Last week, I showed the Inner Circle how to perform a stunning effect that looked like this…
You invite a married couple up from the audience. You ask one of them to think of a color, and the other to think of a suit. Then, together, they decide on a value. Together, they’ve selected a card—and the entire choice has been utterly and completely free!
You then point out a deck of cards that has been in full view the entire time.
Using the identity of the couple, you turn over one card for each letter—and, of course, you arrive on one card…
THEIR freely named card.
You can view the tutorial for that effect here:
In last week’s tutorial, I assured you that we only really need an ‘out’ for cards 1-26.
Why is that?
Are we just going to hope they don’t pick a card from 27-52?
Nope.
We’re going to do something that is both very simple and incredibly useful.
We left off with ‘outs’ for any card in positions 1-26.
Actually, in putting together that list, we actually did all the hard work.
We won’t need to do anything extra.
Why?
Well, any of the cards from 27-52 can actually be reached by turning the deck face up and counting INTO the deck—which means 1-26 will cover us for both possibilities.
When you turn the deck over, the bottom card becomes card #1. The card second from bottom becomes card #2. The card 5th from bottom becomes card #5.
So, we only need 26 possibilities—we can either count from 1-26 from the TOP down, or 52-27 by counting from the BOTTOM down.
You’ll see that, when I show you the list for these cards, we do almost exactly the same thing as we did for 1-26, just flipped.
We’ll replace the double lift with the ‘glide’ move.
Let’s go through the list again, but this time—flipped:
52nd card
Get them both to place their hands on the deck—one hand underneath, one hand above. Then have them remove their hands. Turn over the deck and show their card on the face of the deck.
51st card
Same build up as previous, except this time we’re going to be the ones to reveal the card—via a glide.
50th card
Same as above, but this time a double glide.
Alternatively, ask them to name a number between 1 and 5 and there’s a good chance they’ll say 3 (or 2, which we can deal and then show the next card.) If not, that’s easily overcome by shifting one or two cards from top to bottom/bottom to top.
49th card
Here’s where the names start becoming useful.
I can spell ‘NEVE’ and show the 4th card as the last letter.
48th card
Spell ‘NEVE’ and then show that the card on the face of the deck is the named card.
47th card
Spell ‘NEVE’ and do a glide to reveal the named card.
46th card
Spell ‘BERNARD’ and the last card dealt is the named card.
45th card
Spell ‘BERNARD’ and show the card on the face of the deck is the named card.
44th card
Spell ‘BERNARD’ and glide.
43rd card
Spell ‘NEVE’ and then ‘BERNARD’, dealing each card into a second pile. At the end of this, the named card will be the second card down in the new pile. Hold the deck face down as you deal and slide each card out from the bottom and into the new pile. This will do the same thing—place the 10th card second from the top of the new pile.
Or you could do this, a method I suggest in Module 5 of Skyscraper:
“Spell from the face up, but as we near the final card, we turn the deck face down. Then we do the glide move, but rather than using it to reach the next card, we do it once the bottom card IS the named card. So in this case, as we spell ‘l’ we do the glide move and deal the card ABOVE the named card. Then we cleanly take the bottom card for ‘s.’
The reason?
We could definitely play this as an effort on our part to create tension and suspense before revealing the card. You’ll have to figure out what works for you though.
Alternatively, you could do the whole thing counting from the face up, but with the deck face down. So each time you deal a card looks the same as when you glide it—disguising the move.”
42nd card
Spell ‘NEVE’ and then ‘BERNARD’ to deal 11 cards—the last card of the deal being the named card.
41st card
Same as above, but glide.
OR: Spell ‘NEVE KAVANAGH’ and show the last card dealt is the named card.
40th card
Spell ‘NEVE KAVANAGH’ and show that the card on the face of the deck is the named card.
OR: Spell ‘NEVE M KAVANAGH’ and show that the last card dealt is the named card.
39th card
Same as above, but glide.
OR: Spell ‘NEVE M KAVANAGH’ and show that the card on the face of the deck is the named card.
38th card
Spell ‘BERNARD KAVANAGH’ and show that the last card dealt is the named card.
37th card
Spell ‘BERNARD KAVANAGH’ and show that the card on the face of the deck is the named card.
OR: Spell ‘BERNARD S KAVANAGH’ and show that the last card dealt is the named card.
36th card
Spell ‘BERNARD KAVANAGH’ and double lift/glide.
OR: Spell ‘BERNARD S KAVANAGH’ to and show the next card on the deck/the face of the deck is the named card.
35th card
Spell ‘BERNARD S KAVANAGH’ and glide.
OR: Spell ‘NEVE MONICA KAVANAGH’ and show the last card dealt as the named card.
34th card
Spell ‘NEVE MONICA KAVANAGH’ and show the card on the face of the deck is named card.
33rd card
Spell ‘NEVE MONICA KAVANAGH’ and glide.
32nd card
Spell ‘BERNARD STEVEN KAVANAGH’ and the last card dealt is 21st card.
31st card
Same as above, but show that the card on the face of the deck is named card.
OR: Spell ‘NEVE AND BERNARD KAVANAGH’ and show the 22nd card
30th card
Same as above, but glide.
OR: Spell ‘NEVE AND BERNARD KAVANAGH’ and show the card on the face of the deck is the named card.
29th card
Spell ‘NEVE AND BERNARD KAVANAGH’ and glide.
OR: Spell ‘NEVE M AND BERNARD S KAVANAGH’ and show the last card dealt is the named card.
28th card
Spell ‘NEVE M AND BERNARD S KAVANAGH’ and the card on the face of the deck is the named card.
27th card
Same as above, but glide for the reveal.
See how simple that is?
In ONE action (turning the deck face up) we double the reach of this effect—meaning that our spectator really can name ANY card, and this will work.
How to justify turning the deck face up?
I would start with the cards in the case. That way, you haven’t ‘locked in’ which side is facing where. Rather, you can have them name the card, and THEN remove the deck from the case, laying it on the table either face up or face down depending on what the situation requires.
Notice too that all of the various name combinations are exactly the same?
We don’t need to invent anything ‘extra’ for these—we just turn them on their head!
But, as I alluded to last time, what if you’re performing ‘impromptu?’
Well, dear reader, that is exactly what I’ll be talking about next week.
Until then, have fun with this!
Benji