of the force cards will help. If you don’t see your marked card on top, have the spectator shuffle again or give the deck a cut. Sooner or later you will end with a force card on top. Which is why your prediction is always correct. You can even write ‘The top card will be the six of hearts’ something that even Vernon couldn’t do.

Now no doubt, like me, you're thinking wouldn't it be great if it didn't use a trick deck. True. Except Ganson did use a trick deck and it looked bloody brilliant. Still, magicians are lazy devils who expect to work every miracle with only a deck of cards and the lint in their pockets. So next post I'll describe a different approach that is somewhere between 'gaffed to the hilt' and 'can't be bothered.' See you shortly.

Chan Canasta's Book of Oopses

Which card? That was the question posed by Chan Canasta on the cover of the Radio Times (8^th Jan, 1960). This novel interactive trick was used to promote his new series of psycho magic on BBC television.

Having thought of a card, readers were asked to turn to page 9 for the results. If you click on the photo you should get a better view of the cards. And having chosen one you can read Canasta's prediction in the very next paragraph of this article.

'Yes,' says Chan Canasta 'you probably chose the five of spades on the cover. If you didn’t, however, don’t worry. The eight of clubs and the ace of clubs - or even the seven of diamonds - were also likely choices.'

Note Canasta’s well chosen wording. He never actually said that he would guess the card you thought of. He merely asked you to think of one and then turn to page 9. You may or may not have thought of the five of spades. You’d be damned impressed if you did. But if you didn’t, Canasta brushes the error away as if it didn’t really matter. And leaves you with the feeling that any mistake was your own.

In 1966 George G Harrap & Co published Chan Canasta’s Book of Oopses, a small 48 page volume of interactive tricks. It was billed as 'a collection of thrilling experiments in which the book itself plays the part of the mind-reader.'

Each double page spread was comprised of a set of instructions on the left-hand page and a diagram on the right-hand page. Following the instructions you chose one of the items on the opposite page; a playing card, a symbol, a number or word. When you'd made your decision you turned to the back of the book and looked at Canasta's predictions. Hopefully he would be right. But if he was wrong he offered a humorous and delightful apology and said 'Oops.'

Canasta was very clear about the nature of the tricks, saying in the introduction ‘Well, in many cases the working of the trick is certain, depending on logical or mathematical principles that are cleverly concealed. In other cases, the tricks are of a psychological character, so designed that they are successful only about 80 per cent of the time.’

‘Thus you see the Book presents a kind of challenge to you and to itself. When it fails - Oops! - it shrugs its page sadly and admits failure. But, when it scores a hit the effect is nothing short of miraculous, giving you an eerie feeling that it possesses some occult and incredible powers. This, in fact, is true in a sense. The psychological tricks are planned so that you are led unconsciously along certain mental paths without realising it.’

Original copies of the book are highly sought after and have been selling for around $200 on the internet. But now Martin Breese has reprinted the book and offered it at a much lower price. The original was printed on a sort of black cartridge paper, inadvertently making it difficult to copy, but the reprint is a good one and made on harder wearing glossy stock. You can find the reprint on Martin Breese’s website.

At least one of the Oopses seems to be based on something Canasta performed on television. I’m talking about Oops 10 which is entitled Making a sentence of nonsense. The reader is asked to choose four words from ten on offer to make a simple sentence.

On his show Canasta had tried a very similar trick in which a panel of celebrities did the choosing. In The Budget magazine for February 1960 Gus Southall wrote:

‘Then on to a mass experiment with four sets of large cards each bearing four words. These were shown quickly to the panel and the studio audience who were invited to compose a sentence from them which should agree with one previously written down by Canasta. Unfortunately it was a total failure.’

Obviously not the most successful of routines but Canasta had tried it on an earlier show, where it had also failed, so he seemed keen on it. When I met Canasta in 1996, I asked him about the trick and he told me a story that had been told to him by film actor Michael Rennie.

It appears that Rennie had arranged to take his mother out to dinner but she was reluctant to go. The reason was that she was a big fan of Canasta's and didn't want to go anywhere until she'd seen his television show that evening. Rennie, reluctantly, is forced to watch the show with his mother. He was not impressed, the show was the usual mixture of hits and misses. One routine in particular was a spectacular failure, the one that Gus Southall later reviewed. The celebrity panel were shown words on cards and asked to choose some and arrange them into a sentence. They did. But when Canasta's prediction was revealed it was utterly wrong.

For Rennie, who was perhaps watching Canasta for the first time, this was a total shock. He turned to his mother and said, 'You made me stay in for this? He was completely wrong.'

'No,' said his mother 'he wasn't wrong. They were!'

Which perhaps tells us a little about Canasta's enduring charm. I asked Canasta about the routine and how he had intended to make it work. It was clear he didn't have a specific method in mind, just hope that his persuasive powers might bring about the right result. 'It might have worked,' he said, 'but whether it worked or not, I knew it would fill seven and a half minutes.' Filling the time must have been a major consideration when you're the sole artiste on a weekly television series.

I hadn't known about the Book of Oopses when I met Canasta. T.A. Waters told me about it and, later, Peter Lane kindly loaned me his copy. It was years before I managed to get hold of an original copy of my own. I think Oops 10 in the Book of Oopses is a version of the routine he used on his television shows. It's a wonderful effect. Maybe one day it will work.

PRINCIPLE X

In 1978 I attended the IBM convention in Hastings. It was a memorable convention for three main reasons. It was the year I met Phil Goldstein and his alter ego Max Maven, who blew everyone away with a unique brand of card work and mentalism. It was the convention I got to watch David Berglas give one of his incredible card performances part of which involved named cards being found at thought of numbers. This at a time when the legendary Berglas Effect was uppermost in my mind. I wrote about it in The Mind and Magic of David Berglas.

The third reason that convention was so memorable had to do with another card problem that bore the mysterious title Principle X. Bobby Bernard had told me that he too had an impossible card trick like The Berglas Effect. One that he had worked on for many years. One that he had shown to several luminaries in the magic world. He had described it to me. And the conditions did indeed seem impossible. Now, not to be outdone I think, Bobby Bernard decided it was time to perform Principle X.

In the convention hotel lounge he took my deck of cards and demonstrated what was to be done. He would ask me to shuffle the cards. Cut them and remember the face card of the upper packet before replacing the cut. Then I was to shuffle the cards again until I had no idea where my card was. Sounds good, yes?

Having demonstrated what he wanted me to do he handed the cards back to me and then walked across to the other side of the hotel lounge saying that he didn’t want to be accused of getting a glimpse of my card or estimating the cut. He moved away a good distance, easily about 30 feet, and seemed to make no effort to watch what I was doing.

So, with the deck in my own hands, I gave it an overhand shuffle, a cut, noted the face card of the upper portion, replaced the cut portion and shuffled again. I admit I did not try to be awkward. I used overhand shuffles. I didn’t deliberately try to outfox Bobby. I wanted to see this trick work.

I called to Bobby and he returned and took the deck from me. He placed the deck behind his back and asked for the name of my card. I told him, let’s say it was the Six of Spades. Then he asked me to name a number. Let’s imagine it was 19.

Bobby fiddled with the deck behind his back and then brought the cards forward and handed them to me. With the deck face down he asked me to deal to the 19^th card. I dealt the cards onto Bobby’s hand. When I reached the 19^th card he asked me to name my selection again. I turned the 19^th card over. It wasn’t the Six of Spades.

Bobby looked surprised. ‘Maybe it’s the next card’, he said. I turned it over. It wasn’t the Six of Spades either. Principle X seemed to have been a failure. ‘How far out was I?’ said Bobby. I turned the next card over. This card was the Six of Spades. Now I didn’t know what to make of the trick. Had I seen a near miracle of a fluke?

Bobby did assure me that the effect usually worked, that he had performed it successfully many times and had a stack of notes on the workings of Principle X at home. But he didn’t repeat the trick. I was reminded of a satirical essay in Jon Racherbaumer’s Hierophant that advised if you want to fry your fellow magicians attempt a trick that cannot possibly work. They’ll spend weeks trying to figure out what might have happened if all had gone right. I wondered if that’s what Bobby had done.

Despite my reservations I did spend a long time thinking about how Bobby’s Principle X might work. Stephen Tucker and I discussed all kinds of methods. How an extra card might be pulled from a card index behind the back. Or how an inefficient overhand shuffle might leave a card in roughly the same position. But at that time we didn’t have any solutions that could meet all of Bobby’s conditions. And I still don’t have any now.

You might wonder why I’d give the trick any credence but some months later I was at Bobby’s apartment in London and looking at the close up apparatus he had collected over the years. And there, in a cabinet, was a small leather bound book. It wasn’t new. It was clear from its appearance he'd had it some time. And it had a lock on it like a miniature version of a Goldston Locked Book. Except this wasn’t any magic book I recognised. Bobby smiled as he handed it to me. The title of the book was embossed in gilded letters on the front. It said, ‘Principle X.’

I never got to peek inside that locked book and for me Principle X remains a mystery to this day. But, like The Berglas Effect, it got me thinking. And while meeting the original conditions of the trick seems impossible there are a number of ways that a pseudo version of the trick can be performed. One of them has already been described in this blog. Take a look at The Bogus Effect posted previously on this blog. Forget the shuffling and replace it with some cutting. Now you have a trick in which the spectator cuts to a card, notes it, cuts the deck several times and yet you can take that deck behind your back and bring the card to any named position.

If you prefer not to use a trick deck use a crimped card or Will de Seive gimmick (Greater Magic) in which the force card will cut to the face of a packet. The spectator unknowingly cuts to your force card. He can shuffle it back into the deck. But you’ve prepared the force card so you can find it again when the deck is behind your back. Now it is a matter of being able to insert it at the named number as quickly as possible. A good riffle count and a low number would help!

Principle X has provided me with food for thought for many years. I hope it keeps you entertained too.

NOTES

Visitors to Ken Brooke's Magic Place, in London's Wardour Street, will recall the excitement they felt when they saw a book entitled The Magic of Fred Kaps lying on the counter. As soon as they saw it, visitors stopped whatever they were doing and picked up that book. And then laughed when they flipped through the book only to discover that all the pages were blank.

BLACKSTONE'S CARD AND NUMBER

The following trick is the subject of an interesting thread on the Genii forum about a performance of Harry Lorayne’s that is currently on You Tube. The trick in question begins at 00.32 on the video.

The footage is from The Secret World of Magic, a show I helped develop with Objective Productions, in which magicians Ali Cook and Pete Firman toured the world in search of great magic. They certainly found it. Harry Lorayne is one of my favourite performers. I remember a sensational lecture he gave in Liverpool back in April of 1980. He did four hours of material and then many of us retired to Paul Stone’s house for even more. His energy is boundless. And he is one of the greatest showmen with a deck of cards you will ever see. His lecture included the trick you see performed on The Secret World of Magic. Lorayne published his handling as Numero Uno in his 1980 lecture notes. I thought it one of the highlights of the evening.

The premise of the trick and its wonderful kicker has caused much comment and yet has been in print for over 70 years, hidden in plain sight as is the case with many good things. It is Blackstone’s Card and Number described in Greater Magic. See page 461 in the section on Prepared Cards.

I’ll outline the trick the way the trick is described in Greater Magic and then talk about an added twist later that I described in the Not The Berglas Effect manuscript. To do the trick you need a key card that you can cut to. When you cut the cards the key card will be the face card (the lowest card) of the packet you have cut from the top of the deck.

Blackstone used a bellied card in a narrow pack but any key card you can cut to easily will work. A Will de Seive key card with the raised area on the face (Greater Magic) works well as does a bridged card or breather crimp. Harry describes his own impromptu handling in his lecture notes and, I believe, in his book Personal Collection. Place this key card seventeenth from the top of the deck and you are ready to begin.

False shuffle the deck, leaving the key card in position, and then spread the deck across the table and have a card selected from the lower two-thirds. This is easy to do if you spread those cards more widely than the upper portion of the deck.

Gather up the deck as the spectator remembers his card. Cut the deck at the key card and have the selection returned on top of the lower portion. Drop the cut packet back onto the deck ostensibly losing the selection but really placing it directly below your key. False shuffle again before placing the deck on the table. The selection is now the eighteenth card down in the deck.

Ask another spectator to call out a number between one and twenty, adding, ‘A large number, please, to make it difficult.’ Seventeen or eighteen are often called. I’ll describe what happens if they aren’t in a moment but let’s deal with the optimum outcome first.

If seventeen is chosen, say, ‘Seventeen. That is difficult. But I’m going to cut seventeen cards from the top and the very next card will be yours. Watch.’ Rub your fingers together as if preparing your fine tuned digits for work and then cut at the key card, so the key is at the face of the upper packet, and place the cut packet aside. ‘That’s it. What was your card? Queen of Spades? Look.’

Turn the top card of the talon over to reveal that you have cut to the selected card. ‘Queen of Spades. Seventeen cards from the top.’ As soon as the effect has sunk in the spectators will have some lingering doubts about your claim to have cut exactly seventeen cards. Make the most of this. This is where the kicker to the trick takes over and provides you with the most beautiful finish.

Look at the spectators as if sensing suspicion. ‘I can see some doubts. Let’s count them.’ Hand the cut packet to the spectator and ask him to count the cards one at a time to the table. Count along with him, controlling the tempo of the count so that it ends as dramatically as possible, ‘fifteen, sixteen, seventeen!’ It is hard to find a better finish for so little effort.

The reason the trick garners such strong reaction is that it delivers a result that the audience care about. The number of cards in the cut packet is a nagging question they would like answered but might be too polite to ask. It would play entirely differently if you just counted off those seventeen cards before revealing the selection. But if you wait until the audience start to wonder about the honesty of your claim and demand to count those seventeen cards themselves, well, this is an entirely different situation. It is a strong trick with a touch of humour and echoes Henning Nelms’ thoughts about good magic being that which delivers upon the expectations of the audience.

Let’s backtrack a moment and deal with the other numbers. If the spectator calls out eighteen you change your patter to, ‘Eighteen. Okay, I’m going to cut the cards and your card will be exactly eighteen cards from the top. The eighteenth card should be right about here.’ After you’ve revealed the card and sensed the audience’s doubts you say, ‘I know what you’re thinking. If this is the eighteenth card, then there must be seventeen cards over there.’ Play up to the suspicion about your claim and then have a spectator count the cards as before.

Now we come to the biggest stumbling block of the trick. What happens when a number other than seventeen or eighteen is called? If you’ve done your job right it’s unlikely that anyone will call out a number that is not in the teens but it still presents a situation that looks troublesome. Blackstone provided the simplest and best solution. If, for example, the spectator chooses fifteen, you say, ‘How do you count cards? Like this?’ And you demonstrate by dealing off two cards to the table. Pick them up and put them back below the deck, as you say, ‘That’s not what I’m going to do. Watch. Fifteen, coming off the top.’ Then cut to your key card in the most impressive manner you can. If you want to know how Harry Lorayne deals with all contingencies in Numero Uno, buy his books!

SPECTATOR DOES BLACKSTONE’S CARD AND NUMBER

Here is the tiny twist on the routine that I mentioned earlier. It was inspired by the work of David Berglas. As described in The Mind and Magic of David Berglas, he uses the bridge to force a card on a spectator. He has a bridge half way down the tabled deck, invites the spectator to make a cut and almost unfailingly they will always cut to the bridge. My friend Chris Power uses the same forcing technique but holds the deck in his hand while the spectator makes the cut. It rarely misses.

This technique for forcing the cut is described in Expert at the Card Table as a crimp. Erdnase says, ‘…many an unsophisticated player has unconsciously cut into a crimp and aided in his undoing. If the deck is placed before an innocent player so that his hand naturally seizes the ends, the chances are in favor of his cutting to the opening.’

As described by Erdnase, put a bridge in the deck so that the spectator will lift off the top seventeen cards. The Will de Seive ridged card works just as well if you press the coin on the back of the card so that the impression is raised on the card’s face.

In performance you control the selected card to the eighteenth position as before. Now choose a spectator who looks like they might have a light touch. A number is named, let’s imagine it is fifteen, you deal some cards to the table to bring the selection to the correct number, saying, ‘Is this how you would normally count cards?’ When the spectator says yes, drop the deck on to the dealt cards and then place it on the table, saying, ‘Well, I don’t want you to do that. I want you to cut fifteen cards. Do you think you can cut exactly fifteen cards?’

Imagine you are Chan Canasta building up the impossibility of it all. ‘Because I think you can. But you have to be sure. You have to want to cut exactly fifteen cards, no less, no more. That’s a deck of fifty-two cards. Imagine what those fifteen will look like. Shall we give it a try?’

With the proper guidance from you the spectator will cut to the bridge. First reveal that she has cut to the selection and then, as in Blackstone’s presentation, reveal that she really did cut fifteen cards. You’ve created a mini miracle with a card and a number that will be long remembered.

THE MAGIC OF FRED ROBINSON - BOOK REVIEW

I first read about Fred Robinson in Will Dexter’s book Famous Magic Secrets, an inspirational book to a teenage conjuror. Fred was one of the many curious characters portrayed by Dexter in the chapter about The Magic Circle. Fred was the burly rail worker sitting in the corner of the club dealing seconds and bottoms from the deck to the amazement of even the most expert magician. It was decades after the publication of Dexter’s book that I first saw Fred in the flesh and he looked pretty much the same as I’d imagined him, an ordinary looking guy, now silver haired and peering down spectacles that perched precariously on his nose. He was sitting a table dealing second and bottoms and middles from a deck while everyone, including me, looked on in admiration. This was at The Marlborough Arms pub, a favourite venue for magicians in years gone by because it was just around the corner from The Magic Circle headquarters when it was location in Chenies Mews.

Fred’s work was impeccable. And unique too because he didn’t deal cards like any magician. He dealt them like an ordinary bloke. You were never aware of him positioning the deck in the mechanic’s grip. He didn’t sit bolt upright in his chair as if he had a rod of iron down his back the moment he picked up the deck. And he didn’t attempt to play the part of the smart alec gambling expert. He handled the deck like a layman and dealt as if about to play a game of brag or whist with friends rather than give you a lesson in crooked gambling. Only the outcome of the deal, a winning hand, indicated that some chicanery was afoot. Dai Vernon considered him ‘one of the all time greats with cards.’ You could understand why Vernon liked Fred’s work. It was so natural and so perfect. His image and handling belied any suggestion of skill

Fred Robinson died in 1986 and although he was editor of Pabular magazine for many years he left little behind in the way of a coherent magical legacy, just the odd item printed here and there and an intriguing video tape marketed by Vic Pinto in which he and, I think, Jack Avis anonymously demonstrated but did not explain some false dealing and other gambling tricks.

Peter Duffie, one of Fred’s friends, thought it was time to put the record straight and gather together all of Fred’s expert card techniques into one book. That must have been around 1987, back when I was working with magic publisher Martin Breese. I remember Pete approaching Martin with the idea for the book and Martin commissioning it for publication. Pete spent a long time contacting Fred’s friends, and fellow card workers and collating as much information as he could about the tricks and techniques he had used throughout his life. He did a marvellous job.

At one point, because of pressure of business, ownership of the book transferred from Martin to Chris Power and JJ of Opus Magazine fame. But for one reason or another they never got around to publishing it. Peter’s manuscript lay idle for a decade at which point I helped get it back into the hands of Martin Breese who with Peter Duffie began the process of putting the book back together. It was the first time I got to read the material. What a treasure house it was.

It still took several years for the book to be published but the time was not wasted and Peter and Martin took great pains to make sure it was the best book it could possibly be. Finally it is here, one big handsome volume filled with Fred Robinson’s superb magic, a tremendous tribute to one of Britain’s finest cardmen. For those who didn’t know Fred Peter has provided an excellent biography, one made possible through the generous help of Fred’s family and in particular his daughter Annabelle who provided much information and even family photos. There are affectionate and informative tributes from Fred’s friends, notables such as Roy Walton, Darwin Ortiz, Jerry Sadowitz, Walt Lees, Max Maven, Simon Lovell, Barrie Richardson, Bobby Bernard and Patrick Page. Dominic Twose, a pupil of Fred, recalls the lessons in card handling that he had. And Dai Vernon provides a foreword.

The book contains all the moves that card workers will want to know about. Here are Fred’s second, bottom, middle and Greek deals upon which Fred built his reputation as a master of sleight of hand. There are four versions of the pass including his legendary riffle pass. There are counts, palms, double lifts and colour changes. And Fred Robinson’s gambling routines.

There are tricks too. One of my favourites is Fred’s Rising Cards as described by Patrick Page. This would fool you. It could easily have been a marketed trick. Then there are Fred’s handlings of classic plots like Cards Across, Dunbury Delusion, Do As I Do, Daley’s Last Trick, Out of This World and many more. And some excellent coin items and a smattering of stand up magic. The one thing that draws them all together is simplicity. Fred didn’t go in for complicated magic. He once told Francis Haxton that he never found anything in Marlo’s books. And when you read this book you can see what Fred meant. The tricks are all simple and direct. The moves are invisible. The outcome is magical. Fred performed his magic in the same deceptively natural manner than he executed his false deals.

Martin Breese has done an excellent job in the production of the book. It is a big heavy tome of 284 pages, features dozens of items and is clearly illustrated by Paul Griffen and Roy Johnson. But the kudos must go to Peter Duffie because in Peter you have an author who really understands the techniques he is describing. Peter’s false dealing and work with the pass is extraordinary. You can be sure that when he describes Fred Robinson’s middle deal you are getting every last detail.

If natural handlings and straightforward magic is your bag then you will certainly enjoy The Magic of Fred Robinson. You can buy it from Martin Breese here. And if you want to see what Peter Duffie’s handling of some difficult material is like, then this You Tube trailer is a great starting point. It will give you an idea of the skill level that can be achieved when the mechanics of a sleight are thoroughly mastered and combined with the naturalness of execution that was at the heart of Fred Robinson's philosophy of magic.

STEVE FORTE GAMBLING PROTECTION SERIES DVD - REVIEW

Steve Forte has an almost supernatural ability with cards. It was at the Gambler’s Book Shop Shop in Las Vegas that I first heard his name. They were showing a series of four video tapes that Steve had produced. As I watched Steve’s incredible dice and card work on the monitor an old guy next to me said, ‘That’s the real deal.’ That old guy was Dai Vernon.

At that time I was researching material for The Secret Cabaret television series. Sebastian Cody, the executive producer, and I spent a lot of time watching those tapes. They were the finest crooked gambling demonstrations we had ever seen. We wanted Steve to be part of the show but for one reason or another that never happened.

Those four video tapes, The Gambling Protection Series, have now been re-released on DVD and I have no hesitation in recommending them if you have any interest in how card cheats work. The first three episodes contain incredible material on false deals, shuffles, cuts, switches, gaffs, peeks, palms, holdouts and every other possible way of cheating at cards whether you are playing blackjack, rummy, bridge or poker. What makes them outstanding is not just the range of material covered but Steve Forte’s incredible skill. Every sleight is performed expertly and with the ease and nonchalance you would expect if you were trying to cheat at a game.

The fourth volume of the original set was the one that perhaps created the most comment from those who saw it. It focuses on dice cheating and contains the most extraordinary demonstrations of controlled dice shots that you will ever see. It’s breathtaking stuff and a far cry from the rather contained demonstrations that magicians had been used to seeing. Here Steve throws dice right through the air or bounces them off the sides of the craps table and still they come up sixes. Wonderful stuff.

If this DVD set contained just these four tapes I would recommend it. But there is an extra disc of material in this set. The first item on the disc was produced as a pilot show called Invisible Thieves. Once again you’ll be treated to some of the cleverest cheating methods ever put on tape. There is also a terrific tour of Steve’s Gambling Museum where he and Jason England talk us through some of the items he has on display there. It is a truly amazing collection. And Steve’s knowledge of crooked gambling is every bit as impressive as his skill with cards and dice.

Steve Forte isn’t a magician but he did once give a dealing demonstration on a TV show called Hidden Secrets of Magic, produced by Jim Steinmeyer and Frankie Glass, two of my friends from the production team on The Secret Cabaret. It was good to see that they finally managed to get Steve Forte on a show. That sequence is also included and it’s a great opportunity to see how Steve stages an entertaining crooked gambling demonstration and admire the ease with which he is able to execute the mechanics.

Finally, there is footage of fifty-two different gambling sleights that have never appeared before. These are drawn from Steve’s archive of material, an archive that was intended for future publication. The sleights aren’t explained but there is a commentary from Steve Forte and Jason England, and in some cases slow motion footage, that will have you pressing the rewind and pause button because you won’t believe your eyes when you see some of the material. The deck switches in particular are stunning. And the Elliott Second Deal has never looked better. I think it's one of the fairest looking seconds you could ever hope to use and, since Elliott was a magician, it should be of great interest to his fellow conjurors. This item alone is worth the price of the set.

The bottom line is that if you have a serious interesting in crooked gambling then this DVD set is absolutely indispensable. It is a three DVD set, jam packed with material and presented in a box designed by Dan and Dave Buck. For a hundred dollars it is a bargain. Buy it here.

POSTSCRIPT

It wasn’t until years later that I finally got to meet Steve Forte and see him work in person. My friend Gazzo made the introduction. Steve had kindly written an afterword for our book on Walter Scott, The Phantoms of the Card Table.

Steve still has that supernatural touch with cards and can still switch dice and bounce them off the backboard like a demon. He’s one of the few people I’ve ever met who can pick up a deck of cards, go straight into the most difficult of moves and not break a sweat while doing it. He is very serious about his studies. His knowledge is extensive. His collection of gambling paraphernalia is inspiring. But more than that he is an extremely nice and likable guy as passionate now about his subject area as he has ever been.

I asked him whether he, like most of the crooked gambling experts around, began as a magician. But he never was. He studied gambling not magic. He is the one of the very few contacts that magicians have with the real work of crooked gamblers. Which makes what he has to say all the more important for those interested in real scams and contemporary gambling hustles. I told him the story about Vernon and what he said in the Gambler’s Book Shop. And was surprised to find that the two of them never met. I thought that a great shame. I think Vernon would have loved his company.

NEWMAN MOND CUTS THE ACES

Jon Racherbaumer emailed to say that the previous post about Newman Mond reminded him of an Eddie Field’s stunt. Eddie would shoot a ball across the pool table so that it hit a deck of cards, cutting it into two packets right at the selection. This was a version of Sleight of Foot, the trick in which a few grains of salt are secretly placed above the selected card so that the deck will separate at that point when kicked. It is the first trick in The Encyclopedia of Card Tricks and the originator was Herbert Milton.

Well, on the British Pathe website there is footage of Newman Mond doing a similar trick. He shuffles a deck of cards before placing it in the middle of the billiard table. Then he shoots a cue ball across the table so that it strikes the deck. The impact separates the deck in to four piles, each with an ace at the face. It’s an impressive looking trick.

One notable aspect is the shuffling of the deck. It makes me think that perhaps Newman Mond wasn’t using the old salt method. He might have used slick cards, Will de Seive gimmicks or, as Racherbaumer suggests, breather crimps to ensure that the packets separate. Any pool players out there might want to try a few experiments.

Using Ask Alexander at the Conjuring Arts Research Center I discovered that Newman Mond was the pseudonym of A N Redmond, described in The World’s Fair as ‘the originator of magic on the billiards table.’ In 1937 he was secretary of The Bolton Magic Circle in England. If anyone has any other information about A N Redmond aka Newman Bond, please get in touch.

POOL CARDSHARK

This is an odd trick. You are at the pool table and decide to show a card trick. A pack of cards is spread over the table and one is chosen. It is replaced and the deck stood on a small block of wood, held there by a bulldog clip. The deck is then placed at one end of the table and you stand at the other, pool cue in hand. You aim the cue at one of the balls on the table then, POW! The ball shoots across the baize, strikes the deck and a card jumps right out. And yes, it is the selected card.

I saw this trick on an old piece of archive film when searching for footage of magic acts for a TV series. At that time I had no idea who the performer was but I’ve since discovered he was a trickshot billiards player by the name of Newman Mond. He wrote a booklet on trickshots entitled Tricks on the Billiard Table. You can see archive of this particular trick at the British Pathe website. Just search for Newman Mond. It’s a great trick and one that shouldn’t be forgotten.

The method is merely my supposition of what happened. Newman Mond had a gimmicked pair of cards in the deck with a piece of elastic stretched between them. This is an old gimmick used to work the rising card effect. David Devant described it in one of his books for the public and also an article in The Strand magazine in 1901.

When the selected card is replaced in the deck it goes into the gimmick and forces the elastic down around it. Usually you have to apply pressure to keep the card there but in this case the bulldog clip does the trick. It is of the large type, big enough to grip the narrow end of the deck in its jaws. And it is fixed to the top of a block of wood so that it will stand upright, jaws skyward and with the deck sitting in them. The handles of the jaws project at the front and rear of the wooden block.

When the cue ball is hit, it strikes the handle of the bulldog clip with enough force to momentarily open it. This releases pressure on the deck and the elastic causes the selected card to fly out. That’s pretty much it but it will take some experimenting to make up a gimmick that works well. If the bulldog clip is too strong, the jaws won’t open.

One of the things that struck me about the footage was the way Newman Mond casually spread the deck over the table so that a card could be selected. It seemed so open and without the usual telltale finesse of the magician. Of course, as television magicians know, an edit before the vital shot always helps.

If you are looking for a more subtle way of making the card rise from the deck, and one that will work with this routine, try my Angel Card Rise Plus.

WHIPLASH - DVD REVIEW

Stephen Tucker is a friend and one of the most creative magicians on the planet. I’ve known him for years – we attended the same school - and have seen his inventive mind applied all manner of tricks. He has a knack of finding truly offbeat solutions to magical problems. At the core of every trick is a great idea, one that can be adapted to your individual handling. He is a prolific inventor and a collected works of Stephen Tucker is most definitely overdue. Meanwhile those looking for some original thinking can check out a new DVD, released by Full 52 Productions, entitled Whiplash.

I got it hoping to see some more of the inspired magic that Steve is famous for and I wasn’t disappointed. Let me list some of my favourites from the DVD. First up is Jumping Jack Flash which is a take on those largely ungaffed versions of the Haunted Deck in which a selected card eerily pivots out of the deck. A clever gimmick, supplied with the DVD, makes the trick possible and you’ll find it easy to ring in and out of the deck when required. It reminded me of an unpublished method of Gordon Bruce (Gordon is another creator whose book is long overdue) but what is special about this version is that two cards are revealed. The first card makes an appearance when the deck cuts itself in two. The second spins right out of the tabled deck and across the table. It will fool you. Uses no threads. No sleights. And the method is simplicity itself.

If you enjoy self-workers then Avalanche is a wonderful trick in which a thought of card is divined using nothing more than a deck of blank cards. Stephen credits a Ray Grismer routine as his inspiration but it put me in mind of Bob Hummer’s Mind Reader’s Dream. The procedure here is ridiculously simple and the effect all out of proportion to the method.

Another self-working card effect is Incredible, a twist on a Jim Steinmeyer idea, in which two thought of cards are spelled to. Paragon Monte is an advanced version of Joe Stuthard’s widely pirated Klip Trick monte but goes beyond the simple idea of the spectator being unable to put a paperclip on the Queen in the spread of cards. The finish in which two paper clips suddenly attach themselves to the Queen is very clever. This version was devised in a brainstorming session with Bob Driebeck and inspired by an effect that Bob had only previously shared with Fred Kaps, so the trick has a good pedigree. It’s always great to see an old trick taken a step or two further and this routine accomplishes that in the smartest of ways.

Signed Coin in Bottle is simple and bold and enables you to get a genuine signed coin into a genuinely sealed bottle. You’ll wonder why you fiddled around with folding coins for so long. I also like the quirky little principle used in Stroll On. It is an impromptu cup and ball routine using, of all things, a roll on deodorant. But I’m thinking what if that ball was signed? Maybe there is an impossible finale there just waiting to be exploited. Get your thinking caps on.

There are ten tricks on the DVD and I guarantee you’ll be hitting the rewind button more than once. These are foolers. The DVD also contains several extras including an interview with Steve by Dave Forrest and video footage of Steve’s mini-brainwave trick Omega. It is a performance only video but it will show you why this trick has been acclaimed by so many experts. It is tantalisingly close to being the perfect brainwave trick using ungimmicked cards.

Incidentally if you order the DVD direct from Stephen Tucker's website, he will throw in one of his own tricks for free. And yes, that trick is Omega. Or indeed any other trick you want to pick from his collection of ebooks. Click here to find out more.

BOOK REVIEW
Five years ago Ian Keable told me that he was writing a book. Ian is one of the hardest working people I know. When he sets his mind to something he finds a way of accomplishing it. I met him in the early days of Opus Magazine. Ian was the editor for the first year. He never missed a deadline. He is a professional magician and I’ve watched him work his way up from the comedy clubs and close up gigs to corporate Entertainment and his own touring show. Together we’ve worked on magic documentaries for BBC Radio 4. Ian is a friend, so don’t expect this review to be unbiased. It isn’t. But when I saw early drafts of the book five years ago I thought he had created something really special and if you’ve ever wondered how to construct a professional comedy magic act, then I think you will too.

The book is called Stand Up: A Professional Guide to Comedy Magic. I should explain that if you want to find work as a patter magician, then comedy is essential. To some degree or other stand up magic acts are funny. If your act isn’t funny, the chances are you won’t get bookings. But here is the problem; most magicians are not naturally funny people. Naturally funny people – people with ‘funny bones’ – become comedians not magicians. There are exceptions, Dave Williamson and Mac King for example, but other performers have to do what Ian has done, study comedy, break it down into techniques and find ways of applying them to the magic they do. Ian’s book is the first book I’ve seen that does this. If you do stand up magic and are not as funny as Steve Martin, you should read this book.

The book is divided into five sections: The first outlines the importance of comedy in magic, jokes versus lines and finishes with an example from Ian’s own act that demonstrates clearly how each line of patter is integrated into the routine. I’ve never seen such a clear explanation and it will change the way you look at your act forever because possibly, for the first time, you will know not only what to say but why you need to say it. One of the great strengths of Ian’s book is his analysis. It will make you think about what it is you are doing and it will inspire because Ian isn’t dealing with comedy as some genetic gift possessed by the lucky few but as something that can be learned and used by anyone willing to put in the hard work.

Ian goes into detail about the importance of creating a memorable character. Much has been written on developing characters based on your own personality traits but in writing this book Ian has interviewed some of the very best comedy magicians in the world today. Throughout the book you’ll find advice from Jeff Hobson, Geoffrey Durham, Paul Daniels, Mel Mellers, Mac King, Michael Finney, Mark Kornhauser, Neal Austin, John Archer, John Carney, Noel Britten, Paul Zenon and Graham Jolley. And with their permission Ian has used examples from these comedy greats to illustrate the techniques in the book. This alone makes the book a tremendous resource.

The second section of the book concentrates on patter, how to create comedy lines, how they move the plot of the trick forward and develop character. How to write a script and employ call backs, running gags, catch phrases and other comedy techniques. Incredibly valuable stuff and with wonderful examples.

Section three covers audience participation, the use of insult humour, selecting, addressing and managing volunteers from the audience and their role as victims and stooges. Again this is not just theory, this is all drawn from the professional experience of Ian and other working professionals and once again Ian describes segments of his own act to illustrate how the techniques work.

The fourth section of the book deals with the act and how to build one. From the opening walk on to the close and the encore. No detail is missed. You’ll find practical information here about dealing with nerves, the unexpected, hecklers, complaints, walk outs, illness and every other problem that you will find as a professional.

Finally, the last section deals with other preparations the professional magician must take care of. Here you will discover information about bookings, testing stage equipment, introductions, dress, venues, money, promotional material, agents, managers, fees and venues. This really is the ideal handbook for anyone thinking of taking up a career in magic. And don’t let the word ‘stand up’ put you off because frankly anyone who intends to build patter and personality into a magic routine will find incredibly important information here that is clearly explained, makes sense and is described by someone who makes his living using these same techniques. Don’t confuse this with those ‘how to earn a million dollars a year’ books. This is a practical book from a professional magician working today’s market. Ian has done a great job of describing techniques that properly applied will make you a better performer and if you aren’t one of those lucky guys who have ‘funny bones,’ then you should certainly give it a try.

The book is well produced, hardback with glossy dust-jacket, professionally typeset, 282 pages with colour portraits of the performers who have given permission for their material to be quoted in this book. It is available from Ian on his website. You can even download a section for free. It includes a full contents list, Ian’s introduction to the book and a foreword that shows why Noel Britten is one of the funniest men in Britain.

You can find Ian's professional website here.

THE BOGUS EFFECT IN ACTION

Patrick Guida kindly pointed me to this video of Lu Chen performing his version of The Bogus Effect on television:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5au-kLobV9s

I think it plays very well and spreading the cards is a nice touch.

DEVILISHLY SIMPLE FIFTY-ONE FACES NORTH

The search for the perfect solution to Stewart James’ Fifty-One Faces North inevitably involves some compromise. James’ own version of his own problem unfortunately compromised the effect to such a degree that it was no longer recognisable as the clear and clean version of The Open Prediction that magicians wanted it to be. This version presents what appears to be a very clean version of effect. But there is a price to pay.

EFFECT

The performer has been performing some tricks for friends after dinner. He writes a prediction on a piece of paper, Ten of Diamonds. ‘That’s my prediction. You all know about it. I can’t change it.’ The paper is placed on the table and a borrowed and shuffled deck of cards is handed to one of the spectators.

The spectator has a very simple task. He is to deal through the cards, one at a time, turning them face-up onto the table. And then, whenever he feels the urge, the performer tells him to deal one of those cards face-down.

The spectator carries out the task, dealing the cards slowly face-up onto the table from the top of the face-down deck. He deals one of the cards face-down. ‘Are you sure?’ asks the performer. ‘Good. Now let me point out that so far we haven’t seen the Ten of Diamonds. Continue dealing the rest of the deck face-up. Let’s see where the Ten of Diamonds is.’

The spectator deals through the remainder of the cards. The Ten of Diamonds does not show. ‘There is only one card we haven’t seen. The one you dealt face-down. Turn it over.’ A spectator turns the card face-up. It is the Ten of Diamonds.

Hype and Blurb: A borrowed deck is used. Genuinely shuffled by the spectators. Performer need not touch the deck. Magician has no idea where the predicted card lies in the deck before the deal begins neither has the spectator. No switches of the face-down card. No gimmicks, fakes or outs. Works every time. No sleights. Totally impromptu. Fools everyone who sees it. Well, almost.

METHOD

The method is based on two things, an instant stooging process that David Williamson told me about many years ago. And an impromptu stooge key-card trick I published in Abra about twenty or more years ago having been influenced by George Anderson’s excellent book You Too Can Read Minds. The only proviso is that you need to be sitting at a table with your spectators when doing the trick. It makes for a good after dinner routine.

Here is the handling:

1: Have a deck of cards shuffled and then spread face-up across the table. Note any card in the middle of the deck. This will be your predicted card. Let’s say it is the Ten of Diamonds. Note also the card behind it (above it when the deck is face-down). This will be your key-card. Let’s say it is the Ace of Spades.

Ask someone to gather up the spread, making sure that they don’t mix the cards up in the process.

2. Write down the name of your predicted card, Ten of Diamonds, and place the prediction on the table where everyone can see it.

3. Ask someone to cut the deck several times. An odd number of cuts will more or less ensure that the predicted card stays in the middle of the deck.

4. You’ve already worked out that the spectator sitting next to you, Jim, a friendly guy, will make a good stooge. Here is how you get his cooperation.

Following on from any other miracles you have been doing that evening you tell your audience that with a little concentration anyone can do what you do. ‘Jim, I’m sure you could do something tonight that everyone will remember for a very long time. Really. I’m not joking. All you have to do is follow my instructions.’

You are going to cue Jim during the trick by tapping your foot on top of his. You prepare him for this as follows: ‘Let’s try an experiment. But I promise you, if it goes well, you will amaze a lot of people here.’

‘I’m going to ask you to have an open mind when doing this. We’re going to deal some cards to the table. During that deal I want you to call stop. But I don’t want you to call stop just anywhere. Only call stop when you feel something’

You tap his foot below the table.

‘Only call stop when you feel it is right.’

You tap him again.

‘Do you understand? Good.’

If Jim hasn’t already said, ‘Who’s kicking my foot?’ the trick is probably going to work well.

5. Ask Jim to pick up the deck and start dealing cards face-up into a pile on the table. When you see your key-card, the Ace of Spades, tap Jim on the foot. He will call stop. Ask him to take the next card and deal it face-down on the tabled pile. He deals the rest of the deck face-up and you point out that the Ten of Diamonds has not been seen.

6. Finish by asking someone else, not Jim, to turn over the face-down card and reveal that it is the Ten of Diamonds.

7. Thank Jim profusely. Tell him you couldn’t have done it without him. And tell everyone else that they will remember this for the rest of their lives. Spectators are usually happy to play along and take credit for a job well done. Jim doesn’t, of course, know how you knew where the Ten of Diamonds was so there is even a little mystery in it for him.

NOTES: Despite the rather unsubtle method this is a fooler. Tricks that use instant stooging, like the Electric Chairs, are very powerful routines. It just takes a little courage and a lot of spectator management to make them work.

You might want to note a key-card that is two cards away from your prediction. It gives you slightly more time to react during the deal.

You might also want to show your prediction to everyone except Jim, asking everyone to concentrate on the name of the card as Jim deals. I think this little twist adds a little more flavour to the routine. It also justifies the nature of the open prediction. And Jim gets to react when he sees he has found the correct card that everyone has been thinking about.

Stewart James is alleged to have said that his method could be 'used for criminal purposes.' I suppose this method could too if you were a pair of card cheats signalling each other's hands across the table. I mention this purely for those seeking the grail that is Fifty-One Faces North.

ADDITIONAL CREDIT: Michael Weber emailed to say that a credit is due to John Riggs who published a similar Fifty-One Faces North effect using the foot-tap cue in a volume of Steve Beam's Semi-Automatic Card Tricks. I don't have those volumes so if anyone can track down the John Riggs routine and point me in the right direction I'll post some more details. Thanks Michael

AUGUST UPDATE: Werner Miller has kindly forwarded me a copy of the John Riggs trick. It is called The Solution and appeared in Steve Beam's Semi-Automatic Card Tricks volume one. It's practically the same idea I described above. Or, more accurately, I should say that my routine is practically the same as John Riggs'.

John Riggs provides some additional credits in his write-up. He attributes the foot-tap cue to Whit Haydn and found it in Haydn's 1982 lecture notes Fast and Loose. Whit called it the Impromptu Card Code.

So if someone has baffled you recently with an impossible looking version of Fifty-One Faces North. Check out the assisting spectator's shin for bruises!

ANOTHER OPEN PREDICTION

When looking for solutions to Fifty-One Faces North it is worth considering other tricks and seeing whether they can be transformed into something that resembles Stewart James’ creation.

In the Not The Berglas Effect manuscript I described the Will de Seive key-card (Greater Magic page 478). I was always impressed how Ted Lesley used this gimmick in his Kismet Connection (Ted Lesley’s Paramiracles) in which one of three cards is predicted. The same gimmick makes for an excellent version of Fifty-One Faces North. Essentially all you're doing is reducing the number of alternative predictions and giving the trick a different dressing.

Handling

1. If you want to stick closely to Stewart James’ conditions you would secretly prepare one of the cards in a borrowed deck during a previous effect. Knowing the name of the gimmicked card, King of Spades for instance, you write it down as your open prediction while the spectator is shuffling the deck.

2. Take the deck back and, as you talk, casually cut the deck to bring the gimmicked card to the top. And then cut it again to place it just above centre.

3. Place the deck on the table and tell the spectator, ‘I want you to reach out and cut the deck like this.’ You demonstrate by cutting a few cards from the deck and then replacing them. ‘But cut more than that. We want quite a few cards.’

4. Continue giving directions to the spectator, ‘Just cut. Don’t even think about it.’

5. The spectator cuts the deck and if things are working well he will have cut right above your gimmicked card. If the light is right, a glance at the raised back of the card will let you know that the trick has worked. Immediately ask him to turn the packet he has just cut face-up and drop it back onto the face-down deck and square the cards.

6. Tell the spectator to pick up the deck and deal all the face-up cards onto the table and let you know when he sees the King of Spades. When he has dealt all the face-up cards tell him to deal the next card face-down. This is your gimmicked King of Spades.

7. He now turns all the remaining cards one at a time and deals them face-up onto the tabled pile. Again the King of Spades does not show up.

8. Ask him to turn over the pile of cards and spread them across the table. The only reversed card turns out to be the King of Spades, the very card you predicted.

NOTES: You might be wondering what happens when the spectator doesn’t cut to the gimmicked card. Fortunately because you never told him what would happen, you can pretty much make anything you want to happen. The King of Spades is still gimmicked. If you ask the spectator to cut the deck several times he will at some point cut your gimmicked card to the top of the deck. When he does you shout out ‘Stop!’ You remind him that he shuffled the cards. He cut the cards. And that you made your prediction long before. Ask him to turn over the top card of the deck. He will be surprised that it is the King of Spades.

Alternatively, assuming the King of Spades is not among the face-up cards he has dealt to the table, you might risk the following. Ask him to cut the remainder of the deck a couple of times. If he cuts the King of Spades to the top, have him deal it face-down onto the tabled pile and then deal the rest of the cards face-up. You might get lucky a second time. If not, you can still find that gimmicked card any time you wish but once you start using different outcomes the more you lose sight of Stewart James conditions.

In The Mind and Magic of David Berglas I described how David uses a bridge in the deck to have a spectator cut to a force card. It is an old principle but David has huge success with it as does Chris Power who uses it in his close-up work. If you don’t want to work a gimmicked card into a borrowed deck, then the bridge is an equally good way of bringing about the effect.

MORE ON FIFTY-ONE FACES NORTH

Thomas Baxter emailed me to say that I had overlooked some additional conditions that Stewart James had mentioned in Ibidem 3. These are:

Spectator deals straight through from top to face. Only variation is when he leaves a card face down. Not a once-in-a-while trick. If instructions are followed, it cannot fail. No card handled by you from first to last. Spectator himself checks that face-down card is predicted one. Believed to be a new angle on a known principle.

Thomas considers ‘No card handled by you from first to last’ means that the magician doesn’t touch the deck. That’s not the way I interpret it. These conditions seem to relate to the effect once the spectator has the deck in his hands. I don’t think James meant that the magician would never touch the deck at all. If he had, I think he would have laid far more emphasis on this aspect of the trick, after all, how many tricks do you know where the magician never touches the cards?

I think that in this paragraph James was specifically addressing solutions that he already knew existed and was pointing out the difference between his method and others. The reference to the trick not being a ‘once-in-a-while’ affair would distinguish it from Marlo’s psychological approach to the problem which James was sceptical of. Indeed he refers in his correspondence to seeing Marlo demonstrate this with very limited success.

Having the spectator check the face-down card himself would distinguish the trick from suggestions that Haxton had made about the effect having to conclude with a switch of the card.

And I believe he used the phrase ‘No card handled by you from first to last’ to mean that once the dealing begins the magician doesn’t need to touch the deck. Earlier James had said that the magician does need to know that the predicted card is in the deck and in most cases that would mean the magician takes a look at the cards to make sure this is the case. I’m pretty sure James would have made an even bigger deal of any version of the trick that didn’t require the magician to touch the cards at all.

Having said that Thomas Baxter did take that particular condition literally and to his credit has worked out several methods that don’t require the magician to touch the deck. He sent me a copy of one version which he had published in The James File. It’s called Brrrr!

Funnily enough it uses exactly the same key-card principle that Stewart James used in Method 8 (Ibidem issue 3) but instead of peeking the card Thomas has a very simple way of finding out what the top card of the deck is without the magician having to touch the cards. It’s a great solution and I urge you to look it up.

No Touch Method 8

I sent Thomas another handling for Method 8 that would enable the key-card method to be worked in the hands of the spectator. Here are the details:

1: Peek the top card of the deck before the cards are handed to the spectator or find out what it is using Thomas Baxter’s handling from Brrrr! Make an open prediction of the sighted card.

2: Instruct the spectator to remove a portion of cards from the middle of the deck, look at and remember the face card of that portion, and then drop it on top of the deck. This places his noted card above your predicted card. This is a very old key-card placement.

3: Tell him to cut the deck three times to ‘mix’ the cards. This should put your predicted card and his noted card somewhere in the middle of the deck. In Brrr! Thomas Baxter has the spectator give the deck a quick shuffle but this risks violating James’ statement that the trick is not a ‘once-in-a-while’ effect since there is a chance that the noted card and key-card will separate. But a shuffle is more convincing than a series of cuts. It might be worth the risk.

4: Tell the spectator to deal cards from the top of the deck, one at a time, face-up onto the table. When he sees his noted card, he is to remove the next card and deal it face-down. After that he continues to deal cards face-up onto the table until the pack is exhausted.

5: As in the previous handling the predicted card has not been seen throughout the deal. Have the spectator turn over the single face-down card to reveal your prediction is correct.

These are merely the mechanics of the trick which has the benefit of being sleight free. I should add that I still don’t consider these solutions ideal performance items until plausible presentations have been found to excuse the handling. And in particular why someone is using one card (or process) to lead to another instead of simply appearing to stop on any card they choose and deal it face-down. However, I’m sure that such a presentation can be found.

Stewart James, frustrated at Haxton’s insistence that it was the effect not the conditions that mattered, said that if this was his attitude he may as well use a confederate. Ironically, the key card approach makes this a possibility. You can flash your confederate a key-card, which you ensure goes above your predicted card, and let them use it as a guide to which card to deal face-down. Should fool the guys at your next club gathering.

Thomas Baxter mentions another statement that was made by James: ‘the method could be used by someone for criminal purposes.’ This was not listed in Ibidem 3 and at the moment the origin of the statement is not clear to me. My admittedly sceptical interpretation of it would be that it was used as an excuse for James not to discuss the effect further. ‘I can’t tell you, it’s too dangerous’ sort of thing. It would be good to be wrong.

FIFTY-ONE FACES NORTH

Stewart James is famous for many things and one of them is a card problem known as Fifty-One Faces North, the origin of which has a convoluted and controversial history. The idea for James’ legendary effect came about following a visit to the magic convention in Colon in 1952 where James and his friend Francis Haxton, who was visiting from England, met Ed Marlo. At a card session Marlo told them about a card problem he had been working on.

The Marlo Problem
The problem began in an unusual fashion with the performer openly making a prediction of a card, say, the Ten of Clubs. This prediction could be made verbally or written down for all to see so that everyone knows the identity of the predicted card. A shuffled deck of cards is handed to the spectator who is asked to deal cards face-up one at a time onto the table. The spectator is told he should deal one of the cards face-down, a card of his choosing, and then continue dealing through the rest of the deck turning the remaining cards face-up. As this is being done the magician points out an unusual fact, that so far no one has caught sight of the predicted card among the face-up cards. Only one card has not been seen, the one the spectator chose to leave face-down during the deal. When that card is turned over it is seen to be the predicted card, the Ten of Clubs.

Marlo demonstrated one of his solutions for Francis Haxton who when he returned to England wrote to James (11^th Oct 1952) saying that he had created his own version of the trick. In his reply James revealed that he too had a solution. There then followed a series of letters in which they swapped ideas about the ‘Marlo problem.’ This culminated in the publication of two tricks in the March 1953 issue of The Pentagram: Peter Warlock’s Angle on Marlo and Stewart James' Angle on Angle on Marlo. The tricks were accompanied by a piece from Haxton describing how Marlo had originally given him the problem and how he had then set the same problem to an ‘exclusive gathering’ of magicians in the UK, one of whom was Peter Warlock.

Haxton regretted the publication of the tricks almost instantly. James pointed out that Haxton had missed out the main point of the problem, that the prediction is made openly and not written down on a folded piece of paper as it was in the versions published in The Pentagram. Haxton explained that he didn’t consider the open nature of the prediction to be the best part of the problem and argued that it lessened the suspense and could only lead the spectators to conclude that the predicted card was not in the deck to begin with. On that point Haxton and James always disagreed. But more importantly for Haxton was the realisation that Marlo had not yet published any of his own solutions. The problem was ‘underground’ and Haxton had just been instrumental in bringing it into the light. He soon learned from others that Marlo was not happy with the situation and appears to have written to Marlo to apologise and smooth things over.

He felt slightly less guilty when James subsequently discovered that the ‘Marlo problem’ was not Marlo’s at all but owed its origin to Paul Curry. Marlo, who had never claimed the effect as his, later acknowledged Curry in The Cardician (1955) where he published the version of The Open Prediction that he had shown to Haxton. Interestingly it made use of another Paul Curry idea, a card switch from Curry’s awkwardly titled A Cur (r) i-ous Prediction (More Card Manipulations Vol 3).

The World’s Most Impossible Card Trick
With the problem of the Open Prediction now in the open Stewart James published a lengthy article on the topic in July 1955 issue of Ibidem (issue 3). James not only described dozens of different Open Prediction effects but also listed many basic ways to solve the problem. More importantly, it was here that he first introduced the world to an even more impossible version of the Open Prediction: Fifty-One Faces North.

Fifty-One Faces North imposes a number of conditions on the trick that makes it exceptionally difficult to solve. James described them in a letter to Howard Lyons, editor of Ibidem, an extract from which was published in that issue:

Borrowed cards may be used. A brand-new deck is not required. The deck might even have cards missing from it, you do not have to know which ones or how many, you have only to be sure that the card you predict is there. You do not need privacy with the cards to set something. The deck is never out of sight for a moment. No card or cards are stolen from the deck. Borrowed writing material may be used. It is described as a prediction at the time of writing. The prediction is nothing more than the name of a card. It is known to all before the first card is dealt. No alternative meanings. No alternative effect. Strictly impromptu. Nothing but the borrowed articles used. When he starts dealing, you do not know where predicted card is. It would not help you to know, with this method. Nor do you know the location of any other card. You never know when he will leave a card face down, until after he has done it.

The Secret’s Out
Stewart James never published Fifty-One Faces North and he died in 1996, apparently taking the secret to his grave. At least that’s what everyone thought until in 2001 Allan Slaight, the noted collator of James’ material, found a single typescript sheet among James’ papers which described the solution in detail. It can viewed online at the Stewart James Exhibition curated by Joe Culpepper at the University of Toronto. The James/Haxton correspondence is also available and at the Ask Alexander database courtesy of the Conjuring Arts Research Center.

For magicians looking for an amazing trick the solution is disappointing. It has the bizarre quality of meeting all the conditions James set down but not meeting any of the expectations of Paul Curry’s Open Prediction. To meet the conditions it links three effects together, each one setting up another, which is why it doesn’t resemble the clear cut notion of a spectator dealing one card face-down as he deals the rest of the cards face-up. Instead the spectator has to cut a portion of cards off the deck during a previous trick, count them and then later deal down to that mentally selected number in order to find out which card will be left face-down during the deal. It resembles an overly complicated version of the mathematical clock effect.

The Controversy
The secret of Fifty-One Faces North is so disappointing that some magicians refuse to believe that this is Stewart James’s real solution to the problem. They prefer to believe that Stewart James had a hitherto unrevealed method that remains unpublished. There is no evidence that points to James having such an effect and a lot of evidence pointing in the other direction.

The most obvious point is that the title of the trick is at the head of the instructions. It is clearly titled Fifty-One Faces North. James made no claim that he had a whole genre of tricks entitled Fifty-One Faces North. Just one method that met all the conditions he set out in Ibidem. James was very particular about titles. It seems unlikely that he had two tricks with the same title.

The trick is dated July 15^th 1955. Ibidem issue 3 was published in August 1955. That the two dates are so close together it is difficult to believe that the trick found by Slaight is not the trick Stewart James wrote about in his letter to Howard Lyons. I don’t think James meant to hype the trick in the way it has subsequently been hyped. He had said to Lyons that it might make a good 'teaser' but he couldn't have envisaged the way it would be viewed many years later.

Curiously James did not hype the trick to his friend Francis Haxton. He never made special mention of the trick either by describing the effect or offering a solution. Having read through their correspondence I can understand why. Haxton made it clear to James that he was not interested in convoluted solutions to the Open Prediction. He did not enjoy roundabout methods of forcing the spectator to stop on a particular card. James’s solution undoubtedly fell into that category.

One aspect that is easy to overlook about Fifty-One Faces North is that James does not describe the effect. He describes only the conditions under which the effect takes place. It is easy to assume that he is talking about a clean version of the Open Prediction but a read through of his other solutions to the problem in Ibidem reveal that he had a very broad interpretation of the effect. Few of his routins involve the simple straightforward procedure of a spectator dealing through a deck of cards and leaving one of them face-down. So why assume that Fifty-One Faces North goes back to Paul Curry’s original ideal?

Convincing the Sceptics
If the trick was as good some currently believe, you might wonder why Stewart James didn’t perform it, which, after all, is the sole purpose of any magic trick. Around 1970 James wrote to Haxton telling him that Bill Miesel had been one of those who doubted that the effect existed. You would have thought that the solution to this dilemma might be to perform the trick for Miesel. But James took another route to convincing the sceptics. He told Haxton:

This year I had Al (Richards) get a deck and I worked the trick with him checking every statement in IBIDEM. Later I met Miesel for the first time. Al had already got to him to tell him triumphantly that he had seen it done. M seems a pleasant enough chap but I am not sure he is convinced Al and I are completely truthful.

I think Stewart James was being truthful. But it seems reasonable to assume that the reason he didn’t show Miesel the trick is because he knew Miesel, and anyone else who discovered what the real effect was, would be disappointed. The trick he showed to Al Richards could have been the trick that Allan Slaight found and this would allow James to honestly claim that it met all the conditions in Ibidem. Prompted by James odd story Haxton did write to him in 1971 asking whether Fifty-One Faces North had ever been published or whether he had any intention of doing so. But there wasn’t the least bit of curiosity shown by Haxton about the workings of the effect. And Haxton had never taken its mention in Ibidem as an indicator that there was some great mystery to be learned. It was left to others to create the legend of Fifty-One Faces North, a practise that continues today whenever effects are hyped beyond their capacity to deliver.

How To Keep A Secret
They say the best way to keep a secret is to publish it. That is true in the case of Fifty-One Faces North because while many people have searched for a solution that meets all Stewart James’ impossible sounding conditions, they have overlooked the fact that Ibidem 3 already contains such a trick. Yes, a solution to Fifty-One Faces North has been hiding in plain sight for over fifty years.

Let me recap what the major conditions are, you can check them all at your leisure. The trick has to be impromptu, performed with a borrowed deck which might not even be complete. All you do know is that it contains the predicted card. The prediction is clear and unambiguous and is in full view from the beginning of the routine. Most interestingly you never know when the spectator will deal a card face-down. You also don’t know the location of your predicted card before the deal begins. Yet the face-down card will always match the prediction.

An Authentic Stewart James Solution
The solution is listed as method 8 in Ibidem. And this time there is no doubt that it was created by Stewart James. It is easily overlooked because it is not described in any detail being an extension of previous methods. Let me try to clarify the description.

1: Take anyone’s shuffled deck and secretly glimpse the top card as you reach for a pen and paper. Write the name of this card as your prediction. Let’s assume it is the Ten of Clubs. Everyone sees the prediction.

2: Take the deck face-down in the palm up left hand. Lift the deck with the right hand, fingers at the outer short end, thumb at the inner short end. Dribble cards from the right hand into the left hand and ask a spectator to call ‘stop.’

3: Raise the right hand packet so that the spectator can look at and remember the face card. This is the card he called ‘stop’ at.

4: Bring the halves of the deck together but as you close them up execute the Kelly Bottom Placement so that the just-noted card is controlled to the bottom of the deck. Stewart James used the Kelly Bottom Placement (Ovette Master Move) but I prefer The Elliott Control (Bruce Elliott’s The Best in Magic) because there is more cover from the front.

5: The situation is that the noted card is on the bottom of the deck. The predicted card is on the top of the deck. Stewart James now gave the deck a Charlier Shuffle which brought both cards to the middle of the deck together.

I prefer to ask the spectator to give the deck three complete cuts. If you’re nervous about handing over the deck with his noted card on the bottom, then give the deck one cut yourself and ask him to give it two more.

6: The deck is now in the spectator’s hands. His noted card is directly above your predicted card somewhere in the middle of the deck. You tell him this: ‘What I want you to do is deal through the deck slowly. Deal each card face-up into a pile on the table. But when you come to your card, I want you to stop and deal the next card face-down. Understand? Good, let’s begin.’

7: The spectator deals through the cards, spots his noted card and deals the next card face-down. At this point you say, ‘Strange thing is we haven’t come across the Ten of Clubs yet. Keep going.’ He does, finishing with all the cards on the table only one of which is face-down. Have someone square the deck up, turn it over and spread it to reveal that the only face-up card in the deck is the one you predicted.

NOTES: Well, at least you didn’t spend twenty quid on it as the result of an over-hyped dealer ad campaign. On a positive note I think it shows that sometimes it is worth going back to the source when tackling these problems. It certainly surprised me when I found that James had already published a solution to the much sought after Fifty-One Faces North.

Since the effect depends on a simple key-card placement there are dozens of different ways to accomplish it. What is needed is a better presentation to dress it up. As Haxton always maintained it is the effect, not the conditions, that is important. Coming up with a presentation that covers the mechanical necessities in a plausible way might lead to a good trick. Happy hunting.