WAIT! I wasn’t done with Effect #2 yet, take me back…
Take Me to the Final Effect
The Memorized Deck Starter Pack – Effect #3
Here’s an effect I had based on Juan Tamariz’ excellent ‘Neither Blind nor Stupid.’
The official dealer copy of the effect is as follows…
“Neither Blind Nor Stupid is easy to do and a real fooler for magicians and laypeople alike! From an’ almost lost mentalism principle in Anneman, this routine is a masterful and thoughtful lesson in magical structure that takes a self-working effect and turns it into a masterpiece of showmanship!
Juan Tamariz has put together a marvelous way to find two spectators’ cards, and draws it out in many steps that is both mystifying and entertaining. The cards are continually mixed by the spectators, yet the magician is able to identify both selected cards.”
Now, the ‘vanilla’ version of this routine is great…but the cards can’t be examined once the effect has finished.
Using our handy memorized deck, I developed a way to perform this routine AND hand out the deck afterward.
Effect:
The spectators shuffle the deck. They then cut, look at a couple of cards, and return the cards. They then cut and deal the cards into two piles. The magician is able to figure out the exact identity of the card the second he looks at the piles.
The cards can be examined after performing.
Method:
Start with the deck separated into odd and even halves.
I.e all the odd stack number cards in the top half and all the even stack number cards in the bottom half. This deck will LOOK totally shuffled, but it’s actually a ‘divided deck.’
Split the deck in half and let two spectators each shuffle half the deck.
As ever, we don’t care how much they shuffle—they’re never going to shuffle even cards into odd cards (since the two packets are in separate hands.)
No matter how much they shuffle, one packet will always be even stack number cards, and the other packet odd stack number cards.
We then take the two halves and faro them. This will arrange the cards so it alternates between even stack number and odd stack number.
We can let the spectator cut the deck as many times as they like. When they cut, let one spectator remove a card and a second spectator remove a second card.
Now for the genius part:
Once they’ve both noted their card, get the first spectator to put their card back FIRST.
This sounds natural—they picked first, after all—but it’s deviously constructed.
If the first spectator puts their card back first, they’ve actually reversed the order of the cards. What this means is that there are now two odd cards together and two even cards together.
But here’s the best part:
After an elaborate cutting process (see the performance video) Juan says “I know that your cards are next to each other. So you must deal two piles, that way the cards will be separated.”
Sounds fair, right?
Nope.
In fact, doing this deal will arrange the cards as follows:
One of the piles will be all the EVEN cards with ONE odd card in it (this will be one of the selections.)
The other pile will be all the ODD cards with ONE even card in it (this will be the other selection.)
You can look through those respective piles and quickly see which those cards are.
After revealing the cards, you can let your audience examine the cards (an advantage on the classic method).
There’s nothing to see—after all, the ‘secret identity’ you used to sort the cards is known only to you!
Alright, that’s it for this effect.
Super simple, but super elegant.
Note:
Page 260 of Mnemonica prompted me to think about more ways of constructing this effect.