HER
CARD, HIS NUMBER
by
Mike Rogers (Inspirational credit to Paul
Alberstat)
The effect
where any thought of card appears at any named
number in the deck has tweaked the interest
of card men for several years. The Subway Dealers
and the Memorized Deck freaks have had a heyday,
as the effect raises its head frequently where
card men gather. It has been accomplished by
complex finger busting sleights, set decks,
subtleties, stooges, and varied combinations
of all. The most basic method is probably the
use of a set memorized deck combined with the
force of one card from another deck. The memorized
deck is cased and out of play. A shuffled deck
is spread face up on the table. A spectator
is asked to name a number, let's say it's Twenty-three.
Moreover, let's say the Seven of Clubs occupies
position Twenty-three in his set deck. Hence,
he looks for the Seven of Clubs in the tabled
cards and secretly maneuvers it to a forcible
position as the deck is gathered from the table.
The Seven of Clubs is then forced on a spectator.
The set deck is then removed from its case and
Twenty-three cards are counted to the table,
the 23rd card is shown to be the Seven of Clubs.
As described
that's an extremely good effect. My friend Carson
Hibbard performed it on the Klause/O'Brien Bull
Session Show at DMS three years ago. Not a small
feat considering Carson was a teenager attending
his first convention and making his first appearance
of any type on a convention program. Just working
with a memorized deck would scare many away.
More
recently Paul Alberstat, writing on Gemini,
applied a direct approach to the effect using
an eight card setup, a Koran style block forcing
deck, and a subtlety to accomplish the ANY THOUGHT
OF CARD AT ANY NUMBER. Paul's method is to appear
in one of Ted Lesley's coming publications.
What
I'm about to describe borrows heavily from Paul
Alberstat. A faced deck is covertly flipped
over to arrive at the needed preset card, a
subtlety often used in pseudo gambling demonstrations.
All sleight of hand is replaced with that subtlety.
Paul uses a block forcing deck and a normal
deck, while I'm offering the use of two normal
decks and two simple setups. Thankfully, for
some, no memory work is required. Here's what
the spectators think they see. First spectator
mentally selects a card in his mind as the deck
is fanned faces towards him. Second spectator
names a number. A cased deck is brought into
view and removed from its case. The performer
counts to the named number and the mentally
selected card appears at that number.
Sound
nice? It is. However, not all is copasetic.
Neither spectator has a free choice of card
or number, but there is enough freedom to eliminate
anything suspicious. To avoid confusion in this
description let's use a red backed deck and
a blue backed deck. There is a small setup in
each.
From
the blue deck remove ten cards, Ace through
Ten, of mixed suites. It matters little what
the suites are as long as they are mixed. Additionally
mix the ten cards so there is no order. These
ten cards are placed on top of the blue deck.
This is the deck you will use for the mental
selection.
Now,
from the red deck remove the SAME ten cards.
Again the suites are mixed, but they MUST be
the same as the other ten cards. In other words,
if you used the Five of Hearts from the blue
deck you MUST use the Five of Hearts from the
red deck, and so on. Now set these ten cards
Ace to Ten order, the Ace being the top card,
the Ten being the bottom card of the face down
packet. Add any "x" card to the bottom of the
packet making an eleven card packet running
Ace, Two, Three,..............Ten, followed
by an indifferent "x" card.
Place
this eleven card packet FACE UP below the remainder
of the red deck. That's it. Case the faced deck
and get ready to blow 'em away.
Introduce
the blue deck, do all the false shuffling, cutting,
etc., that you feel necessary. Don't lose your
ten card forcing block which is/was on top.
Ask a spectator to "memorize" any card as they
are spread before his eyes. Fan the cards forcing
him to memorize one card from the ten card block
just as if using a Koran Deck. It's quite easy
as you have ten cards from which to work. The
fact that the block contains the values Ace-Ten
will go unnoticed, especially since they are
of different suites and not in numerical order.
Close the deck giving it a quick shuffle destroying
all evidence of any setup.
Introduce
the red deck from its case. Ask first spectator
to name his card, and second spectator to name
any number, "...... let's say between 20 and
40." (This restriction to name a number between
20 and 40 shouldn't cause problems as the spectator
has no idea what's about to be done.)
Let's
assume the named number is Twenty-three, and
the mentally selected card is the Seven of Clubs.
Simply subtract 7 from 23 leaving a value of
16. Here's what you do, then I'll recap and
tell you how to do it. You count sixteen cards
face down on the table, flip the deck over and
continue the count until you reach Twenty-three.
The Seven of Clubs will be the 23rd card.
It's
the deck flipping action that must go unnoticed.
Paul Alberstat and I both use a subtlety, much
the same, but still quite different. When the
16th card has been dealt pause in the count,
and using your right hand PUSH THE DEALT CARDS
FORWARD ON THE TABLE, saying "Watch the cards."
At the same time the left hand drops to the
side and flips the deck over using the thumb.
Without delay, continue the count until reaching
23.
The key
is this. Always subtract the value of the card
from the named number. If the value is Nine
of Diamonds, and the number is Thirty-five,
you subtract 9 from 35 with the answer being
26. The deck is flipped at twenty-six and the
count continued until reaching Thirty-five.
Finally,
the need for the "x" card in the ten card stack
is simply to hide the face up condition of the
talon should the Ten be the selected card.
Just for
the sake of completeness, flipping a faced deck
has been used for cheating at black-jack. In gambling
jargon it is known as the "Flop." Personally I
question whether it would fly with serious gamblers,
but that's a topic for another time.
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