How to fool a magician

[Marek]

Hello everyone

I want to tell you a story of a friend of mine who i consider to be a true magician

Once a week me and a few other magicians meet up to dicuss magic flourishng and thing we have discovered during the week

Anyway one week my friend comes up to me and asks me if he can show me a force hes been working on. I said sure.

He pulls out a random card, The 8 of hearts.

He puts it on the bottom and says this is the card i'm going to force. he doesnt shuffle or move the card from the bottom. He just spreads the cards and asks me to pick, so i take out a random card from the center, an as expected its the 8 of hearts.

Now at this point i'm impressed, not speachless but intrigued.

He then asks me to place the card back in the spead. i do and he asks if i have ever seen the turnover pass. I said of course. This entire time i've stared at the pack. All he does is turn the deck over and the 8 of hearts was on the bottom

WTF????? It had to be the cleanest turnover pass i had ever seen i couldnt see any movement or displacement of the cards

He says thats not the coolist part. He proceeds to wave his hand over the deck and the 8 of hearts had jumped to the top.

WTF???????????? this is incredible. I considered my self quite a decent card magician but i didnt see a thing.

He told me he would now force it from the top.

Ok now i was interested. He puts the card on top and with out any hesitation spreads the cards. I want this to fail so i pick a card at the lower section of the deck only to see it was indeed the 8 of hearts.

At this point i'm close to having a nose bleed

i couldnt comprehend what had happened.

He then said there's more.

He turns over the deck to reveal the entire deck had turned into the 8 of hearts .................. ****

at that point i felt like the biggest idiot on the planet. I had fallen for the old deck of the same card.

FML

but it really says something about my friend. A true magician can turn any effect, no matter how pathetic and turn it into something incredible

This is something as magicians we should all strive to do

 

[WitchDocIsIn]

Heh. Sorry, but my very first thought was, "One way forcing deck."

Sounds like your friend is a great performer, though, I'd love to see some footage of him doing his thing.

 

[Justin.Morris]

Heh that's awesome. I was thinking svengali myself.

 

[WitchDocIsIn]

Svengalis never occur to me, because I've never even seen one in person.

I probably thought of the one-way because I was thinking about Tony Chang's blog post regarding the 'perfect' ACR using one just before I read this post.

But really, it's the obvious method if you're not caught up in the performance.

 

[descartes]

Heh. Sorry, but my very first thought was, "One way forcing deck."

I agree fully because I was thinking the same. I will even go so far as to say that this idea will almost never fool laymen because laymen often go for the obvious solutions (duplicates, or in this case, a one way forcing deck).

 

[Randy]

Sounds pretty nice, though I don't really care about fooling other magicians.

 

[FOO:L]

performing the trick that cannot be explained is the best way to kick fellow magicians in the groin.

 

[Marek]

I dont really care about the deck

What really made this amazing for me is he was feeding off my knowledge of card magic

telling me he was doing a turnover force

and i dont know if it was an official one way force deck

there was only like 30 cards and some looks like some were dirtier than the others
again not about the deck it was that he was that convincing a performer

 

[RealityOne]

I agree fully because I was thinking the same. I will even go so far as to say that this idea will almost never fool laymen because laymen often go for the obvious solutions (duplicates, or in this case, a one way forcing deck).

I have to disagree, somewhat. If you take away the patter regarding the forces and the slights, the routine is essentially the standard Svengali deck routine. The difference being that you can show the deck to be "all different" if you are using a Svengali deck. That works on laymen all the time.

I have used a one-way forcing deck very successfully with layman and they have never suspected anything (just put a different card on the bottom and "inadvertently" flash it to the spectators and/or a different card on top to show before their card jumps to the top). Seriously, the idea of duplicates only goes so far. How many spectators have heard of a forcing deck? Do you think a spectator would guess that you bought 52 decks of cards so that you could assemble one deck of cards that are all the same? (Hence my pet peeve about magicians pointing out that every card is different -- why wouldn't they be?).

Now, this is where I agree with you. Would I do that routine (with different patter) for a layman? Probably not because I think that you are essentially doing using the same method too many times in a row (and of course the final reveal provides the method). That is the same reason that an ACR shouldn't use the same methods to bring the card to the top more than once (twice at most). However, with a force deck and a couple of indifferent cards, I could come up with a routine that floors laymen.

Finally, the brilliance of the performance the OP saw was in the patter. By the magician mentioning various slights the OP was misdirected in both what he was looking at and what he was thinking.

 

[RickEverhart]

You guys will laugh but I have been fooled using a similar method by a well known magician, who I thought, there is no way he would be using duplicates to perform a flawless ACR.

I believe the method I was fooled by was that there were 10 of the exact same card on top of the deck (Jack of Spades) and the rest were random cards. He would show me the deck by spreading, classic forced the Jack of Spades, allowed me to place it back "wherever" and it would somehow come back to the top. I completely over looked duplicates being on top because I thought it would be "beneath" his ability to do that. I knew some of the moves looked too good to be true.

Oh well...it was funny and we both laughed when he revealed the method to me.

I think it is in fact true that you can use a magicians knowledge to work against them. I have performed double lifts in an effect and then in the next effect just turned one card over from the top but making it appear to be a double and it has gone past magicians.

 

[Sidekick]

Yeah a lot of magicians do not like to use gimmicked cards cause they feel its disrespectful of all the sleight of hand they could do.

When performing for a magician, the magician expects to see sleight of hand and the like but something like a gimmicked deck will smack em in the face.

if you want to fool a magician , i'd say go for the simplest trick/routine you have.

 

[praetoritevong]

Most so called magicians are laymen with bunny rabbits on their business cards.

It's paraphrased slightly; I can't remember the quote verbatim, but if you need to be told from where, shame on you.

 

[AlfieWhattamMagic]

Once I used the key card princable to find someones card (he was a proffesional magician) and it fried him. Then I did ultimate transpo and he said cool but work on your tilt.

 

[TheatreHead]

Yeah a lot of professional magicians do not like to use gimmicked cards cause they feel its disrespectful of all the sleight of hand they could do.

Like who? Can you give any names of any "professional magicians" who hold this belief?

 

[Sidekick]

Like who? Can you give any names of any "professional magicians" who hold this belief?

I mean the type of magician that refuses to use for example a one way forcing deck and would rather use sleight of hand, I would give you names but you probably not know them.

I should not have added "professional" sorry.

 

[DannyT]

I should not have added "professional" sorry.

All professional means is that he gets paid to do magic. Doesn't matter if he sucks or not, he's still called a professional.

 

[descartes]

I have to disagree, somewhat. If you take away the patter regarding the forces and the slights, the routine is essentially the standard Svengali deck routine. The difference being that you can show the deck to be "all different" if you are using a Svengali deck. That works on laymen all the time.

You have mentioned that with a Svengali deck, you can offer proof that the cards are different (the standard move where you dribble the cards in a way that spectators can clearly see the different faces). You can't do that with a one way forcing deck. This makes a world of difference in my opinion. These kinds of proofs will reinforce the impossible nature of the trick, while not attracting attention to the gimmick.

With a one way forcing deck, you cannot disprove the spectators suspicions without switching the deck (which is a weakness). This is not to say that I am against one way forcing decks. I just feel that magicians should be careful when using them.

I have used a one-way forcing deck very successfully with layman and they have never suspected anything (just put a different card on the bottom and "inadvertently" flash it to the spectators and/or a different card on top to show before their card jumps to the top).

Your inadvertent flashing was a way of proving to the spectators that the cards are different without saying it in words. the spectator simply assumes this is the case. What you did is what any thinking magician would do.

Seriously, the idea of duplicates only goes so far. How many spectators have heard of a forcing deck? Do you think a spectator would guess that you bought 52 decks of cards so that you could assemble one deck of cards that are all the same? (Hence my pet peeve about magicians pointing out that every card is different -- why wouldn't they be?).

I would say that spectators suspect duplicates very often, even if they don't tell you directly. It is always useful if you can provide indirect proof that this is not true. So instead of saying that all cards are different, maybe you show a few cards during the routine to reinforce the fact that they are different without showing all the cards.

 

[RealityOne]

This is not to say that I am against one way forcing decks. I just feel that magicians should be careful when using them.

I think I may have read too much into your original post. We agree on more things than we disagree.

A one way forcing deck is a tool. There are situations where using such a deck makes sense -- like having a spectator select from a table spread or forcing a card when you need to do a deck switch for another reason. If you use the a one way forcing deck, you need to add subtle convincers (like those present in a Svengali deck, the convincers I mentioned or using a 50/50 force deck).

My view is that you design an effect using the best tools for the job. Sometimes those tools are one way forcing decks, gaff cards and gimmicks and sometimes those tools are slight of hand.

 

[Slicke]

lol i consider him quite lucky because with a svengali deck, there's 50% chance that you end up taking the force card considering he spread the cards and asked you to pick one ...

 

[nenn]

i was hanging out at my LMS a week or so ago, and the guy that works there (sadly i dont know his name, YET) said something that made a lot of sense but bothered me as well. He said "why make a trick harder than it needs to be, sure you can use sleights and misdirection, but in the end as long as it fools the spectator then you achieved your goal" (or something to that effect).

It makes sense, because regardless of the tool you use, if you can get the job done then you did it. Using hard sleights where you have a possibility of flashing or messing up while perhaps make it more authentic to the magician, are ultimately unseen by the spectator.

I dont agree with it persay, but it makes a good point.