This,
the last formal installation of my
column for GeMiNi, is a Poker routine in
which the spectator apparently does all
the straightforward choosing and discarding
of cards yet somehow finds a royal flush
for themselves. Over probably hundreds of
performances (this one is only about five
years old), it has been my experience that
women love this routine - whether they know
how to play Poker or not.
Most
of the routines that I have used in columns
have been literally cut and pasted from
my lecture notes. After spending untold
hours writing the Doug Conn book (which
will be titled Tricks of My Trade, The
Magic of Doug Conn), I've learned and
practiced a few things and decided to put
this one through an edit. Hopefully, it
is easier to read and will be more clearly
understood than the write-up in the notes.
Intuitive
Poker
The
following routine is based on J.K. Hartman's
"Top Draw-er" (see his Loose Ends,
p. 33, his Card Craft, p. 415, or
Harry Lorayne's Best of Friends, Volume
II, p. 280 for a second Hartman method).
Take
a shuffled deck in use and Classic Force
a known card on a spectator. Have the spectator
shuffle the card into the deck and return
the deck to you. (Alternatively, use my
version of Jerry Kogan's glimpse from "Beating
the Heat," in the May 1999 column.)
Using
patter that describes the exact opposite
of the spectator's card, "...you
chose a red card? ...A picture card? ...A
jack, maybe? ...The Jack of Hearts...?!?"
- run through the deck as if trying to discern
the name of the spectator's selection. During
this patter, cut a Two to the top, cull
a royal flush (in any order) to the top
over the two, and upjog the spectator's
card, the one you had forced. The above
patter would be perfect for a card like
the Three of Clubs. Simply name color, suit,
and value of a card that is the complete
opposite from the force card. Meanwhile,
of course, you have secretly established
a suited Ace, King, Queen, Jack, and Ten
on top of the deck, followed by a black
Two.
Remove
the upjogged card, and as the spectator's
head is shaking a "no!" at you, ask for
the name of the selection. Reveal the face
of the card you hold, saying, "...not
only did I remove the Jack of Hearts, but
I changed it into the (turn the card
face up) Three of Clubs!" Slide the Three into the middle of the deck.
This is an example of acquiring the cards
you need under the context of a simple prior
effect. By the way, I always cull the Heart
flush and a black Two for contrast.
A
few words about using this ploy to set up
the Poker routine under fire. The cull you
use may be a slick under-the-spread cull
or the simpler, easier strategy of upjogging
the Two and the flush cards along with the
forced card as if narrowing down the deck
to the selection. In this case, remove all
the upjogged cards, table the force card
face down, and "discard" the Two onto the
top of the deck, followed by the flush cards.
Be sure to hold the deck facing you so your
audience cannot see the cards as you upjog
them. Also, I frequently establish the set
up, and then perform a couple of other routines
without disturbing the six card stock. A
shuffling routine like Vernon's Triumph
is good to use in the interim because it
does not significantly disarrange the order
of the deck (certainly a six card stock
is easy enough to keep track of), and later,
when the royal flush is produced, your audience
will have no idea where it could
have come from. "Counting On It" from the
July 1998 column, will also not disarrange
the six card stock and involves a bunch
of shuffling. "The Invisible Card" from
the November 1998 column, "Flasher" from
the July 1997 column, and "Another Sequestered
Collector" from the August 1997 column will
all preserve the stock as well. Of course,
you could set the flush cards and the Two
prior to performance instead of culling
them secretly under fire.
With
the six card stock on top of the deck, position
it for an Overhand Shuffle and run five
cards, injogging the fifth. These five cards
are the flush cards. Drop the deck onto
them and position the deck in left-hand
dealing position. Press down with your right
thumb on the injogged card while squaring
the deck to establish a pinky break over
the flush. During this little shuffle, address
a spectator and ask, "Are you
a Poker player?" If they answer positively,
I immediately say, "Bummer," as if their
familiarity with Poker may make this tougher
for me. If they answer negatively, I immediately
say, "Excellent," as if I'm happy to have
found a rube. The former gets a giggle;
the latter gets a bit stronger giggle. In
both cases, the following patter is then
expressed, "...okay, we're
going to play...Intuitive Poker..."
Begin
spreading the face down deck into your right
hand while saying, "...as I
spread through these, just touch the top
of one..." When she does, outjog
it. Repeat this four more times until the
spectator has touched, and you have outjogged,
five cards. Make sure she doesn't touch
any of the flush cards - just don't spread
that deep into the deck. I sometimes have
to say, "...you're going to
touch five of these, for a Poker hand, so
don't let me run out of cards!"
Once
the five cards are outjogged, execute Derek
Dingle's NoLap Switch (see The Complete
Works of Derek Dingle, by Richard Kaufman,
p. 85). To wit, bring your right hand over
the deck and kick the outjogged cards to
the left with your right fingers so that
they may grip the deck from above. Grip
the flush cards below the break in dealing
position in your left hand and slide that
hand forward twisting it slightly counter
clockwise to keep the flush cards hidden
beneath the outjogged cards. Strip out the
outjogged cards, simultaneously loading
the flush beneath them. Maintain a sizeable
pinky break between the flush cards and
the "touched" cards. The strip out movement
is forward, so your left hand should be
out in front of your right. Reverse the
positions of your hands, right hand going
over the left. As your right hand passes
over your left hand, it picks up the cards
above the left pinky break and then places
the deck (and stolen cards) well forward
of you onto the performing surface, and
somewhat to the left.
Your
motivation for putting the deck down is
to use both hands to spread the five cards
face down onto the table. In fact, spread
them into a horizontal line about an inch
from each other. You have also placed the
deck well forward in order to make room
for this line of cards that constitute the
spectator's Intuitive Poker hand. These
motivating actions are subliminally important
to the success of the NoLap Switch, so keep
them in mind when executing the move.
Explain
that this is the spectator's Intuitive Poker
hand. Intuitive, because neither you nor
she has any idea what the hand consists
of. Continuing, say, "In regular
Poker, you get to look at your hand, assess
its value, and discard some cards. Not so
with Intuitive Poker; you don't get to look
at your hand and you only get to discard
one card - which you must do intuitively!
Go ahead and push a card out of line."
While the spectator decides on a card and
pushes it toward you, pick up the deck and
casually Jog Shuffle the top card, the black
Two, to the bottom. (Alternatively, use
the top card of the spread deck, that same
black Two, to scoop the deck up.)
Hold
the deck a few inches above the discard
and say, "That's your discard? Okay, we'll take it out of play." Drop
the deck onto the discard from a few inches
with a plop! I do this purposely so that
later in the routine the audience will remember
that their discard was placed to the bottom.
Pick
up the deck and hold it in dealing position.
Say, "Of course, as the dealer,
I would normally fill your hand with the
next card from the top of the deck - but
this is Intuitive Poker..."
Begin dealing/drawing face down cards from
the top of the deck into your right hand
rather quickly. "So, anytime
you'd like to, just say stop as I deal cards
from hand to hand..." During this
necessarily lengthy patter, you should be
able to deal at least a third and hopefully
half of the deck into your right hand. Sometimes
I will do a Block Pushover of about ten
cards while talking to ensure that I get
close to a half-deck in each hand. The purpose
for getting to a half-deck is that it makes
the upcoming switch easier to execute.
When
the spectator stops you, perform the Visual
Retention Bottom Deal (see the January,
1998 column, here on GeMiNi). Unknown to
the spectator, they will be "selecting"
the very card they had previously discarded!
This will be, of course, one of the flush
cards. Place the switched-in card face up
into the slot from which it had been discarded
earlier.
Drop
the right-hand cards face down onto the
left-hand packet. Patter, "...okay,
you chose five cards intuitively to represent
your Poker hand. You decided which card
to give up, and then you chose the Queen
of Hearts (name the exposed flush
card) to replace your discard.
Well, I can automatically tell that your
Intuitive Poker skills are pretty good because
you chose a Queen, a pretty high card. But
you may have discarded an Ace...or these
other four cards could all be clubs...!"
Turn over the deck, exposing the black Two,
"...ah, but you gave up a lowly Two for the Queen - a very good sign!
Let's see how you did..." Pick up
the four face down cards and peek at them
yourself. Raise your eyebrows and say, "...Wow, I will NEVER play poker with you! How did you manage to
fill inside to a Royal Flush???"
Drop these flush cards face up around the
Queen of Hearts (or whatever flush card
was discarded and then re-chosen) so that
they are in sequential order.
I
should note here a proactive process that
can smooth out the above dÈnouement. As
you pick up the four face down cards, slide
the exposed flush card into the slot it
would take if all flush cards were in a
sequential line on the table. For instance,
if the Jack is the exposed flush card, slide
it to the middle of the performing surface.
If the Ace or the Ten is the exposed flush
card, then slide it to either end of the
surface. The reason for this movement of
the exposed card now, is that you
may then place the remaining flush cards
onto the table in sequential order very
smoothly, making the royal flush instantly
recognizable. If you don't slide the exposed
card into position at this point,
then you will have to rearrange matters
when you expose the other flush cards -
not nearly as smooth, especially when you
are facing a potential applause cue moment.
The
spectator is always pleased to have filled
the royal flush. It will dawn on the group
a bit later that she chose four cards out
of a royal flush in the first place,
and then discarded the Two, AND chose the Queen all without looking at a single card.
Some believe they actually did it, and some
will look at me as if to say, "...you had
something to do with all this, didn't
you!" It's a fun one.
I
will continue to post routines or columns
of some sort periodically, and I want to
publicly thank Joe, Mark, and Amy Stevens
for allowing me the exposure here on GeMiNi.
Of course, no one would be reading any of
these columns if it weren't for the ever-cheerfully
helpful, all-knowing Pat Hennessy - to whom
my (top?) hat is so frequently tipped. As
usual, my lecture notes ...from a shuffled
deck in use... are available to GeMiNi
members at 20% off, and I happily pay the
postage, worldwide. Contact me here on GMN
or privately pcummins@leading.net
if interested. Finally, my two new projects
are the Conn book, which should be out by
summer's end, and a coin magic video of
my own material, the contents of which I
am currently sworn to secrecy about. The
tape will be out mid-summer. Authoring and
publishing a book and producing a video
tape are completely new ventures for me
- wish me luck!
Paul
W. Cummins 5/27/99
