Module 3- Part 4: “I got chills….they’re multiplying…”

Benji

“I got chills….they’re multiplying…”

Alright, I suppose we had to make that joke sooner or later.

But now that we’ve all got the ‘actual’ Grease 1 out of our system, let’s move into OUR first ‘grease’…

Invisible Estimations and Cuts.

Already we’ve seen how useful it is to be able to ‘estimate’ where in our memorized deck a certain card is, and be able to cut to that location.

Going forward, this is going to become more and more important.

In fact, I’d say it’s one of THE skills that can have the largest payoff with the memorized deck.

Since you know the position of each card in the deck, at any point, you’ll be able to cut that card to a convenient location—top, bottom, 33rd card down…anywhere you like.

But that kind of precise estimation skill takes a long time to build up.

In the meantime, most of us mere mortals are going to need to do what we call ‘corrections’.

That just means we do an estimation cut, then ‘glimpse’ the bottom card to let us know how close we got, and then based on that new information perform another cut that should ‘correct’ our initial cut.

We then glimpse again and see how close we got. If we missed again, we correct again.

Eventually, we’ll know when we’ve positioned the card we want when we see the card that comes BEFORE it in the stack on the bottom.

For example, let’s suppose we wanted to bring the JH to the top of the deck.

Since that’s about 20 cards down, you’d cut a little under half the cards to the bottom.

Let’s say we then glimpse the bottom card (and we’ll get into how to do that in a moment) and see the 6H.

We’ve overshot, and the JH is the 4th card up from the bottom.

From here we might cut what we believe to be 4 cards from the bottom to the top. When we glimpse again, we see the KC.

The JH is now the second card from the top (KC on bottom means 2D on top, followed by JH.)

We can now cut that single card to the bottom via a double undercut.

To do that, we catch a break below the top card, cut half the deck on top of that break, and then cut to the break (you can do this in one of two cuts.)

You’ve now moved the top card to the bottom, and the JH is on top.

(see the Live Sessions to see me do this a bunch in various routines.)

You can also do this same procedure after the audience has cut the deck. You just need to adjust for the new bottom card.

Let’s say they cut the deck and the KH is on the bottom.

The KH is the 35th card, and we’re aiming to cut the JH (20th card) to the top.

If the 35th card is on the bottom, the JH is 16 cards up.

We’d then cut about a quarter of the deck from the bottom to the top.

Let’s say the new bottom card is the 8S (22).

The JH is now 3 cards up (22, 21 and then 20.)

We could either cut around 3 cards and adjust as previously described, or double undercut the bottom cards to the top one by one until we’ve done so 3 times.

To double undercut from the bottom to the top, catch a break above the bottom card by pulling down on the bottom right of the card with your pinky. Now cut about half the deck from the top to the bottom and transfer the card below your break onto the top of the lower packet. Now cut the new bottom packet (everything below the break) to the top (in one or two cuts.)

Now, all of this may sound well and good aside from ONE thing:

How do I ‘glimpse’ the bottom card without making it obvious?

Very good question.

After all, we don’t want to make it obvious that we CARE what the bottom card is.

That would lead to the audience figuring out we care about the overall order of the cards in some manner.

Instead, we want our glimpses to be as ‘invisible’ as possible.

So we shouldn’t just turn the deck over and look at the bottom card. We have to be a little more subtle than that.

So, here are a few methods for sneakily subtle glimpses:

The ‘all round square up glimpse’

I mention this one first because it’s the ‘standard’ for a lot of magicians. The idea is that you start with the cards in left hand dealing grip, then bring the right hand over and grip it between forefingers at the top and thumb at the back. You then rotate your right hand 180 degrees. As your right hand rotates the cards, your left hand slides down the side and eventually lets go, then it also rotates and grips the opposite sides to the ones it started on. As your left hand grips, your right hand lets go and rotates, then grips the opposite sides to the ones it started on.

Ok, that turned out to be a complicated explanation for a very simple move.

So to keep things crystal clear, here’s how you can watch the move in action…

1. Go to the link below to watch a full Woody Aragon mem-deck set for free

https://www.vanishingincmagic.com/free-magic-downloads/woody-aragon-the-show-free-download/

2. Pause and watch very carefully what Woody does at minute 3:50 – the use of the all round square up glimpse.

When Woody makes this move, as the cards rotate, the bottom card becomes visible. You can get a surprisingly good view of it even when the cards are barely angled.

As I said, this move is the ‘go-to’ for a lot of mem deck users, and it’s served them very well for many years.

That’s because the move is done under the justification of ‘squaring up’ the cards (hence the name.)

However, Michael Close has recently published a book titled the ‘Road to Riffsville’ where he talks about how he finds the all-round square up glimpse to be less than optimal for glimpses.

I think that’s a reflection of his performing style more than anything else. In fact, I’ve heard someone ask Woody Aragon a question similar to this one (although not this exact issue) and Woody’s answer was simply that different things work for different magicians because of their performing style. Woody is very open and ‘busy’ when he’s performing, constantly messing with the cards. He can slip these kind of glimpses in there and it doesn’t seem like anything out of the ordinary.

But if you happen to share that view, don’t worry.

Here are several more glimpses that you can pick and choose from at will:

Marked cards

Here’s a devious method that I personally like to use from time to time.

If you use a marked deck, it offers a couple of advantages—you don’t need to glimpse the face of the card (the marks are on the back) and rather than the bottom card, you can use the top card.

So when you do your estimation cut, you really don’t need to ‘do’ anything—the marks will tell you exactly how close you got, and you can adjust as described above.

Let’s say you wanted to cut the 5C (30) to the top. You cut just over half, and the marks inform you that the top card is the KS (31.) That means the 5C is now on the bottom, at which point you can bring it to the top

This is a method that I really don’t see a lot of discussion of. Perhaps it’s because it feels like ‘cheating’.

I find that pretty funny…given that we’ve literally stacked every card in the deck already.

One is forced to ask: where do we draw the line between ‘method’ and ‘cheating’?

Our job is to create the most magical experience possible for our audience. If we need to use marked cards to make our figurative elevators invisible, so be it. That’s part of our ‘inward reality’, to borrow a term from Darwin Ortiz. It makes no difference to the ‘outward reality’ of the audience—the whole point is that they don’t know you’re using marks.

NOTE – Michael also offers this as a potential solution in his book.

The only time I can see this NOT being a viable alternative is:

If you’re performing for other magicians familiar with the brand of marked cards you’re using
If the marks are so obvious you wouldn’t want your audience examining the deck (in which case, you should probably switch your marked cards anyway)

One final note: if you choose to go this route, make sure you’re still familiar with the other methods listed in this section. There may come a time you are asked to perform using a borrowed deck which has no such marks—when that happens, you want to have alternative ways of estimating.

Swivel cuts

In one of Michael’s more elegant alternatives to the all-round square up glimpse, he uses a false cut procedure followed by a swivel cut. In the process of the swivel cut, he glimpses the card that will become the bottom card.

It occurred to me that you could simply use the swivel cut as the estimation cut. You’ll need a little more practice to make sure your estimations are just as accurate, but if you can pull it off you essentially turn two moves into one. Rather than cutting and THEN estimating, you can cut AND estimate in the same motion.

The swivel cut works like this:

Grip the cards in overhand grip with your right hand. Your fingers and thumb are closer aligned to the right, leaving empty space on the left. Your left hand approaches the deck on a horizontal alignment and you contact the lower left corner with your thumb. You’re now going to rotate a packet of cards between the tip of the thumb and the flesh of your first and second fingers. When you lever up and forward, the packet should rotate to the left. As you do this, your left hand curls to catch the packet. Once it drops into the left hand, the right hand places the remaining packet on top.

You’ll find that if you tilt both hands downwards as you do this and lever UP just a little more than usual, you can easily see the face of the card that will become the bottom card.

This tells you instantly how successful your estimation has been.

To see what this looks like in action, see the Live Session accompanying this module.

During false shuffles

In an upcoming section, we’ll talk about some simple false shuffle methods. Bear in mind when we get to them that by nature of their ‘messy’ nature, they provide ample moments for glimpsing the bottom card.

However, the downside to this is that some of these false shuffles will cut the deck, so again you’ll need to make sure the false shuffle IS the estimation cut.

Don’t worry, this will make more sense when we talk about later 🙂

Reflective surfaces

This one might sound a bit ‘far out’, but it’s actually very doable.

If you have a reflective surface, by holding the deck OVER that surface, you can see the reflection of the bottom card. This allows you to get the glimpse you need.

Which object?

Here’s one that nearly all of us have: a mobile phone.

In the past, I’ve had my phone resting on the surface I’m using, and I’ve been stood up. By simply holding the deck over the phone, I can see the bottom card.

NOTE: this idea was prompted by something I heard my buddy Adam Grace say during a CC lecture about a magician that fooled everyone by getting his glimpses from a cup of coffee (another reflective surface!)

Placing the cards in the case

This only works in scenarios where it makes sense to put the cards back in the box, but in those situations, it’s a simple and justified way of glimpsing the bottom card.

It’s also ideal for situations where you don’t need the card on the top or the bottom…you just need to know where it is. (for example, after letting spectators cut the deck.)

Let’s say you’ve just let them cut the deck. Take the cards and place them in the box as you say “make sure I don’t do anything with the cards.”

As you put them in the box, just openly put them in with the face up side facing you. You can now note the bottom card. You can then proceed to have them name any card, and based on the card you just glimpsed, you know exactly where that card is in the deck and can reveal it in any number of ways.

Reversals

This one won’t be for everyone, but if you have a good half-pass you can reverse the bottom card and then slide the rest of the deck forward so you can glimpse the index of the card.

I know, I know…I promised we wouldn’t get too ‘technical’.

But don’t worry. I’m not suggesting this is ‘mandatory’. It’s just something to consider if you ALREADY know how to do this.

If not, there are plenty of other methods on this page that you can use that are easier and often cleaner than this.

But if you CAN do a half pass (a good one to use in this scenario is Aaron Fisher’s ‘gravity half pass,’ but your preferred method should work fine) you can simply do the half pass on the very bottom card, catch a break above that card, and slide the rest of the deck forward far enough for the index of the card to be exposed.

Just hold the darn deck face up!

It’s funny that we’ve spent so long discussing all of these ‘covert’ ways to sneak a glance at the bottom card, when there’s ONE method that’s both the easiest and potentially the least suspicious…

Hold the deck face up!

Remember: YOU are the magician.

You set the rules. If you hold the deck face up and act like that’s how it should be done…you’re the expert!

Obviously, don’t call attention to it by explicitly starting as such, but just be confident.

Remember: you set the rules.

The only time this might not be appropriate is when you want to control a card to the bottom. In this case, you’re going to have to use one of the other methods discussed. And you’ll also want to be careful that you don’t accidentally cut the

To make sure you don’t, I would make sure you always ‘overshoot’ so that the desired card is a few cards down from the top (rather than a few cards up from the bottom). This way you can double undercut the remaining cards from the top to the bottom one by one.

NOTE: Funnily enough, I later discovered that Señor Fisher had discovered this too.

Drills:

Now that you have the core methods, you’re going to need to put some practice in.

I like to train this using the ‘number deck’ idea I introduced you to earlier. If you take a blank deck and write the numbers from 1 to 52 on the cards, then assemble them in that same order, you can practice your estimations while barely thinking about it.

Just think of the number you want to cut and cut that much, then check. You’ll instantly know not only if you got it, but how close you got.

In the Live session, I briefly touch on the idea of ‘scallop cards’ or ‘crimps’ to help you with estimation…but I’m not a big fan of them.

Perhaps it’s because I’m lazy, but I just don’t like the idea of becoming reliant on special modifications to the deck to make sure I cut to the right place. If you become too dependent on this kind of thing, it becomes a crutch. And like any crutch, you’re in danger if that gets removed (i.e you need to perform with a borrowed deck, or you lose the card, etc.)

However, if this kind of thing DOES ‘float your boat’, there’s some good ideas by Danny Crauwels in his Maigret System ebook.

The one idea I do think is worth considering is putting a ‘reverse breather crimp’ in the last card in your stack, which allows you to easily cut the deck at that point and bring it back to its starting order.

Credit to Woody Aragon for that particular idea.

Final Note: performance style

I’m a huge fan of Pit Hartling’s work (can you tell?)

I especially like his essay on the ‘performance mode’ within his Card Fictions book. Inspired by Rafael Benatar’s thinking, the (very simplified) idea is that you can use your actions and behaviour to make your audience feel as though the routine hasn’t started…when in fact it has (and you’ve already done most of the dirty work!).

All of this theory can be applied readily to estimation cuts. For full discussion of the topic, check out Card Fictions.

Alright.

I think that just about does it for estimations and glimpses.

Let’s move into an alternative procedure that will allow you to figure out any card without using a single glimpse…