English booklet

Tomas Giammarco
 English Booklet

Introduction

If you’ve received this early english draft of my upcoming booklet, it either means that
we’re friends or I’d like us to be friends. It also means that your work has influenced the
effects herein, be it directly or indirectly and I profoundly admire your magic.

If you choose to read the material, I would love it if you later shared your thoughts on it
with me. No hard feelings if you don’t though.

If you’d like to perform or work on any of these routines, please feel free to do so. I
am only responsible for connecting the dots since there is nothing new under the sun
really.

Yours Truly, Tomas.

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Triumph
The spectator chooses a card, returns it to the deck and the magician shuffles the
cards on the table half face up and half face down. He then spreads the cards to
show the conditions after the shuffle. After a magical gesture, all the cards have
turned face down except for the chosen card.

Method:
Spread the deck on the table, face down, with the right hand and from right to left so
that the spectator removes a card and remembers it. Meanwhile, square and place
the deck in shuffle position on the table.

After the spectator leaves his card face down on the table, pick it up with your right
hand and insert it into the middle of the deck from the right side, leaving it protruding
about a quarter of its length.

Next, push the card diagonally by applying more pressure on its upper right corner
using the middle finger of your right hand. This action leaves the chosen card on the
inside exit in the lower left corner.

With practice, the squaring movement is smooth and can be done simultaneously
with both hands. As long as the deck is picked up from the center of its long sides, it
can be manipulated without distorting the jog. Doing so helps to give a final
punctuation to the movement that is interesting when inserting temporal misdirection.
Without looking at the deck, the hands come together to start a shuffle on the table
and the left thumb applies downward pressure on the lower left corner of the jogged
card, obtaining a break.

With the right hand, make two small box cuts from bottom to top while maintaining
the break with the left thumb. undercut at the break, splitting the deck for a shuffle
with the top packet going to the right. Controlling in this way we avoid the separation
for the shuffle on the table being in the same place where the chosen card was
inserted.

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The shuffle should end with the chosen card controlling the first position. The
external reality of the shuffle looks honest, as the cards that were on top are buried
in the middle.

If you substitute this shuffle for a series of cuts controlling the chosen card to the top
you can retain the order of the whole deck at the end of the effect.

Now we proceed to shuffle the cards face up and face down by cutting a little more
than the top half to the left and turning face up on the table the cards of the right
hand while spreading both halves by the long sides from front to back and
remembering which card is in first position in the right hand (i.e. the card that, when
spread, is farthest from us) since it will later serve as the key card.

We square both halves and set out to perform a real but controlled shuffle. The left
thumb estimates and lifts about ten cards, leaving a bed of almost three quarters to
begin the shuffle. The right hand, on the other hand, releases the cards normally.
The shuffle ends with a single card from the left hand, the chosen one.

In short, what we seek to achieve is to evenly interleave half face up with less than
half of the half face down while keeping the chosen card in first position. If the shuffle
is even, the few left hand cards that are shuffled are separated by right hand cards
that make them occupy more vertical space and generate an optical illusion of depth
and hide the fact that the halves are not equal. When squaring, it is important that
the right hand brings forward its half to create a shadow and hide the portion of the
left hand cards that were not shuffled.

After squaring the deck and finishing the shuffle, we take the deck face down in our
left hand and spread it between our hands to show that the cards are shuffled in their
orientation. At the same time, we perform a cull, separating all the cards face down
until we reach the face up card we remembered when we spread prior to the shuffle.
At that moment, we insert all the cards we culled under our key card and close the
spread.
Due to the fact that there are few cards to separate under the spread and that they
have been distributed in a spacious manner, and the fact that there is a permanent
contrast between the face-up cards that remain unseparated and the chosen card,
face down and in first position, the spread in the hands is seen as a casual gesture
that does not take long.

When finished, we leave the deck on the table. After the culling action we find
ourselves in Vernon's Triumph position, that is, half of the deck face down, half of the
deck face up, and the chosen card on top. Therefore, to finish, we cut through the
natural spread with the right hand and show cards back to back, perform the secret

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reversal of the top packet in the gesture of passing the cards from the right hand to
the left, and put the halves together.

The effect, in methodological terms, is already finished. It only remains to perform a

Another curiosity is that when performing this version, although the shuffle may be
real, the cull allows us to maintain a previous stack in the deck, an original quality of
Vernon's triumph.

I sometimes use a variation on the card control if I have an inverted breather crimp
that cuts to the bottom, returning the selection to the top of the deck and making strip
cuts on the table, the first of which should be a false optical cut of the bottom cards
that positions the crimp above the chosen card. As a last alternative, I usually use
Martin Nash's True False Cut.

Another detail I like about this version is that the card remains in the top half of the
deck for the final revelation, so that when spreading the deck at the end it allows the
triumph effect to be registered first and then that of the chosen card.

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Matching the cards,

version one or Thanks

to Barry
Effect:
The spectator selects a card and puts it in his pocket without looking at it. The
magician proclaims to be able to guess the card by finding out which card is missing
from the deck and after a quick glance he assures that it is a Queen, proceeding to
cut, at the same time, the Queen of Hearts, the Queen of Clubs and the Queen of
Diamonds.

The magician asks the spectator to show the queen of spades in his pocket to the
rest of the audience. The spectator reveals that the card he chose is the ace of
spades. The magician, after a magical gesture, fixes the situation by transforming
the three queens into aces.

Set Up:
Start the effect with the following group of cards arranged on top of the deck, in
descending order: Queen of clubs, Queen of hearts, Queen of diamonds, Ace of
clubs, Ace of spades, Ace of hearts and Ace of diamonds.

If you wish, this order can be arranged from a shuffled deck in a very simple way:
cull the aces, remembering the suit of the third one you come to. Then, cull the
queens, except the one corresponding to the suit you remembered.

Method:

Perform a couple of partial false shuffles by retaining the top portion of the deck
while commenting on the premise of the effect. Next, perform a force of the fifth card

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by culling it, asking a spectator to your right to touch a card with the index finger of
his or her right hand. When he does so, we separate the spread so that the chosen
card is the bottom card of the right hand half, pinched underneath by the ace of
spades, which we previously culled.

With the left thumb, we square the card that the spectator touches together with the
spread of the right hand at the same time that the fingers of this hand push the ace
of spades to the left. If the movement is performed with ease, there is a retention of
vision in the change of the card that the spectator touches by the one we managed
to force him.

We instruct the spectator, without looking at the card, to put it in an easily accessible
pocket, handing the card to the spectator with the left hand.

We place the deck face down in shuffle position on the table, riffle with the right
thumb while pretending to count and commit the cards to memory to see which one
is missing, and perform a slip cut of the top card, a queen, completing the cut but
leaving the top half staggered diagonally. We release the deck and announce that
the spectator's card is a queen of spades.

Without pause, we obtain a break between the staggered halves and set out to
produce the three queens in the following manner. We begin a slip cut of the top card
with the right forefinger, which advances holding all the cards below the break. The
left hand holds the top half and before the hands completely break the packets apart
makes a sharp upwards and forwards motion, cutting the top packet forward and
diagonally to the left. This will cause the card that the right hand had slid, a queen, to
turn face up and lie between the two packets on the table. At the same moment the
appearance of the queen is registered, the fingers of both hands turn face up the
queens on top of their respective packets.

We pause, let the effect register, and separate the three queens on the table. We
leave the half that is furthest forward on the table on top of the one behind to keep
control of the remaining three aces on top of the deck, which is held face down by
the left hand.

At this point, we are going to perform two actions at the same time. The right hand is
going to take the queens one on top of the other while the left hand obtains a break
by means of a pinky count on the three aces on top of the deck. Then, the right hand
is going to take his cards face down in Biddle grip while gesturing forward, asking the
spectator to take the card out of his pocket and show it to the rest of the audience.

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While the audience's attention is on the spectator showing the ace of spades to
everyone, we are about to perform a packet top change by bringing the right hand,
which holds its cards between the middle finger and thumb, both at their respective
right corners, leaving the third finger free to pick up the three cards above the break
in the left hand. The left thumb applies light pressure on the top left corner of the
cards as the whole hand moves to the left to leave the deck face up on the table.
The right hand, meanwhile, leaves the switched in cards face down on the table
while stepping back, relaxed. The key to this sequence is to move the right hand first
and then the left hand.

For the revelation, I take the ace of spades from the spectator's hand and show it,
facing the audience, held vertically between thumb and forefinger. Then, I use it to lift
the three face-down cards from the table, perform a magical gesture and then
spread them, again facing the spectators, to receive the applause.

Comments:
"Matching the Cards" is one of my favourite effects in all of card magic because of
the possibilities it offers as an opening effect for a formal session. In addition, I am
attracted to the possibility of really making the most out of the revelation of the
queens, making it register first as an effect that generates suspense, demonstrates
skill in its proper measure and then provokes humor in a natural way with the
apparent failure that the magician fixes using magic.

This particular version is quick and visual, it is easy to set up from a shuffled deck
under the pretext of removing the jokers to start a forman session and personally, it
allows me to establish the premises of my character that I am interested in
communicating: my magic has a high suspense content, my handling of the deck is
modest but neat and my sense of humor is conversational.
Sometimes, if I don't want to involve the spectator in a direct way and I have a table
at my disposal, I force the card using a cross cut force, centralizing the preparation in
the middle of the deck, controlled by a reverse breather crimp that cuts at the
bottom.

Set Up:
Start the effect with the following group of cards arranged on top of the deck, in
descending order: Queen of clubs, Queen of hearts, Queen of diamonds, Ace of
clubs, Ace of spades, Ace of hearts and Ace of diamonds.

If you wish, this order can be arranged from a shuffled deck in a very simple way:
cull the aces, remembering the suit of the third one you come to. Then, cull the
queens, except the one corresponding to the suit you remembered.

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Method:
Perform a couple of partial false shuffles by retaining the top portion of the deck
while commenting on the premise of the effect. Next, perform a force of the fifth card
by culling it, asking a spectator to your right to touch a card with the index finger of
his or her right hand. When he does so, we separate the spread so that the chosen
card is the bottom card of the right hand half, pinched underneath by the ace of
spades, which we previously culled.

With the left thumb, we square the card that the spectator touches together with the
spread of the right hand at the same time that the fingers of this hand push the ace
of spades to the left. If the movement is performed with ease, there is a retention of
vision in the change of the card that the spectator touches by the one we managed
to force him.

We instruct the spectator, without looking at the card, to put it in an easily accessible
pocket, handing the card to the spectator with the left hand.

We place the deck face down on the table in shuffle position and cut the bottom half
to the right, turning it face up and spreading it front to back. We square and shuffle
starting with the right hand and ending with three cards from the left hand. When
squaring the deck we will perform Vernon's triumph shuffle. At the end of the
sequence, the deck will have the following order from top to bottom: three queens,
half of the deck face up, three aces face down and the rest of the deck face down.

After a magical gesture, we spread the deck face down between our hands showing
all the cards face down and letting the effect register. Next, we cut the spread in our
hands so that the queens are on top and we extend them with our right hand,
gesturing towards the card chosen by the spectator and telling him to show it to the
rest of the audience. At this moment we take the opportunity to turn the queens over
the deck, holding them in an elevated position with the left thumb and taking them
with the right hand in Biddle grip. At the same time, we obtain a break with the left
little finger under the three aces that are face down on top of the deck. This can be
done by means of a pinky count or when previously squaring the spread.

While the attention is on the spectator showing the ace of spades to the audience,
we are about to perform a packet top change by bringing the right hand, which holds
its cards between the middle finger and thumb, both at their respective right corners,

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leaving the third finger free to pick up the three cards above the break in the left
hand. The left thumb applies light pressure on the top left corner of the cards as the
whole hand moves to the left to leave the deck face up on the table. The right hand,
on the other hand, leaves the changed cards face down on the table while stepping
back, relaxed. The key to this sequence is to move the right hand first and then the
left hand.

For the revelation, I take the ace of spades from the spectator's hand and show it,
facing the audience, upright and held between the thumb and forefinger. I then use it
to lift the three face-down cards from the table, perform a magical gesture and then
spread them, again facing the spectators, to receive the applause.

Comments:
The title of this effect comes from a joke Dai Vernon makes in his "Revelations" DVD
series talking about his distaste for magic sets that combine more than one effect in
their revelation. Speaking about his contemporary Derek Dingle, The Professor
quips, "If I could have as many climaxes as a Derek Dingle routine, I'd be a happy
man."

While I tend to obey the Vernonian axiom and not combine effects, this particular set
interestingly brings together my two favourite routines in all of magic: "Matching the
Cards" and "Triumph". It appeals to me methodologically, I like how the handling
leads, without adjustments, from one step to the next and, although it is the only
experiment in which I allow myself to make this "mistake", I do it consciously and
trying to clarify and pair the effects with the presentation, endowing them with
simplicity and logic.

For the shuffle, I usually vary from the original not in structure but in technical choice,
using a strip-out shuffle with a three-card block transfer or a Zarrow shuffle.

For the switch, if the situation does not lend itself to a technique like the top change,
I opt for John Carney's "Versa Switch".

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Matching the Cards

or the trick I would

have performed for

Dai Vernon.
Effect:
The spectator selects a card and puts it in his pocket without looking at it. The
magician proclaims to be able to guess the card by finding out which card is missing
from the deck and after a quick glance he assures that it is a queen, proceeding to
find the queen of hearts, the queen of clubs and the queen of diamonds.
The magician asks the spectator to show the queen of spades in his pocket to the
rest of the audience. The spectator reveals that the card he chose is the ace of
spades. The magician, after a magical gesture, fixes the situation by transforming
the three queens into aces.

Preparation:
From the back of the deck we specify the following group of cards arranged in
descending order: ace of spades, queen of hearts, ace of hearts, queen of clubs, ace
of clubs, ace of diamonds, queen of diamonds. In addition, I place an inverted
breather crimp at the bottom of the deck.

Method:
We perform a couple of false shuffles that maintain the order of the top portion of the

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deck and taking the cards face down in the left hand we instruct a spectator located
to our right to cut a packet and leave it on the table. We then place the rest of the
cards at a different angle on top of the cards on the table.

After explaining the premise of the effect, we slide with one finger the card that is
sticking out in the middle of the cut and leave it face down in the center of the mat
and then square the deck on the table and take it face down in the left hand.

We riffle the cards at eye level making sure we know that the missing card is a
queen and we get a break under the crimp when squaring the deck. We cut the
crimp and reveal the first of the queens in the right hand. In a gesture of the left
index finger pointing to the card the spectator chose we perform a top change and
leave the card we hold in the right hand face down in the bottom corner of the mat.

We obtain a break below the card that was left on top of the deck and transfer it to
the last position by a double undercut. The first cut is made on the hands and the
second on the table.

While we reveal the second queen in the right hand, the left hand gets a break below
the top two cards of the deck. When we are about to lay the queen on the table, on
top of the first queen, we turn it face down on the deck and the right hand takes the
three cards above the break while the left thumb retains the top card of the deck
performing a slip cut. The right hand deposits the double card on top of the first card,
in the bottom corner of the mat. The double lay down is not risky since the placement
of the cards allows the left hand to cover the left long side, blocking any possible
break.

Finally, we obtain a break under the card that was left on top of the deck and transfer
it to the last position by a double undercut. The first cut is made on the hands and
the second on the table.
The right hand picks up the top card and reveals the third of the queens, leaving it
very clearly below the rest of the cards in the lower right corner of the mat, making
sure that it is jogged by a quarter of its length.

While we indicate the spectator to turn over the card he chose and show it to the rest
of the audience. Meanwhile we take the deck with the right hand and leave it on the
right end of the mat, face down. The right hand reaches back and takes the packet
in the lower right corner, drags it back to take it and transfer it to the left hand. The
right thumb makes contact with the card on inside exit and discharges it to the lap in
the action of taking the cards backward.

For the revelation, I take the ace of spades from the spectator's hand and show it,
facing the audience, upright and held between the thumb and forefinger. I then use it
to lift the three face-down cards from the table, perform a magical gesture and then
spread them, again facing the spectators, to receive the applause.

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Comments:
The present one is my preferred version of "Matching the Cards" and that is the
reason I left it for last. The biggest contribution, in my opinion, is that the methods for
switching each of the queens cancel each other out. I am particularly happy with the
fact that this version does not use any double lifting action for the revelations,
reserving it for the charge of the third of the aces in the apparent action of leaving
the newly revealed queen with its mates on the table. Also, being able to leave the
last of the queens clearly in the table packet and get rid of it later is what most
appealed to me and convinced me to work n this structure further.

The title of the effect refers to the fact that, although the structure and
methodological design is similar to Vernon's, the concatenation between the different
techniques results in an indirect construction that is at least interesting to explore.

If for some reason I am unable to use the lap, I slightly modify the handling by
leaving the deck in the center of the mat, close to myself, and by lifting the cards
from the bottom right corner I perform a Vernon transfer of the queen that is in last
position under the guise of running the deck off the mat to clean up the final reveal. If
the angles are even more sensitive, I simply fake deal the queen from the deck to
the table, spreading the double with my empty right hand.

While it is possible to keep that queen in the pack and perform extra card handling
with Ascanio type spreads, I prefer finishing clean because I think one of the greatest
attributes of Vernon's version is that by the time the spectator reveals the table card,
the effect is finished from a methodological point of view.

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Double Prediction

Effect:
After shuffling the deck, the magician sets aside two prediction cards and
leaves them face down on the table. He then begins dealing cards face up in a pile
and asks the spectator to stop him. When the spectator decides to do so, the
magician leaves a card face down on top of the first prediction. Another spectator
stops him again and the magician leaves that card on top of the second prediction.
Finally, the magician shows that the two predictions match the spectators designated
cards.

Method:
After receiving the shuffled deck we must spread the cards on the table face up and
with the index fingers facing us with the excuse of removing the jokers. On the spot,
we will memorize the value and the color of the first and the ninth card from the top.
These will be the two cards that we will force on the spectators. Let's suppose it is a
black ace and a red five. If amongst the first nine cards of the deck appears is one of
the cards' mates, we simply skip it and continue counting by sight from the next card.

We put the jokers in a pocket or to the side and take the deck with the faces towards
us, outjogging the other black ace and the other red five of the deck, our predictions,
on top. We take them out and leave them on the back of the deck, making sure that
the mate of the top card is in the second position.

The order of the deck at this point should be, according to the example: five red, ace
black, ace black, x,x,x,x,x,x,x,x,x,x, five red (where x means indifferent card).

With the deck face down in our left hand, we get a break under three cards in the
gesture of spreading the two supposed predictions in the right hand and putting them
back in an in transit action, freeing the right hand to wipe off an imaginary spec of
dust from the mat. Then, the right hand takes the three cards over the break and the
left hand leaves the deck on the table.

The left hand will peel the first prediction with the left thumb, holding it in a dealing

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position as the right hand lays its two cards as one on the left. The left little finger
gets a break under the last card as the right hand takes the whole packet in the cut
position, holding the break with the right thumb.

Moving to the right side of the mat, we will simulate a three-card double as two as
follows: the right thumb will release the card under the break to the table as the right
index finger moves back to meet the thumb. The pressure exerted by the thumb on
the lower short side, the index fingernail on the back of the deck and the middle
fingertip on the upper short side will allow us to release the double on the table by
relaxing the pressure and pushing with the thumb slightly forward, it will behave as a
single card that is thrown slightly forward.
As the lower card is simple and often remains in contact with the double, both
extended slightly forward, we can take it and move it backwards as to break the
predictions without fear of splitting them.

The key is to make this move appear casual and done without looking at the hands
so that it is not given more importance than it should be.

Next, we will take the deck from the table face down in the left hand and we will
prepare to deal cards face up, in a pile in the center of the left side of the mat,
throwing them from a certain height and gently. At the same time, we will look at the
first spectator and we will prepare to perform a force of the seventh card.

Optionally, we can perform a shuffle in the hands using an injog by controlling the
first eight cards on the top of the deck to inject a pause before starting to deal.

For the force, we will slowly deal the first four cards face up one by one on the table
after saying "I'm laying down cards like this, John". When we get to the fourth card
and with moderate urgency and a certain comic annoyance in our voice, we say to
the spectator "tell me stop". This urgency, added to the fact that we still have three
more cards to deal, will generate that the spectator, uncomfortable, will stop us either
having dealt the seventh card and about to deal the one we want to force, or at the
eighth card. In case he does not stop me when I need to, I simply start second
dealing keeping the card to be forced on top. This almost never happens because

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the force is very effective but if it were to happen, the relaxed and slow way in which
we deal will make it so that we do not have to make a very fast second deal or
change our grip.

One way or another, we leave the card for which the spectator stopped us, a red five,
face down on the prediction that is closest to us, that is, the single card, trying to let it
fall with a certain height so that it does not make the characteristic noise that cards
make when they are dealt in games of chance. If we did not do it this way, a
discrepancy would occur.

Finally, we turn to another spectator and ask him to stop us while we continue to deal
cards face up in the same pile we formed with the first spectator. When he does so,
we ask him if he wants to deal one more card, one less, . Once we confirm that this
is the card the spectator wants, we perform a fake deal of this card on the double
card in the upper right corner of the table, that is, the second prediction.

The technique consists of pulling back the card on which the spectator stopped us
with the left thumb at the same moment in which the right hand pretends to take it by
the upper right corner and deal it on the corresponding prediction. Although it may
seem counter-intuitive, this technique is more deceptive if the distance between the
hands is medium and if the whole movement is performed smoothly and slowly.
It only remains for us to drop the deck in the left hand face up on the pile of cards we
dealt, very clearly separate both pairs of cards on the right side of the mat, reveal
first our predictions and then the cards on which the spectators stopped us. This is a
good time to remind the second spectator if they wanted to change the card they
stopped for or not, since it aids in the deceptiveness of the whole structure.

Comments:
I came up with this version after studying the tabled double laydown belonging to R.
Paul Wilson and seeing Magick Balay's version of this effect. In his rendition, he
chooses to leave two doubles and repeat the fake deal in both phases. My
contribution has to do with the use of a psychological or discursive method for the
first card and a manipulative method for the second, which allows more freedom
when the spectator decides to change the place where he stops. In this way, the
methods cancel each other out.

If, for some reason, the double deal generates some insecurity due to the condition
of the cards, a good idea suggested by Gabi Pareras has to do with leaving the card

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case on the upper short side of the double. If at the time of making the fake deal we
move the case away with a snap on the long side of the box, the double will not split.

Although I do not personally prefer it, the predictions could be revealed to the
spectator at the outset without referencing the suits as it would then generate a
discrepancy with the spectator's card.

While I choose to force the eighth card instead of the seventh, it has to do with my
personal experience of statistical success with this force. If this type of forcing or
psychological tools is of interest to you, I strongly recommend the books "Freedom of
Expression" by Dani Daortiz. Combined with manipulative technique, they are
capable of producing miracles.

Finally, I would like to thank Ignacio Lopez for his comments and very wise
suggestions when I showed him this effect. To him I owe the detail of dealing the
cards face up in a single pile and the idea of throwing the cards instead of dealing
them with a "snap" since in the fake deal this characteristic sound is not produced.

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Carbon Paper

Effect:
A spectator chooses a card, signs it on the table and puts a hand on top of it. The
magician takes another card and burns its back using a lighter held by another
spectator. When the magician rubs the back of his card on the spectator's hand, the
burn mark disappears and appears on the back of the card signed by the spectator.

Preparation:
With the fire of a candle, we burn the back of a card until it is painted black and let it
sit for a few days under an object that applies weight to it. It is important not to burn it
to the point that the finish and texture are affected.

In addition, I use a green Sharpie and a Zippo-type lighter.

The burned card starts in the last position of the deck followed by an indifferent card,
the eight of spades and the nine of spades.

Method:
We explain to the spectator that in an instant we will drop the cards from hand to
hand for them to stop us. We perform a dribble dropping the first cards as a block so
that the back of the last card remains hidden. Previously we hand the Sharpie to the
spectator and instruct him to uncover it.

Having explained how the choice is going to be made, we ask the spectator to tell us
enough and after a few seconds we begin to perform a dribble, making sure that the
spectator stops us before we have reached the point where we have released half of
the deck. For this, it is important to generate a slight urgency with our voice. In
addition, the fact that they have uncovered the Sharpie is not explicitly hurrying them
to prevent the ink from drying out.

At the moment we are stopped we push the top card from the middle of the left hand
and in the action of dealing it face up on the table we are going to perform a
one-handed bottom deal taking advantage of the pause in the moment we are
stopped by the spectator to perform the necessary buckling action. In addition, the

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fact that the card is burned helps it to break free of the rest of the deck faster.

In a transit action, the right hand leaves its cards in the left hand and pushes the
card closer to the spectator to sign it resting on the table. At this point, I try not to
take a finger off the card to prevent the spectator from turning it over prematurely
and exposing his burned back. My internal justification has to do with holding the
card so that it doesn't move and they can sign it comfortably.

After instructing the spectator to cover his card with his hand, we put away the
marker and take out the lighter to give it to another spectator. We turn the deck face
up, perform a pinky count getting a break under the first two cards of the deck and
take them in end grip while indicating the spectator to light the lighter.

We bring the double card close and burn the back that is visible until it is black. We
show it to the audience and in a transit action we leave the two cards face up on the
deck, which is face up in the left hand. The right hand gestures for the spectator to
put out the lighter and upon receiving it back, we put it in the outer right pocket of the
jacket. The left hand then pushes the supposedly burned face up card to the right
hand and leaves the deck face down in the lower left corner of the mat. Previously,
the face card changes from an eight to a nine, but since both are black, spades and
of consecutive value, it goes unnoticed.

Now all that remains is to rub the card on the back of the spectator's hand and take
our time to show that the burn disappeared from our card. After asking the spectator
if they felt anything we ask them to raise their hand and turn their card over to reveal
the burn.

Comments:

I love this effect because it is one of the few in my repertoire where I allow myself to
leave the card as a souvenir for the spectator who participates. In general, I feel that
magicians use spectators almost like a garbage can or a discard site when it comes
to giving them torn cards, wet bills or spit-filled playing cards. That's why the card is
signed by them. At the end of the effect, I want them to keep the card with an altered
back and face.

In addition, I try to perform it on a spectator who has shown to be extroverted at

As the card will be signed, I try to make it red and of low value so that the signature
is better appreciated.

An interesting contribution of this handling is that it leaves us with a burned card in

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the last position, ready to repeat the effect if we so desire.

Finally, the burn is best seen on cards with light colours on the back. I use red
Bicycle cards, although NOCs are also a good alternative.

Diamond Simply Cuts Diamond

Effect:

The magician shows a packet of cards consisting of the full suit of diamonds and
leaves it face down on the table after asking a spectator which diamond card he likes
best.

Another spectator chooses a card from the deck, the magician displays it to the
audience and loses it in the middle leaving the cards aside and taking the packet of
diamonds from the table.

The magician deals the diamonds face up on the table and leaves the one
corresponding to the value named at the beginning face down. After a magical
gesture, he shows that the face down card became the chosen one.

Method:

We clearly show the diamond suit separated from the deck and leave it face down on
the table, in the center of the mat and with the short sides facing forward. In turn, we
ask a spectator to name one of the values between one and thirteen. Suppose, as
an example, that he chooses six.

We take the deck and ask another spectator to touch a card, remove it, show it and
return it to the same place. When the deck is squared, we take the chosen card
under the extension of the right hand and try to contact it with the right middle finger
so that it is left injogged.

When we take the deck with the right hand in end grip, the card will be in an angle
jog to the right, so we take the opportunity to make contact with the upper left corner
that protrudes from the long side with the right thumb and in a squaring action, we
take that corner backwards until its left side bumps with the right thumb.

The left hand returns to the front edge and takes the deck by the long sides between
the middle finger and thumb while making a forty-five degree turn to the left, bringing
the right long side of the deck forward as the right hand holds the long sides in a
cutting position. In this way, the chosen card is still covered by the right hand and in
an angle jog.

At this point, the deck and the pack of diamond cards are perpendicular in space,
one horizontal and the other vertical. Before leaving the deck in the upper right
corner and spreading from right to left with the right hand, the left index finger makes
contact with the card in an angle jog and applies pressure so that, when the deck is
removed, the chosen card remains on top of the pack of diamonds.
Showing our hands empty, we take the pack of diamonds and begin second dealing

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by turning face up each card on the table and forming a spread from left to right
while asking for the value named at the beginning by the spectator. When we reach
the number six, we deal the top card and then, as if to hurry the matter, we turn face
up the packet in our left hand and spread it face up but first we push the back of the
bottom card to the right and the back of the second card from the bottom to the left,
exposing the seven of diamonds. This allows us to spread them on the table without
fear of exposing the six.

We perform a magical gesture, take the face down card, ask for the identity of the
spectators' card and reveal that the six has become the spectator's card.

Comments:

This version appealed to me because of two features of its construction that arose
from issues that I did not like when analyzing the classic effect.

The first has to do with the non-contact condition that exists between the diamond
pack and the rest of the deck. In versions I studied previously, the diamond suit
starts at the top of the deck and the card is controlled on top of it without disturbing
its order. Also, using the perpendicularity of the diamond packet to the rest of the
deck makes it seem more impossible to add cards from one packet to the other.

The second is a reinterpretation that makes the effect clearer. In earlier versions, a
card would appear face down in the deck or elsewhere and then switch places with
the corresponding card of the diamond suit. The problem with this approach is that
the effect, in my opinion, is more confusing since to establish a transposition the
initial position of both elements in time and space must be clear. In my experience,
when I perform indirect transpositions, the effect is usually not so clear if the
audience is not knowledgeable about magic.

In short, treating the effect as a transformation, following Elmsley's advice, seems to

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Strange Concordance,
23332.
Effect:
A spectator cuts a packet from the deck and leaves it between his hands. Another
spectator chooses two cards and forms with his indices the number twenty-three.
The first spectator counts the number of cards in his packet, it is twenty-three. The
magician points out that the two cards chosen by the spectator can also form the
number thirty-two if they are read backwards. After a magical gesture, the first
spectator counts his cards again and discovers that they are now thirty-two.

Set Up:
A deck of cards arranged as follows from the top: twenty-two indifferent cards,
a reverse breather crimp in position number 23, four indifferent cards and finally, all
twos and threes of the deck, interweaved.

Method:
We false shuffle on the table, spread face up and indicate to a spectator that
in an instant he is going to be cut and keep a packet of cards. In that gesture, we
raise the deck face down with the left hand and cut with the right hand at the crimp to
obtain a break below the card in position number twenty-three. Then, we proceed to
cut packets to the table and we perform a timing cut force so that the spectator stops
us when he reaches the break and has twenty-three cards under his hand. You can
also opt for a riffle force if you want to give the image of a more "clear" packet being
cut to as a block, the internal justification being that the spectator is not close to you
for him to cut a packet.
We turn to a second spectator and indicate that we need him to choose two cards,
we begin to deal cards face down on the table one by one and with a certain urgency
so that the instruction ends when we have passed the four indifferent cards on top of
our bank of interweaved cards.

We ask a spectator to stop us and when he does so we set out to ask him
whether he wants one card from the hand and one from the table, two from the table

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or both from the hand. To make sure that both cards the spectator selects are a two
and a three, we must count silently until he stops us. Also. We need to count up to
the ninth card from the first card we left on the table and place it side jogged in that
pile to prepare for a break later.

Once we reveal both of the spectator's cards, we take them in our hands and deal
them to the table face up. The first one we deal in the center of the mat, the second
overlapping to the left over the two so that, from the spectator's perspective, the two
cards form the number twenty-three. This moment is important, as it will act as a
magical gesture for the coincidence we will demonstrate.

As the first spectator counts his cards, face down and in the center of the mat to
confirm he has twenty-three, we lift the deck off the table by the long sides with the
right hand and place it in the left hand, get a break above the side jog and push them
to the right as we take the deck in the right hand preparing for a Vernon transfer of
those nine cards now resting between the right thumb and pinky.

When the spectator finishes counting we push the packet with the right hand, adding
the nine cards on top of his own and asking him to keep his hand on top.

Finally, we take both cards from the table and reverse their order by dealing them
again so that, from the spectator's perspective, the number thirty-two is now formed.

When he re-counts the cards under his hand, the spectator discovers that he now
has exactly thirty-two.

Comments:
This effect is directly inspired by three particular plots of card magic: "A Strange
Coincidence", The Hofzinser numerical match performed by Dani Daortiz and an
unpublished idea by my friend Adriano Zanetti.

It is important to understand that the moment in which we deal the two and the three
overlapping on the table must be treated in a slow way since that is the magical
gesture in the minds of the spectators that generates the concordance between
chosen cards and the cut off packet. In the same way, the transformation of the cut
off packet happens after the magical gesture of reversing the order of both cards so
that the number thirty-two is formed.

From a methodological point of view, it is interesting that both phases cancel each
other out since in the second choice we can highlight the fact that the spectator can
choose different combinations of two cards at the point where we stopped.

If we do not mind performing a pinky count instead of side jog we can allow the
spectator to take the cards in his hands and deal until he wants to stop to choose the

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pair that forms the number twenty-three, although it is riskier than doing it ourselves.

This is one of the few effects in my repertoire that elicits surprise as a reaction from
the spectator in a genuine way. I much prefer suspense when choosing between the
two but this plot's inherent originality and weirdness justifies my deviating from
what's usual in my performances, if that makes sense.

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Coincidences
Effect:
The magician sets out to demonstrate one of the most difficult feats of skill when it
comes to learning to control a deck of cards: finding matching pairs from a shuffled
deck.

As an example, he asks a spectator to lift a portion of the deck and show which card
he cut to. Then you ask him to cut again and try to find the card of the same value
and color. The spectator fails and the magician explains that it is highly unlikely but
that together they will be able to manipulate chance to achieve an interesting
coincidence.

After shuffling the deck in his hands, he asks the spectator to touch a card and
without looking at it put it in his pocket. The magician spreads the deck face up on
the table and slowly moves his finger from one end to the other while asking a
distant spectator to stop it on a card which the magician removes from the spread,
squares the cards and leaves them face down on the table.

When the spectator removes the card from his pocket, he discovers that they both
match in value and color.

The magician sets out to take the experience to a more impressive stage by shuffling
the deck again, spreading it on the table and asking two spectators to use their
hands to square it.
The magician divides the deck into two halves and leaves them face down on the
table asking a spectator to indicate which half he prefers. The magician proceeds to
mysteriously place a card in a specific position on the other half and then takes the
spectator's chosen half and instructs him to deal cards face down and stop wherever
he wants by turning one card face up and leaving the rest on top. The magician
proceeds to show that, card by card, none of the two halves match except the card in
the same position as the one chosen by the spectator.

Finally, the magician asks the spectator to take his half under the table and cut and
complete as many times as he wants. Then, he asks him to turn a card face up and
without looking at it, again cut and complete to leave it in the center. The spectator
repeats the process once more to leave another card facing up in the center of the
deck and brings the cards face down for the magician to integrate them with the

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other half and spread them face up on the table.

After asking the spectator if he prefers the cards above or below the ones he
reversed, the magician removes the two respective pairs of cards and shows that
they match in value and color.

To finish the magician shows on the face up spread that no card is paired, closes the
spread, performs a magical gesture and shows that each and every card found its
match by dealing them face up in pairs all over the table.

Preparation:
A full deck of cards set up in stay stack.

Method:
We begin by faro shuffling the deck and squaring in the hands with a cascade.
Because of the sorting property, we do not change the mirrored nature of the deck.

For the first phase, we have the spectator touch a card from the top half of the deck
and by instructing him to put it in a pocket without seeing it we gesture with the
extension of the left hand towards his pocket exposing for us the faces of the cards
and taking a glimpse of the bottom card of that half.

We square the deck, spread it face up and ask a spectator to stop us while we pass
the right index finger from the left end of the spread slowly towards the right. We are
going to perform the pencil stop force which is based on the fact that we stop just at
the moment that the spectator says stop on the card that is to the left or above the
card with the same name as the one we glimpsed before. It is not something difficult,
the key is to do it without worrying too much and remove the card quickly and
decisively. As with all timing forces, we try to count three beats from the moment we
start until the spectator says "stop".
We square the deck and show that the card we were stopped at matches the one the
spectator has in his pocket. We leave this pair out of the deck and on the table,
above the mat.

For the second phase, we faro shuffle again and spread on the table so that the
spectators can square the cards. With the deck in our hands and the faces facing us,
we split the deck into two equal halves by cutting between the one pair of matching
cards in the center of the deck.

When the spectator chooses one half we take the other one and perform a variation
of Frank Thompson's false cut as follows: the right hand takes the cards in end grip

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and the forefinger swings apart and cuts a third of the deck taken by the left hand,
followed by another third which is kept separate from the first by a break of the left
little finger. The right hand rests its packet on the table and moves to take the packet
over the left hand break. At the same time, the left thumb applies pressure on the top
card of this packet to perform a single card slip cut and retain this card in the left
hand. The right hand returns and takes only that card, leaves it outjogged, on top of
the cards on the table and then places the remaining packet on top of it. We square
the card while saying "one card in a specific position".

We take the packet the spectator chose and as if to demonstrate what we want them
to do we quickly deal at least seven cards face down in a pile. We give the packet to
the spectator and instruct him to continue dealing. When he stops, we ask him if he
wants to switch and remember if he did. Finally, we ask him to turn over the card he
stopped at on top of the pile on the table and leave the rest on top.

Next, we are going to proceed to show the cards simultaneously taking one by one
the top cards of each half on the table, showing that they do not match and leaving
them in front of their respective pile. The cards of the spectator's half we are going to
leave them face down, reversing their order, while the cards of the other half we are
going to leave them face up, keeping them face up. There is the possibility of
matching a pair before reaching the chosen one. The turning over of the cards of a
pack is not a secret action, but it must be practiced so that the two actions flow
without getting stuck.

When we get to the face up card chosen by the spectator, we take the one in the
middle next to it, we look at it and by raising them to eye level we show that they
match and then we leave them next to the pair of the previous phase. If the spectator
had chosen to deal one card more or one card less, before revealing the pair we
remind him/her so that he/she can see that they would not have coincided.

We recompose the packets and give the spectator his half to take it under the table.
From now on we will be very careful since the spectator will perform the following
actions without looking at his cards.
Demonstrating the actions with the packet left on top of the table, we show him how
we want him to cut and complete. When the spectator tells us that he is satisfied with
his cuts we ask him to turn one card face up and leave it face up on top, again
cutting and completing. We exemplify with our packet and leave one card face up in
the center. We repeat the action so that the spectator has two cards facing up and
we demonstrate with our packet and leave it face up on the table. We ask the
spectator to make sure that no card facing the other way has been left on top or
bottom of his packet and ask him to leave it face down on the table.

We take it in end grip peek the bottom card, leaving the packet on the table and
acting as if we had forgotten to fix our packet.

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We take the packet with which we exemplified and under the guise of turning over
the cards that were left facing the other way instead, we cut to the bottom of our the
mate of the card we peeked at in the spectator's packet.

Holding the cards of our half in the right hand and those of the spectator in the left
hand, both packets face down, we prepare to perform an out faro and when doing
the cascade with the right hand we apply pressure with the thumb in the lower left
corner and the third finger in the upper right corner so that when falling in our left
hand the packets are left side jogged from one another.

At this point we take advantage of the "above of below" question that we will later
use as an equivoque to cover the turning over of the side jogged deck. The right
hand holds the cards while the left hand comes to its long side, thumb above and
fingers below to turn the the whole packet face up towards your body. The right hand
stays in the same position covering the cards in the right side and preventing a pair
from being seen prematurely on the face.

We spread the cards on the table and automatically hide all the cards in the right
side under the spread. We touch the two face down cards and push them slightly to
the right, exposing their matches which are hidden underneath.

At this point we recap the spectator's choice. If they chose below, we say "there are
two cards left below the ones you turned over". If they chose above, we say "the two
cards you turned over are above two other cards". By respectively emphasizing the
words "above" and "below", we give the impression that the result could have been
different when in fact we are forcing the cards below the ones chosen by the
spectator.

Deliberately and taking care not to expose any other pair, we remove both pairs of
cards and show that they match.

Now all that remains is to show the hands empty, explain that a match is something
other than a magical effect, square the deck, turn it face down and begin dealing
each pair face up to show that they all match.
I choose to handle the revelation in the following way: I drown out the applause from
the previous phase by saying "this is not magic, it's a coincidence. If it were magic it
would look like this" I make a magical gesture and studiously deal out the first pair
with at a slow pace and naming each one out loud. With each pair I increase the
speed and try to distribute them taking up a lot of space on the table. When I have
less than half of the deck left to deal, I turn them face up, stand up and begin to deal
each pair faster. Reaching the end, I tilt the faces of the cards toward me and raise
the last pair, one card in each hand at chest height. I reveal them, raise my arms and
receive the applause.

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Comments:
This routine owes a lot to three great magicians who shaped my decisions regarding
this particular plot: Ed Marlo, Allan Ackerman and Asi Wind.

Another remarkable version of this effect that inspired me in an inderct way is Denis
Behr's interpretation.

When I read Asi's routine I fell in love with the final picture of the spread on the table
before the final reveal and the very clean critical interval between the initial situation
of a seemingly mixed-up deck and the magician putting them together and beginning
to show pairs.

However, two issues with these types of effects bothered me and kept me from
performing them live.

The first was that I felt that all the routines I knew were extremely long. Sometimes
because they were performed in the company of magicians, much more tolerant of
boredom than non-magician audiences and sometimes because of the eagerness to
perform the effect from a shuffled deck.

The second issue has to do with the fact that many routines are based on cyclic
stacks that allow you to be in pairs after a single faro and do not show the faces of
the cards in the way that I found attractive and psychologically deceptive.

Therefore, with this routine I pride myself in that in the three phases you see an
apparently shuffled deck but that it is necessary to show them face up to perform the
procedure of the phase in question. In the first phase the cards are face up for a
spectator to stop me and choose a card, in the second phase, to get to the card that
the spectator chose and in the third phase, to remove the cards that he/she reversed
in the center of the deck.

For the first phase I devised an alternate handling that does not directly involve a
spectator drawing a card but only requires him to stop you in the middle of a dribble.
I try to get him to stop me in the top half by giving him the instruction when I have
already started to dribble the cards, leave the card he stopped me for face down on
the table and glimpse the bottom card from the middle of the right hand before
continuing with the dribble. From then on I proceed in the usual way.

In the second phase, I added the false cut with the positioning of the card incidentally
so that it feels like what I'm trying to do is predict which way the spectator is going to
go with their half. In addition, I deal a group of cards before I give him the packet first
to exemplify what I want him to do and then to get him to stop leaving few cards on
top of his for me to then show and reverse, avoiding dead time.

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In the third phase, my contribution has to do with taking the cards under the table
and that is why we must make sure that the spectator has a basic understanding of
card handling and take our time demonstrating with our packet. If we are confident
we can ask a spectator, after turning over the first card and leaving it in the middle, to
pass the cards to someone else who will do the same.

I use this effect as the closing item of a formal close-up card magic session.
Therefore, the entire routining of the show allows me to get the spectators to shuffle
the deck in the previous effect and switch in a cooler when I put things away that
were used in the previous effect. While it is possible faro the cards without messing
up the stay stack, it is important not to pursue solutions from a shuffled deck to the
detriment of the show's rhythm and the spectators' experience, that was an important
point for me when devising this effect.

I would not want to end the description of this effect without thanking Adriano Zanetti
for showing me a beautiful version of this effect that made me think about the plot,
encouraging me to work on it. Adriano's effect, like most of his magic, still lives in my
memory as one of the most magical moments I was able to experience as a
spectator.

Finally, my most eternal gratitude is due to my friend and mentor Pablo Zanatta who
helped me with two details in the last phase of the routine. His critical eye improved,
to this day, every effect I had the pleasure of showing him.

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