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Module 7- Part 3: The Final Countdown…

Benji

The Final Countdown…

Of all the effects in this course, THIS is the one that I had the hardest time ‘spilling’ to Jacob (and, yes, dear reader—YOU.) 

See, if it weren’t for this course, I would have used this effect to drive him (and many other magicians) crazy for years to come. 

It’s astonishing because, over the 7 days of training, I gave him practically ALL the principles at work in the effect—yet I knew he would have ZERO clue what was going on! 

That’s not me ‘bragging.’

Well, that’s not true. 

I am bragging. 

But not about ME—about the memorized deck. 

See, the only reason this effect is possible is because of the sheer ‘flexibility’ built into the memorized deck. 

It’s truly an astonishing thing when you see how it works. 

And it’s the perfect effect for this module because it relies on the extra power you unlock when using multiple stacks. 

So I really want to spend some time getting ‘deep’ into what’s going on here. 

NOTE: To feel the full ‘power’ of this effect, I highly encourage you to watch the Live Session first and THEN read this write up. I want you to have the opportunity to watch this with no idea how it works beforehand. I think you’ll enjoy doing so 🙂

Effect: The Final Countdown

Vernon’s ‘Cutting the Aces’ is a classic of card magic. 

The magician manages to cut to three of the Aces in a row. But on the last Ace, it looks like he messes up. Instead, he uses the value on the card he cut to to count down in the deck and reveal the final Ace. 

I love the idea of that final phase, and I wanted to see just how far I could push it using a memorized deck. 

The Final Countdown allows you to perform an effect not dissimilar from the final phase of Vernon’s Cutting the Aces, but with the spectator cutting the deck, PLUS an astonishing ‘kicker’ reveal at the end. 

The idea is:

You tell your audience you have card cheating abilities that allow you to instantly cut to any card in the deck (if you’re familiar with the classic Scarne patter, here might be a good time to use it). 

You tell them that they can cut anywhere in their deck, and whatever card they cut to, you’ll be able to do the same in your deck within a few cuts. 

They cut to a card. 

You cut to a card in your deck. 

It’s the wrong card. 

But not to worry, with a little magic, you use the identity of the card you cut to to count to their card. 

(that’s where this routine would usually end.)

But then you go one step further and get them to deal the identity of THEIR card. 

The card they land on after dealing?

Your initial ‘wrong’ card!

In essence, your wrong card finds their right card, while their right card finds your wrong card!

It’s an astonishing effect, made even more astonishing by this fact:

There’s ZERO forces, and this works for EVERY card in the deck. 

It uses two totally different stacks—the Tamariz and Aronson stacks (which allow you to clearly display no similarity between the two decks—after cutting one of them once so we don’t have the matching 9D.)  

NOTE: This would be a very powerful effect to do if you know somebody who uses one of these stacks and you want to give them a real surprise…

But most of the time, when performing for laymen, we’re just going to hand them one of the stacks. The way I’ve mapped this out, they get the Tamariz stack and we hold onto the Aronson stack.

Here’s what happens:

Whichever card they cut to in the Tamariz stack, there’s a card in your Aronson stack that you can cut to that will let you perform the effect described (your wrong card finds their right card, their right card friends your wrong card.)

When I first stumbled upon this discovery, I started out by wondering if I could find a connection like this for just ONE set of cards in the stacks (and then force that outcome). 

As you read this, imagine my surprise when I discovered a direct connection for EVERY card in the deck!

Now, I’m about to give you a ‘list’ with instructions for how to accomplish this effect with any card cut to. 

It will be much easier to follow if you have both the stacks ‘in hand’ physically so you can follow along. 

If you can’t get that together, just make sure you have a picture/chart of each stack handy to make following along easy. 

On the list, the first card listed tells you what card THEY cut to in their deck (which is in Tamariz stack.)

Where it says ‘In Aronson’ means what you should do with your stack (which is in Aronson stack.)

A couple more notes:

We’re going to be using estimation cuts for this. In the demo, I used marked cards to make it extra fooling, but any estimation + glimpse procedure will work. The good news is that since we’re presenting this as ‘finding their card by cutting the deck’ they can hardly be surprised when we…cut the deck!

In the following list, when I say ‘backward’, I mean ‘into the face-up packet’ (which is counting backward in terms of your stack numbers.)

If the face up packet isn’t deep enough for the amount of cards we’re going to be counting, or you suspect it won’t be, turn the face down portion face up and lay their packet on top—so their card is on the face of the deck.  

‘Forward’ means into the face down portion (counting forward in the stack numbers.)

‘Starting on the card before’ = place the card they cut to on the table and then do the count. 

‘Starting on the card they cut to’ = if face up, keep the card on the packet and use it as the first card in the deal. If we’re counting into the face down portion, remove the card from the face of the face up pile and place it on the face down portion, then use it as the first card in the count. 

‘Starting on the card after/the next card’ = place the card on the table and start the count on the first face down card following it. 

‘The card left on face’ = the card on the face of the packet after the count is finished. 

‘The next card’ = after the count, the card on top of the face-down packet. 

‘Landing on the card’ = the last card of the count is the desired card. 

It all sounds far more complicated than it is. If you follow with cards in hand it will soon make sense!

We begin by asking them to cut their deck (single cuts, make sure to demonstrate single cuts to them so they know to just cut the deck with regular cuts) until they’re satisfied they don’t know where any card is. Then ask them to cut somewhere in the deck and turn the cards in their right hand (the cards they lifted off the deck) face up and place them on the table. 

We’re now ready for ‘the list.’

The List…

If they cut to:

1. 4C in Tamariz – get them to remove the 4C, count back 4, and the next card on the face of the deck after the count is the QS. 

In Aronson, cut so the QS is on the face of the packet, count 4 cards backward starting on the QS and the 4th card is the 4C.

ALT:

4C in Tamariz, count back 4 and the 4th card is 10D. In Aronson, cut so 10D is on the face, then count forward into the face down portion by spelling ‘Ten of Diamonds.’ The final ‘S’ card is 4C.

1. 2H in Tamariz – pick up their deck, count 2, and double lift to show the 6D. 

In Aronson, cut the 6D to the middle of the deck, then cut at the 6D. Count 6 cards forward, starting on the next card, and the card on the deck after the count is the 2H. 

ALT: If you’d rather not touch their deck, you could get them to spell ‘two’ and the next card is the 6D. 

1. 7D in Tamariz – get them to count 7 forward in the face down pile and turn over the next card to show the QH. 

In Aronson, cut at the QH and spell into the face up portion, starting on the next card, ‘Queen Hearts.’ The last letter, ‘s’, will be the 7D. 

ALT: in Tamariz, spell forward ‘Seven of Diamonds’ starting on the card after 7D. We land on the KC on ‘s’. In Aronson, we cut the KC to the middle, then cut at the KC and spell ‘King of Clubs’ forward starting on the next card and doing a double lift on the cards left on the deck afterward—revealing the 7D.  

1. 3C in Tamariz – remove the 3C, count back 3 in face up packet and show 4C as the third card. In Aronson, cut at the 4C and count back 4 cards starting at the card before. Show the card on the face after counting is the 3C. 

ALT: In Tamariz, remove the 3C, count 3 cards back and show the next card on the face as 9D. In Aronson, cut at 9D and spell backward ‘Nine Diamonds’ starting on the card before and landing on the 3C. 

1. 4H in Tamariz – count 4 cards forward starting on the next card, turn over the card left on deck to show 2S. In Aronson, cut at the 2S and spell backwards ‘Two of Spades’ starting on the card before. The card on the face after ‘s’ is 4H. 

1. 6D in Tamariz – count 6 cards forward, starting on the next card, and turn over the card left on deck to show QC. In Aronson, the card behind QC is 6D. Reveal this in some suitable manner that justifies not counting—for example, via a color change.  

ALT: count back with the 6D as 1st card as count, land on 4C. In Aronson, cut at 4C and count forward 4 starting on the next card to land on the 6D. This is potentially stronger. 

1. AS in Tamariz – count 1 to the next card, 5H. In Aronson, cut at 5H and count back 5 cards starting with the card before, the card on the face after dealing is the AS.

1. 5H in Tamariz – count 5 forward starting on the next card to land on QC. In Aronson, cut at QC and count forward 12 starting the next card and double lift on the card on deck after dealing to show the 5H. 

1. 9S in Tamariz – count 9 forward starting on the next card, landing on KC as the ninth card. In Aronson, cut at the KC and spell ‘KING’ starting on KC and ending on 9S as ‘G.’ This is justified as the court card has a weaker association to its number (e.g 13 in this case) than it does to its identity of K, Q, J, and A, etc. 

1. 2S in Tamariz – count 2 cards forward starting on the next card, turning over the QC as the card left on deck after counting 2. In Aronson, cut at the QC and spell ‘Queen Clubs’ backwards starting on the card before. The ‘s’ will be 2S.

1. QH in Tamariz – spell ‘Queen’ forward starting on QH and turn over 6S as ‘n.’ In Aronson, cut to 6S and count 6 forward starting on the next card, landing on the QC as the 6th card. 

1. 3D in Tamariz – count 3 forward, starting on the next card, and land on 5S. In Aronson, cut at the 5S and count 5 forward, starting on 5S, and the last card of the count will be the 3D. 

1. QC in Tamariz – spell ‘Queen’ forward starting on the next and landing on 9H. In Aronson, cut at 9H and count 9 forward starting on 9H and landing on QC. 

ALT: Spell ‘Queen’ starting on the next card and land on KC. In Aronson, cut the KC to middle, then cut to KC and spell ‘King’ backwards starting on the card before landing on the QC on ‘g.’

1. 8H in Tamariz – count 8 backwards, starting on 8H, to land on AS. In Aronson, cut AS to middle and cut at AS. Spell backward, starting on the card before, ‘Ace of Spades’ and the next card on face after spelling is 8H. 

1. 6S in Tamariz, count 6 forward starting on the 6S, the last card of the count is JH. In Aronson, cut at the JH and count 11 (Jack = 11) forward starting on the JH and landing on the 6S. 

1. 5S in Tamariz – count 5 forward starting on the next card, and the last card of the count is 3S. In Aronson, cut at 3S, count 3 starting on the next card and the last card of the count is 5S. 

1. 9H Tamariz – count 9 forward starting on the 9H and landing on the 5D. In Aronson, cut at the 5D and spell ‘Five of Diamonds’ starting on the card after, and the next card is 9H.

1. KC in Tamariz – spell ‘King of Clubs’ forward starting on the next card and double lift to show KS. In Aronson, cut the KS to the middle, cut to KS and spell ‘King of Spades’ forward starting with the KS and the ‘s’ will land on KC. 

ALT: spell ‘King’ backward starting on the KC and land on the 6S. In Aronson, cut the 6S to the middle, cut at 6S and spell ‘Six of Spades’ forward starting on 6S and landing on KC on the ‘s.’

1. 2D in Tamariz – count 2 forward starting on the next card and landing on 3S. In Aronson, cut to 3S and count backwards by 3, the card on the face after counting will be 2D. 

1. JH in Tamariz – spell ‘Jack’ forward starting on the next card, landing on the 10C. In Aronson, cut to the 10C. Beneath the 10C is the JH—we could use this for a color change. Or we could do a ‘searcher’ card effect—turn the 10C face down (without revealing the card beneath) and place the other cards back on top. Cut the deck a few times and spread face down. Remove the face up 10C and the card below it—revealing the 10C.   

1. 3S in Tamariz – spell ‘Three of Spades’ forward starting on 3S and landing on 8C. In Aronson, cut to the 3S. The card beneath the 3S is 8C. We can reveal in the same way as the previous card. 

1. 8S in Tamariz – spell ‘Eight of Spades’ forward starting on the 8S, landing on the 10S. In Aronson, cut to the 10S and spell ‘Ten of Spades’ forward, starting from the card after, and the next card is the 8S. 

1. 6H in Tamariz – spell ‘Six of Hearts’ backward starting on 6H and landing on QC on ‘s.’ In Aronson, cut at QC and spell backwards ‘Queen of Clubs’ starting on the QC and landing on the 6H. 

1. 10C in Tamarz – spell backwards ‘Ten Clubs’ and the card left on the face is 6S. In Aronson, cut at 6S and spell backward ‘Six Spades’ to land on the 10C on ‘s.’

ALT: spell ‘clubs’ backward from 10C, starting on the 10C, and land on JH. In Aronson, the JH is behind the 10C.

1. 5D in Tamariz – spell ‘Five of Diamonds’ forward starting on the 5D to land on the 10H. In Aronson, cut at 10H and spell backwards ‘Ten of Hearts’ starting on the card before and landing on 5D. 

1. KD in Tamariz – spell ‘King’ starting on KD and landing on 8D. In Aronson, cut at 8D and spell forward ‘Eight’ starting on the next card and landing on KD. 

1. 2C in Tamariz – count forward 2 starting on the next card, and turn over the card left on the deck to show 5C. In Aronson, cut 5C to middle and cut to 5C, then count back 5 starting on 5C and landing on 2C. 

1. 3H in Tamariz – count forward 3 starting on 3H and landing on 5C. In Aronson, cut the 5H to the middle. Cut at 5H and count backwards 5, starting at 5H and landing on the 3H. 

1. 8D in Tamariz – spell backwards ‘Eight of Diamonds’ starting on the card before and ending with QC on the face. In Aronson, cut QC to middle, cut at the QC and spell ‘Queen of Clubs’ forward starting on the QC and landing on 8D. 

1. 5C in Tamariz – spell ‘Five of Clubs’ backwards and the card left on the face is KC. In Aronson, the KC is behind the 5C. 

1. KS in Tamariz – spell backwards ‘King of Spades’ starting on the card before. The card left on face will be KC. In Aronson, cut KC to the middle and cut to KC, then spell backwards ‘King of Clubs’ starting on the card before and landing on the KS. 

1. JD in Tamariz – spell forward ‘Jack of Diamonds’ starting on the JD and landing on QD. In Aronson, cut at the QD and spell forward ‘Queen of Diamonds’ starting on the next card and landing on JD. 

1. 8C in Tamariz – spell ‘Eight’ starting on the next card and showing the card on deck after dealing is AD. In Aronson, cut at AD and spell ‘Ace’ backwards, starting at AD and landing on 8c. 

1. 10S in Tamariz – count 10 forward starting on 10S and landing on AC. In Aronson, cut to AC and count backward ‘1’ (Ace = 1) and the card on face will be 10S. 

1. KH in Tamariz – spell ‘Hearts’ forward starting on the next card and landing on 7H. In Aronson, cut at 7H and spell ‘Hearts’ forward starting on 7H and landing on KH. 

1. JC in Tamariz – count 11 forward starting on JC and landing on QD. In Aronson, cut at QD and count 12 forward starting on the next card and landing on the JD. 

1. 7S in Tamariz – spell forward ‘Seven of Spades’ forward starting on the next card and landing on 6C. In Aronson, cut to 6C and spell ‘Six of Clubs’ forward starting on the next card, and the card on deck after dealing is 7S. 

1. 10H in Tamariz – this is a cool but unusual one. Spell ‘Ten’ in one deck and ‘Hearts’ in the other. In Tamariz, spell ‘Hearts’ backwards starting on card before and landing on JD. In Aronson, cut at JD and spell ‘Ten’ forward, starting on JD and landing on 10H. In performance, we’d do that the other way around—spelling ‘Ten’ to fix our JD, then saying “but we missed ‘Hearts’ and spell that in the other deck to show JD.”

1. AD in Tamariz – spell ‘Ace’ forward starting on the next card and showing the card on deck after spelling is AC. In Aronson, cut at AH and spell ‘Ace’ backwards starting on the card before and showing the card on the face after spelling to be AD.

OR – cut to KD in Aronson, spell ‘Ace’ forward starting on the next card and showing the card on deck after dealing is AD. Then say “I bet you’re wondering what would have happened if we’d said ‘Ace of Diamonds’ rather than just Ace. I’ll show you…” and spell ‘Ace of Diamonds’ backwards in Tamariz starting on card before and landing on the KD. 

1. 4S in Tamariz – count 4 cards backward starting on card before and landing on JC. In Aronson, cut at JC and count 4 forward starting on the next card and landing on 4S.

1. 7H in Tamariz – count 7 forward starting on 7H and landing on 7C. In Aronson, cut to 7C and count 7 forward starting on 7C to land on 7H. Neat!

1. 4D in Tamariz – spell ‘Four of Diamonds’ forward starting on the next card to land on 4H. Cut to 4H in Aronson, double lift the next card to show 4D. 

1. AC in Tamariz, spell ‘Ace’ backwards starting on card before and show the card on face is AH. Cut to AH in Aronson, spell ‘Ace of Hearts’ backwards starting on card before. The card on face after spelling is AC. (we could spin this by doing the ‘Ace’ first and saying “I bet you’re wondering what would have happened if we spelled the full thing. Let’s see…”)

1. 9C in Tamariz – count 9 forward starting on the next card and landing on 4C. Cut at 4C in Aronson, double lift to show 9C.

1. JS in Tamariz – spell ‘Jack’ forward starting on JS and landing on QD. In Aronson, cut at QS and spell ‘Queen’ forward starting at the next card to land on JS. 

1. QD in Tamariz – spell ‘Queen’ forward starting on the next card and landing on AH. Cut at AH in Aronson and QD is below it. 

1. 7C in Tamariz – spell ‘Seven of Clubs’ backwards starting on the 7C and landing on JC. In Aronson, cut at JC and spell ‘Jack’ backwards starting on the card before. The card on face after spelling is 7C. Again, we’d do this part first and then say: “you might be wondering if this still works if we spell the full thing. Well, why don’t we try?” and have them do so in Aronson. 

1. QS in Tamariz – spell ‘Queen’ forward starting on QS and landing on 9D. In Aronson, cut the QS to the middle, cut at 9D and spell ‘Nine’ backward starting on the card before to land on QS. This one is special because the cards are in the same positions in both stacks (48 and 52.)

1. 10D in Tamariz – spell ‘Ten of Diamonds’ backwards starting on the card before and landing on JC. In Aronson, cut to JC. 10D is below JC in Aronson. 

1. 6C in Tamariz – count 6 backwards starting on 6C to land on JS. Cut JS to middle in Aronson, then cut at JS. Count 6 forward, starting from the next card, the card on deck after the last card of count is 6C. (You could spin this by saying “if I count 6 cards the deck will do something magical.” And then after revealing your card say “no, really—you try it” and walk them through the process.)

1. AH in Tamariz – spell ‘Ace of Hearts’ backwards starting on AH and landing on 7H. In Aronson, cut at 7H and count 7 forward starting on the next card and landing on AH. 

1. 9D in Tamariz – count 9 forward starting on the next card and land on 9S. In Aronson, cut the 9S to middle. Cut at the 9S and spell ‘Nine’ backwards starting on the card before. The card on the face after spelling is 9D. 

Wheeeeew. 

That was a big old ‘info dump.’

So slow it down. 

Grab a deck, one stacked in Aronson, and one stacked in Tamariz.

Cut to a random card in Tamariz, then look up the reference in here. 

NOTE: above, I laid it out by explaining the Tamariz (their deck) procedure first, followed by Aronson (your deck) second. I did this to keep things simple—however, in actual performance, the order I like to do the reveal is with MY deck first.

Doing it with my deck is impressive, but not knockout—perhaps it’s possible I used sleight of hand in mine. So then when I follow up by getting them to find the card in THEIR deck, it’s the perfect kicker ending. 

Now, you may be thinking:

This list is freaking awesome, but how do I remember it in performance?

Here are my answers to that (so far)…

1. Practice. If you make this a staple in your repertoire, I think it would be possible just to do it enough that you know what to do (although I need more data on this.)
2. If you spell/count the cards face up, you’ll be able to tell if you’re on track to hit the card or not as you near it…and you can always ‘course correct’ live (a false deal, miscalling the count, gathering the cards up and counting again, etc.)
3. Pit Hartling came up with the brilliant idea of using a sheet of ‘Poker Formulas’ as a humorous prop that actually does exactly what he says it does. It might be possible to do a similar thing here. Take this list and duplicate it many times across various sheets, then call the whole thing your ‘cheating formulas’ and use their instructions to ‘program the deck’ to find the card (this is all Pit’s presentation and genius). For example, the sheet ‘tells  you’ you need to give the deck 8 cuts to find their card (of course, you use these to estimate to the right position and then do false cuts once you’re there.) When it’s revealed that you ‘missed’ the card…perhaps blame that on the programming (“must have been a bug in the code.”)

Anyway, just a fun thought. 

NOTE: The list has been laid out in this way for easy reference. But in performance, YOU do the spelling first, then the spectator. This maintains dramatic progression—it’s more impressive for the spectator to find our card with their own hands, so that’s what should come last.  

See the Live Session to see what this looks like.

NOTE: The spectator can do the counting for their packet. The only case where that isn’t possible is the 2H and KC (and we have alternatives methods for those that will enable the spectator to deal if you really want to.)

NOTE: As with most of our memorized deck work, it has to FEEL like this is how it was always going to happen. 

NOTE: For many of these, you spell for one card and count for the other. To justify this, I would simply say something like:

“See, it works when we count your card. But what happens when we spell? Let’s take a look…”

(or vice versa.)

NOTE: I believe a similar list can be made for all the various stack combinations (still in the process of creating those particular lists though.)

I think it could also work with two shuffled decks…although I’m yet to figure out how that would be useful.

(Pit Hartling suggested to me that “Martin Eiseles ‘Vision’ App comes to mind…” but I’m still putting the pieces together on this. If someone could build an App where you scan two shuffled decks and it comes up with these connections in a list, that would be gnarly. Here’s that app though: https://www.vision-tricks.com/)

Anyhow, this effect gives you a taste of the power of multiple stacks. 

It combines the Aronson and Tamariz stack in a way I’ve never seen done before. 

Which really goes to show how flexible these stacks are—even after decades of people studying them, there’s more packed in there.  

You might have started to notice that using multiple stacks works nicely for our ‘technical’ view of effect. 

More on that here…

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