Top 10 Card Magic Plots (and the worst) #180

Don't you threaten me with a good time, Doug. Ladies and gentlemen, and I'm Josh Norbito. Welcome to the show where we talk about being a professional magician and the weird stuff that happens with it. You know what? I got a message from a magician, a fellow Australian magician. He goes by the name of Magic Dale on Instagram. Are you friends with Nick yet? You're friends with yourself, but are you friends with Dale yet,

Nick? I don't think I am friends with Dale, but I'll definitely set up a friendship.

Chip he's he's uh yeah so so he's from perth and he reached out to say that he found about found out about the podcast but he's starting from episode one and i was like all right oh my god and this is a few months back he just messaged me yesterday to say this is so awesome i've made it to episode 100 now wow and the coolest thing is and i'm saying this now dale because i'm sure in In like another year, you'll get to this episode and you'll hear me talking about you.

He said he has a notebook, which is called like the magic podcast notes. And he, that's where he writes all the notes he gets of advice that he picks up from us and our guests. And I just think that's awesome. I think we should apologize. I'm like, sorry. Yeah. You could have been listening to magic discourse and you know. Sorry. Yes. Somehow you've ended up here. That's it.

And to start things off, we have a speak pipe, which I encourage everyone to leave us voice messages to play on the podcast. You can do that through our website or speakpipe.com forward slash the magic guys. This one is from our fellow listener, Billy Fisher.

Let's see what Billy's up to. Norbito. I've got a bone to pick with you, as doug might say was doing magic for some high school kids the other day and i decided to close with a new deck murder finisher did a couple pharaohs and reveal that it's a new deck order and one of the kids just says i know how you did that if you do eight of those shuffles it goes back to the exact order you started it and didn't exactly know how i

did it but knew that that was the method and i was like oh you know from talking to him after i kind of ruined my finish he knew knew who you were from Instagram and he showed me your profile and I was like, golly. So I had to call and share that with you. And then lastly, Nick, I heard you say in a recent episode that you knew Craig Chapman. That's a guy that I would love to hear from on the podcast. I have his material and really like the things that he does.

If that could happen, it's a podcast that I would love for you guys to do. So just a suggestion, if you could get him on, I would love it. Thanks, guys.

Oh i'd like to have this guy now and i liked his vibe yeah thanks billy with your good energy yeah and another thing nick can you bring back batman that'd be really cool. Uh did you expose the pharaoh shuffle you're not an exposer well tell me is that exposing i i just made a video where if you do eight perfect pharaohs you end up back in the same order is that is that it so funny that someone who never exposes anything gets called out.

Yeah i know right i got busted because of norbido and his social media magic i finally made it to colorado where did he say he was calling in from i made it somewhere other than man when you're influencing young minds you're making a difference this is you know you change that young child's you know perception of the universe well in the same breath you know sometimes people give pseudo explanations and they assume it's entirely true you know like i'm sure that wasn't billy's effect

it wasn't him doing eight pharaohs to end up back in you know like that wasn't the trick he did because i talked to him a little bit afterwards it had nothing to do with the effect but because he knew a shuffle can put something back in order he just assumed that was what was going on but and it's worth considering actually for that to become common knowledge as i really was considering a memorized deck alan ackerman champions this memorized deck as did

mike i think mike skinner used it as well you go two shuffles away from new deck order you know so you give it six pharaohs memorize that and now you're always two shuffles away from new deck right that's pretty valuable or i think alan uses uh all aces all twos all threes all fours that kind of sequence yeah yeah that's becoming public knowledge maybe that's not the best way to go.

Interesting damn exposure gentlemen i will say it is an interesting plot in magic and that's what we're here to discuss today amongst all of our friends and a quick shout out to our friends who are here live in the chat we have drago nick good to see you pal scotty poo thomas tim ed. Seth thank you all for being here i think i did see my good friend dairy davis there as well good to see you pal so today's topic is card plots thanks we

we got so carried away chatting about this backstage we actually started the podcast two minutes late because we got so carried away with it because we're debating plots that are one are good and two that just suck and so we we drift well a good friend daddy doug drafted up a quick list and i think we don't even have to talk about it it's all written down you can take notes and read them at home there that's exactly just you've already got all you need to know excellent learner you

can go to bed now so if i may i say that we start off with a trick we describe the effects and then we discuss starting with trick number one doug so worst trick ever the 21 card trick if you're doing a trick of any kind where you have to deal piles of cards your spectators are vomiting in the inside side of their head neck discuss okay so i want to cut trick which i think people experience you know it's just it's a bit could we

call it a mathematical type effect in in in a sense where you make piles of cards using a total of 21 cards and then through a series of making piles you decipher what their playing card is i think the reason i dislike it is just purely that.

There is not enough moments of magic in a time span i'm the type of guy that likes a reaction every 10 to 30 seconds whether it be a laugh or a magic moment or in some sort of fun interaction like it is a good time and that is just a kind of laborious task i think in a sense and guys in the chat you're welcome to share your thoughts as well we'd love to share them on the pod but But I think that even worse when the person performing the trick,

as is usually the case, has no professional experience or sense of what it's like to make something entertaining. So when it is time to deal those rows of seven cards, or like you said, let's just put mathematical trick or any dealing trick that takes time. If you're not making that process interesting, you're doing it wrong.

So that's the lesson. And these can be good tricks, but most people don't want to take the time to figure out those jokes and by play and things that are going to make dealing procedures interesting and. It's easy to make the second choice anyway. So just make that choice and not do that trick. I, I challenge someone to make it interesting. I bet there is a way if you actually wrote a script and cause the problem that we're explaining is there's just nothing happening during the boring part.

But if someone was to take it on and make a story, a rhyme questioning that's happening, like, you know, obviously just learn how to force that doesn't take five minutes to do, but like just learn how to force a card and then you can just bypass the, all of that. There's some great methods for this trick, but you're hitting the nail on the head there, which is, you know, make it interesting.

Absolutely. Now there's, there's an effect. So talking about dealing, being laborious and boring, Steve Cohen at the chamber of magic. 20 year running best magic show I've ever seen in New York.

Look, he ends with a trick that actually involves a lot of dealing and he only, I actually feel like it might actually be a little too much dealing, but he closes with it and gets a big reaction, but he does it in, he tries to do it in such a speed that it looks like, like I'm trying not to waste your time kind of thing. And he does say a few things as he's dealing it, but not to where it's like engaging or there's jokes.

So I just want to throw that out there. There is an effect that someone very reputable in our field does that actually does a lot of dealing. I don't really have a tradition. The traditional saying is there's no bad tricks, just bad performers is generally the case. And as we, you know, talk about bad tricks, it's not that. No, exactly. It's not. No, I don't know why I'm saying, I'm just saying there is an effect out there of someone we love who does do a trick that does a lot

of dealing. If you want to watch it, I'm going to look at the comments in a second, because I feel like there's something funny there by Doug's face. But if you want to see him do this performance, now it's actually a Juan Tamariz effect, which is why it's so good and worth doing. But if you watch Steve Cohen's performance on Google, on YouTube, he did a talk for Google, you'll see him do this effect. It's called like the three coincidences effect.

And I used to do it for a little while. I enjoyed performing it, but I just realized, oh my God, I'm spending way too much time. Is that the two deck trick, red, blue shuffled together?

Yeah that's right that's right that's right it is actually amazing but there's a lot of dealing but the 21 card trick it can fuck right off anyway mike mentioned the version in my book specifically created to do for other magicians and let me tell you what it gets to the point there's no bs so yeah there is a version of it in my book because that's. To synopsisize this and move on to the next one, I guess we can comfortably say that there are no bad tricks, just bad performers.

And that it's not something to be dismissed or written off. But it is something that if you are going to tackle, you probably want to look at its inequities, look at what makes it a weak effect, and do whatever you can to elevate the trick. Because there was an interesting lecture from Mario Lopez where he said it's very difficult to take a trick that's been around for a long, long time and is awesome and make it even better.

But you can take an absolute porridge trick that would be like a C plus in a classroom and you can make a C plus student an A plus student because there's room. I love that. Yeah. Jeff Hobson and the egg bag. Perfect example.

So please do not dismiss it by all means. It's something that if you're going to walk away from this podcast thinking anything about the 21 card trick is that it's not great but it could have potential so think about yes done probably probably leave it but yeah it's going to take some work all right next one we have a suggestion here from nick who's saying the story deck plot and i think this is worth discussing so the for those of you who are not aware of the story deck plot it's effectively an

effect where the magician will have a pack of playing cards do a whole series of shuffles and then be able to tell a story with the card so for example there was a couple of redheads and a couple of brunettes and then in that moment you would deal the two red queens and the two black queens and this is most commonly well when i first was exposed to this it was through an effect called sam the bellhop which was popularized by bill malone in he made it right no it's actually

like 100 years old quite a very very old effect but he's gotten around it and done a beautiful presentation frank everhart a bar magician from i believe chicago created sam the bellhop well that's not chicago frank everhart yeah so so that was called sam the bellhop it was if you do want to reference it you can google it and see the performance or if you want to learn it you can learn it from his on the loose dvd series which i believe was released through lnl but seth howard also makes a really

good actually it's he released that as a standalone item did he. Put it on the on the series i believe he's also released the deck as well there's an actual sam the bellhop deck which you can get through bill malone where it comes i just remember when i learned it it was a standalone project released on its own sam malone i say.

Yeah cheers was on television at the time woody harrison was just a bartender but seth howard Howard makes another comment, which is the 673 King Street, which I believe is referencing our Aussie friend. James Galea. James Galea. Thank you. He's going to be mad that I didn't remember that. Yeah. So it's a good plot. It's a very good plot.

And it's not something that's utilized all too often. And if I could share a quick story from my own personal experiences, when I did my very first festival show at the Melbourne Magic Festival, I opened with Sam DeBellhop.

And one of the best bits of feedback I ever got was from Helda Gramirez, an amazing FISM winning magician from Portugal, who said, you have a very good eye for strong magic, but you're good enough to make your own material and the first thing he said was you opened with story deck and you're good enough to make your own go make your own so thoughts on story deck well i can say i do have my own that i do in theaters at the end of showman i we close our show with it.

Thanks dad and instead of story deck it's called love story and it's a love song that i actually had produced and made and yeah all the moves and stuff it's in it's yeah it's about did you write the music for it? Yeah. Well, so, so what I did was it's a custom song I wrote. So, so first what I did was, if you want to know, I figured out what are, so instead of a dealing story deck, this is a sleight of hand story deck. So I'm doing slights and pop outs and vanishes to the song.

I sat down and I was like, what are all the moves I could do to a song? And then I was like, and what words could be tagged to these moves? Moves, like, you know, her heart vanished or, you know, just like what are all like the cringiest, you know, love story kind of things. So we took all those phrases. I sat down with this artist, R&B artist, and we just composed a thing for it to make sense. And I was like, I need this many beats to be able to perform this part of the effect.

So it was like, all right, I'll make the, you know, I'll drag out that line. And yeah, so we spent like a full day jamming this thing and then he properly produced it and stuff. I love that. What a great crossover for your two art forms that you love, right? I was pretty proud of it. And then Australia's Got Talent was like, we don't want that on our show. I was like, okay, sure. And then, and then, and now it, yeah, resurfaced. And that's what I used.

We used to close our, yeah, theater shows and showmen. And the very last move is that the two cards have found each other and then they turn into one, which is the two of hearts. And then And that changes into rose petals and I sprinkle them on the card mat and then. The show ends. I'll probably, I have a video of me doing this in QPAC, which is our biggest theater in, in Queensland. Eventually I'll put that out as its own video. So it can just live on the internet.

But anyway, all I'm saying is story deck. I enjoy it. I have my own now.

And the good thing about it is the procedure is like you delivering a presentation. So it stops that monotonous. I've started writing my own story deck as well but i'm only two cards in so it's not a lot. What are the two cards you're gonna have to wait and see okay i lied with only one card it's okay i started doing magic when i was eight years old that's all i got i actually hit the creative wall and i can also say nick i've seen you do an impromptu story deck with your magic sports.

Yeah, we've done a lot of impromptu stuff and we tend to try and stack the deck in such a way that it's a genuine mix, but at least we all get four kings each. And if you have a king, you put it to the bottom and serve it last. So you can say that it's a four king good trick. But as far as story decks goes, it is a really good effect. It's certainly, you know, for a place and a purpose. Like I think it's more to be propagated towards the stage slash parlor realm.

As opposed to doing close-up roving sort of stuff, because the reset would be a little laborious and so forth. That's a great social trick. You do this at the bar or at your family dinner. People love the story deck. Maybe not a great commercial. Like you said, high-energy stuff.

Yeah, it's a really good effect. I'm reminded of two things when I think of story deck. One is there is a version that Danny Garcia does where it's like an impromptu fully shuffled and he just controls like two cards and he makes it up as you go along because his comedic value is good enough to him to sort of freestyle through. But he just glances a couple of cards on top and maybe he puts a two to the bottom and he just makes it up as it goes along and it's quite funny.

You can also have a stack deck and project that image, which is an approach Mike Amar and Eric Mead both endorse in the art of astonishment and, so you pretend doing it but you don't really yeah oh that's a fun idea there was another version that my friend Alex Stella Ramballi is his name and he was doing a version of it was very political at the time and he was talking about this is a time where our prime minister Julia

Gillard which was a red-headed woman so he was using the queens red queens to tell the story and then made it a a very political speech and then basically said, and everyone had their humble pie pie, which is 3.142, blah, blah, blah. And he just spreads the deck. Yeah, that's fun. So that's cool. That's cool. Yeah. Yeah. That's the stuff you find your moments.

So story deck. We like, we like, by the way, we're going to get to like sort of our, as a professional at the, towards the end, we'll get to like the list of plots. We do recommend. No, I'm going to keep doing in the gutter. I'm going to, I'm going to go dark side.

Okay let's all right let's keep going you could be dark side we'll be jedi, what do we have so i got this any trick where you're slapping cards out of my hand means i'm gonna slap them right back out of your hand i hate that if i do this and you smack me, i'm coming right back at you amen yeah the trick the name of that trick i got this from stefan who's been on our podcast i didn't know this credit oh yeah. It's clearly right here designed for laughter.

It's in the Royal road of card magic. One of the worst card magic books ever. In my opinion, that's designed for laughter to, to smack someone in like to physically assault someone while they're holding a pack of plank. It's recommended all the time. I don't know why. I hate that. It's just, it's because it sounds prestigious. Right. Okay. I mean, years ago, maybe it was the best thing going. Okay.

Reasons. I dislike it. If I may, I dislike it because I just think it's not a nice experience to slap things out of people's hands, period. Like you wouldn't slap a drink out of their hand. You wouldn't, there's just, there's not any scenario I can think of to smack something out of somebody's hands unless they were about to drink poison, right? Like, I just don't think that's a nice experience.

Number two, when you're in a situation where you slap cards out of someone's hand or if someone does it to you and then your cards then fall to the floor, you then got to pick those cards up and then go to the next group of people to perform for. Now, then I'm handling things that have been on the floor. I quite literally, if I drop a card on the floor, I'm like, well, if I can't play with the others, I can't play at all. And I kick it under a table and I leave it there.

And I don't bring that card back into the fold. I just don't. There's some professional advice, you know. That's a killer tip, Nick, you know. It's probably not even worth the time to pick up, much less. No, and when people try to, and people, oh, let me go. No, no, no. I'm not going to have you touching things that have fallen on the floor. And they go, well, thank you for making me feel so classy.

Like that's the exchange you have so those are my two reasons i dislike it i'm sure there's got to be something better there but i'm going to cut it off anyone else i mean aside from also being hackneyed like if you do that trick you probably you're comparing yourself to drunk joe at the local dive bar who does it every night for the regulars and everyone's seen him do it so that's the class you want to be with that's what you're doing if you're doing that thing yeah i understand the

idea of it being random like the fact that you know i hit all those cards out and just one happened to be in there that was like i i get why people think it's a good idea but yeah i don't want cards falling on the ground and it's mainly the falling on the ground bit i don't mind the hitting bit because you're just hitting the cards but they have to go everywhere and it's just not classy and like there's so many better card plots which we'll get to so that's all i have to say.

I like Dragotea said the Doug slop shuffle. That should be a shuffle is what does that involve? You do the slop shuffle while we were, we were talking about the slop shuffle before I was in the discord for an hour or two before the podcast, we were talking about tricks and Nick mentioned that one, like maybe one that could be on the list, I actually, with the chat GPT, I went to artificial intelligence and asked it and it's on the list, the slop shuffle, it can be underwhelming.

If not performed with sufficient skill or charisma it's a little is that what it said yeah wow could i could i say something off the back of that i have a friend who is one of the best card guys i know his name is chihan yo and i love him to bits and every time i jam with him i i walk away with like learning something he shares like one little plot or one little idea and i just take it and run and make like six routines out of it.

Now he has a version of the slop shuffle, which is in the form of a triumph type routine. For those of you who don't know what a triumph routine is, is when a card might be selected, you shuffle pack face up and a face down. You show all the cards mixed. And then with a magical gesture, all the cards correct themselves bar one card, which remains face down. Okay. If you don't know what triumph is, please stop listening to this podcast.

Don't you listen to Josh. He's a dick. Okay. No matter what level of magic you are in, If this is the first time you're here to us, you are all very welcome to be here, and we appreciate you listening. Unless you do the slap trick. Unless you do the slap trick. But Scotty P has a good take on it. I want to talk about it. Yeah, that's true. Now, the way he presents this is he does it in this kind of like, this is the thing about life.

Sometimes things are topsy-turvy, upside down. You don't know which way is up, which way is down, and life can be a little out of control. But with a little bit of magic, everything will sort itself out. And you'll find yourself charisma, see, like, so again, you can polish any turd. You just got to freeze it first. Bang, bang. I like the shot. I like the slop shuffle. Use it a lot. Jay Sankey's back in time is my preferred trick with it. And I suggest that people don't do it sloppy enough.

Like it's a little too studied when they do this thing, you know, what I'm doing, it's like, and some cards are falling down, dropping and stuff and i'm just not even looking you know what's really true slop shuffle this is gonna blow your mind slop shuffle with invisible deck oh baby you ever tried that stuff so the trick the trick there is triumph with the invisible deck yeah that's a shaken not stirred originally by and steve

bedwell another tidbit i i remember that tricking up i i remember learning this false shuffle by michael vincent which just looks like this it's just like a little over under kind of thing and if you combine that with the slop shovel because the slop shuffle you end up like this hang on so you've got your you know back to back and you want god if you do that shuffle with this it looks like you're shuffling and seeing all these cars like face up and face down throughout the whole

thing but you and then you do your move and you've got your you know your ending and so yeah just doing that little shuffle after the slop shuffle makes it look like they really are all mixed up in between it yeah slop shuffle i look i think that there's probably a time and a place for it and again just what are we what are we to conclude about the slop shuffle i think that triumph as a plot is amazing i do a triumph but i use a cull i it's inspired by.

The roadrunner cull and a presentation that james brown does on his professional.

Opportunist dvd set he does a thought of triumph and and i love those those handlings on that so i don't use the slop shuffle but i think triumph because we're sort of touching upon two things here triumph great routine i mean what the mythology of triumph was it was vernon's son, that said if you were to be able to achieve this effect it would be like your triumph like he quite quite literally said it in that sounds like some BS Vernon

made up no yeah probably well here's what Vernon's son said father can you please be a father yeah, it wasn't a great guy pretty funny, Ben Earl, Ben Earl does a slop shuffle in a triumph version. He does. That's actually a psychological triumph where the spectator does like the second half of the, it all going back to normal, but in their hands. And if it's good enough for Ben Earl to do a slop shuffle, then I think it's good enough for me.

Okay. I feel like I've just alienated the whole Vernon. I'm not allowed on the West coast anymore. more everyone's taking down their vernon posters and putting up marlo ones because of what you've just said i hope you're happy doug oh no i'm gonna shit talk marlo with his wife later hang on.

Okay okay before we go slandering more and more people i think that let's just take away that as far as the triumph plot is brilliant and number two the slob shuffle has a place you just got to bring the riz and i think that it'll it'll serve you well there is something that's constantly being repeated in the chat i'd like to bring to everyone's attention scotty p mentioned no more kissing spectators i believe that he's referring to french kiss nick oh yeah referring to nick that just kisses

all the spectators i kiss all the boys no that trick really should have been outlawed before it was embedded like it's like do you guys know anyone that still is working that routine, no i certainly know that our good friend ben's not doing that anymore from the cruise ship situation which is even funnier because it is a comment here that says how about slapping a folded card out of their mouth until the tongue goes through it's by jeff and i think that's funny because

our good friend ben was performing this on a cruise ship and he got bopped for.

For a a a don't be throwing good friend around so whimsically you could drop cards on the ground and then put them in a spectator's mouth here put these in your just yeah and then and then uppercut them and only one why just smack it this is something lj could be doing as a wrestler and give it the macho man yeah and absolutely that actually l by the way great episode by the way i i wasn't on the episode but it was so it was so um fun it's the first time i've been

able to do it in a long time to just actually listen to an episode and i have no idea what's coming up great work guys yeah that's very fun to listen to what's a fun one yeah yeah okay but yeah kissing spectators i want to talk one one second about triumph because look on this lip from chat gpt number two is this the pick a card any card tricked so it says while the classic premise can lead to great tricks many versions are executed poorly with no real climax or

surprising element. I think here's the problem. When you say pick a card, any card leading into your pick a card trick, your spectator feels like they might've already seen this effect. Oh, I've seen that. So if you're going to do triumph, maybe don't start it with pick a card, any card. It could be perceived as hack Nate. That makes a lot of sense. Like if I said, if I just started singing, Mary had a little lamb, you'd be like, I know this jam. You'd be like, no, no, no, this is different.

This is different. This is an R and B version. Like it's quite literally.

Really i can think of yeah it makes a lot of sense now i kind of feel people like to pick a card you know i think people really do like to pick one pick a card oh we're having fun but maybe just don't say those words when you're doing tricks that need a selected card like trying maybe maybe say points to a card or i like to dribble cards and say stop say stop say stop and or riffle through i'm gonna stop dribbles are great options yeah so efficient too yeah i think just

i think options where they say stop well maybe you're drilling cards at the table just say stop when you're ready say stop so maybe like say stop is a a different thing unless they make some trigger some sort of spice girl song stop i'm gonna go on a small just a small side road here because on the list which is a pet peeve of mine is tricks where the performer reclaims the card and inserts it so say someone has picked a card and they're holding it i think one of the worst things you can do is

take that card back from them and put it in the deck yourself yeah this is your spectator's card now they should put it back in the deck you should never reclaim it from them and this is where the dribble is a good option alleviating that moment or touch a car here just look at it but if they're going to hold the card they should put it back in the deck.

Interesting thought naming a card is another way i mean i think that's how i get out of a lot of that josh has been alice in wonderland with his little set i just name anyone i have it doug i have to say i i got that from you telling me about your friend the busker that says that right all right name a card and how would you like me to find it i remember you telling me that are you making that a pretty standard part of your,

I, yeah, I say what, what, what way would impress you if I found that card and then you're like a card, a card genie, you know, what more do you want?

It's so much fun to do that too. And there's so much banter or the other thing is I'll introduce the, the prop. I'm going to use to find their card first, like a rubber band and be like, have you seen these? They're high-tech tension dispensers. Yeah. I'll show you what they do. Yeah. Take the deck, take out a card that you like. Back and i have not yet said pick a card so they take one out and now it's easily remembered.

Right and then once they've taken their card then i do this and i go okay put it back wherever you want and now we're in the same position of having just picked a card and put it back but, they're thinking like what's going on with this rubber band what's why am i holding this and so yeah anyway you can just say put it back if they're going to put it back i i just approach them with a dribble so i try to avoid any verbal at all i'll just come towards them and offer the card and they'll

just go for it 99 of the time it's just the dynamic i've worked out i like that yeah yeah very good very good i literally had an event i was working with another magician mike tyler and i went to this table and he had just done invisible deck, deck and I was going to do my stack work.

So I, I opened with the same line, which was think of a card and because he had done invisible deck a different trick, but said, think of a card, the woman actually looked at me very like serious and was like, we actually saw that one. Like we actually saw that one tonight when I said, think of a card. What do you mean? You've seen what I, I'm like, oh, okay, cool. Cool.

Yeah. We'll think of a different one. And anyway, and it was funny cause she was really like, I don't mean in her head, like I don't mean to embarrass you, but we've done this one. Can I, because I have my version of invisible deck, which you've seen, Josh, and I make it a three-step process where I'll ask someone, I'll explain, cards are red or black. Could you please choose the color on behalf of this lovely group here? Do you want red ones or black ones?

And they'll say red. And I'll go, great, that's going to be a heart or a diamond. Would you like a heart or a diamond? Great. And then explain this, 13 values, ace through 10. And it's just, it's one card being chosen by not saying, pick a card.

When they try to backtrack it, there's a logic trap. all the way because did he make you say blah oh yeah he went and got all of us to say what he wants us to say like you know like there's this logic trap in amongst that process so that might be a fun way to sort of get i'm a big fan of this approach use it all the time on the street it's a great way to involve multiple spectators in a direct effect and that's a great approach for name a card well here's a

plot if i if where i cater move on from this one where don't say pick a card as far as a plot goes and it is the multiple card select plot great plot great plot for working magicians there's nothing better than getting multiple people involved at once like oh my god if there's a card trick i could only pick one off to do it gigs it's it's that That one. Yeah. Multiple car. Cause it's really six, you know, however many cars being selected. It's like four.

Car tricks in one go. 18 was my personal best when I was restaurant. I was table hopping. I hit a banquet table with 18 people. Yeah. Wow. See, and that's the thing, right? Like when you were trying to gain everyone's attention, it's kind of important that when like at a table of 18 people, there's probably a lot of dynamic going back and forth. It could be a group of three talking group of two group of two group of four, and they're all engaged.

Age and if you can find those individual groups and break them up by including them in a card selection process it's a really great way to disrupt them in such a way that the attention is now on you and then you gift them the magic you're about let me be blunt at 18 it's just for you really it's not about them anymore yeah look yeah like man you just want to see if you can do 18 different revelations seven or eight is plenty five is really enough to

have a good time with multiple selection here's good advice maybe you have a good beginning a good ending and a couple middles that you know are killer and then if you feel like your audience is into that you have a few other fill-ins you can zap in there nice but yeah go in like plot go along on that is dangerous take it and run absolutely i my clothes are usually yeah yeah i found that go on no you go, No, I'm going to take it entirely. No, Hugo. No, Hugo.

For me, I found that six is the sweet spot, but I'll do eight if extra people come over and watch with multiple confines. I know Nick approaches it differently, which I really like as well. But if, yeah, if I'm just having random cards picked, I'll do six, but I'll have the sixth one signed so that they can't say, I don't remember what my card is, and then we're screwed. I can definitely do the ending no matter what, because I'll see the signature.

There's a little tip there, but that's all. Now you go. Okay, so I've had an idea for a plot, and I want to share it with you guys, because I've not been able to get it off the ground thoroughly. There's a few different ways it can go, and the plot is this.

The Uncheatable Deck. deck and the premise is really stupid so i'm going to share it with you guys the premise is this people say things like oh you know would you can you come to me the casino but they don't know that they actually use uncheatable decks at the casino and they're like what okay yeah you can't cheat with the decks at the casino let me explain and then you grab out like some nuggets like jerry like jerry's nuggets like i see like a casino deck and you explain like this

is a this is a deck of playing cards and then so one of the examples that i gave was that let's say for example someone were to say stop and i dribble the cards and they see the four of hearts but when i go to look at it it changes to the three of diamonds and it's this whole premise like i can't cheat because if i cheat the cameras will catch me and um i tried to do the second deal can't do it yeah yeah yeah and that's the thing right so that's the whole

premise of like it's because the reason i wanted going to do it is i wanted to that and this is going to be a segue into gambling demonstrations which we were talking about beforehand doug you you made some very interesting comments about gambling demonstrations well a modern audience might find them and they're often laborious dealing procedures boring well my idea of combating that was to make it a comical sort of experience in which

you try to cheat and in the gambling demonstration but it's not working and it's more fun. Or if I try to cheat, it doesn't work. But if I can cheat for you or something of that nature, I had this whole premise where I had a dealer chip. And if I had the dealer chip, it wouldn't work because it knows I'm the dealer and I can't cheat. But if I give you the dealer chip, then I can cheat with this deck because that's how it works. And so that was one of the premises I created with this deck.

And then I had another version. So I just became up with multiple ideas, but not routine them. I had one version of it where the deck locks itself if you cheat so many times. And I basically got a whole deck of playing cards and super glued it all together so you can't actually do anything except a little bit of this.

And so I'm like, and they try to like, and you can't do anything with the deck and the idea is just like, oh, you got to put the security code in and then I have a gaff which is like those lockers where you twist. Tim Spinoza's deal. The combination deck. The combination lock where you actually have a combination lock and you have to go left, right, and then it unlocks the deck and then you can spread it again.

And I was like, oh, I wonder how many times I can cheat before the deck locks itself because it keeps track of things. And so I played with this whole different premise. So it's, in my opinion, it's a plot that doesn't exist. And I chatted about this many, many years ago, jamming with other really, really talented magicians at Magic Live. And it was some, I can't recall who it was, but I just said, you just came up with a new plot in Magic.

And I'm like, cool. And I think it was me. I think Nick Lawrence was there and a bunch of others. And I was like, let's meet back here next year and see what we've come up with.

And then covet happened and we never got to sort of get that idea off the ground but i may need to kick it in again in a couple of weeks time it's definitely a routine like that's worth it i mean obviously it's worth exploring but yeah i mean you could like take out the four aces but then when you go to deal them they've changed to crappy cards for a poker hand for sure i like it yeah do it or if you let them face up and every time you try to deal to yourself it doesn't

go to you but you can deal to somebody else so there's like this second like ortiz dealing routines where you say you're gonna deal yourself the four kings and the four kings end up over here and then you got the aces maybe as a kicker i guess that's cheating so that one you can take it a lot of places is where it's at i guess from i guess the question i'm asking you and our audience is like should we explore the uncheatable deck plot yay or nay let us know in the chat let us know when it

comes to while they're while they're letting us know when it comes to gambling demonstrations i know that i don't do any there was a time where there was one routine that bill malone put out in the the malone meets marlo series where it was a funny deck demo gambling demonstration where he would deal like five cards to everyone and then when everyone looked he had like 40 cards he's like oh yeah i think i got you beat and it was like a funny version.

Which was good, but I, I it's dropped off from my memory now. Cause I just, I think even that was not yet enough entertainment for me to be dealing that's as direct as it gets. That's a no, no downtime at all. Yeah. Yeah. But do you, Nick or Doug do any gambling routines, like demonstration routines? Only for myself. Yeah. It's like card porn, you know, no one, no one in the public. Like should see it yeah it's just.

Magical masturbation well my friend she and I was telling you about he taught me some beautiful effects that that are really out of the vein of that I actually just recently bought Jason the Danny's book as well the the deception what's it called it's just up there so it's something that just because I'm not like pro it doesn't mean I'm against it but, It's, it's something that I do do for myself. And every now and again, when you meet someone, they'll ask you, can you gamble?

Can you this and you that, and you give them a demonstration of what that might look like. Right. And I think what's important is that you shouldn't be anti gambling, gambling demonstrations purely because all good card magic is based off card cheating. So if you have that, I have a gambling demo. I was recently reviewing. I have put together a sequence for public viewing of demonstrating gambling techniques.

I think it's really important to keep it simple, like dealing these five card poker hands with games no one plays anymore. You know, here's what I think. People understand high card. So you can demonstrate like cutting the aces. They understand the game of blackjack. So if you do something that involves a blackjack, they could, you know, that could appeal to the lady.

And then if you do a very quick like royal flush production that's something they can understand and if you're doing much more than that i hope it's just for yourself in your bedroom late at night in your mom's basement agreed. Oh i oh i just came to mind that doesn't get a lot of love may i share it let's go six card repeats Oh, that was questionable for me. I almost put that on the negative list. You know who talked me out of it? Bob Possum.

Oh, that trick was probably not cool 30 years ago, but it's probably cool again because no one's been doing it. I almost started doing it when I watched Paul Daniels Bravura set and he teaches him doing it basically. And he has it as a, he has it as a filler trick in case he needs to fill time. He can just bust it out.

But yeah i'm not doing it i can't say i've ever done it professionally tim ellis has a six card rap and he does a full rap sequence i have rhyming patter on the questionable list yeah so so there's two there's two elements here of like white guy rapping forces yeah so like rapping the six card repeat it's does massive things it's taken him all over the planet this particular routine i think he has released it since then they were very mad about it when they did and it's

just like it's got to go around sometime but i have to mention that i i saw a version of it most recently when i went and saw fizzum winner hector mancha perform this trick.

And it was really good because he had a selection and then he was like okay cool he took five cards out and was like staring at them very funny like to like remember them like cool and he just put it in wait a second and he just like looked at him again they put the card in and he goes cool how many chances do i have to get this correct. And it's like, he's got a one in six chance of getting this right. You know what I mean?

And then he'll be like, your card, this. Okay, start again. I have one, two, three, four, five, six. Give me three chances. Not this one. Not this one. Not this one. We'll start again. I have one, two, three, four, five, six cards. And so he's trying to find the card, but keeps getting it wrong. And he was like, we'll start again. So it's a very cool presentation. And I really enjoyed how it was done. You know what?

Now that you're telling me a good version of Sixth Car Repeat, Pete, I'm just remembering the other good version, which is the one David Williamson teaches on his penguin lecture, which is designed for kids, which is the five card trick. And he's like, do you know how many cards you need for this? Five, one, two, three. Oh, is it the four card trick? Actually, it's, it's actually the three card trick is the name of it. Actually you're right. Yeah. And that's right. And you have four and you're

like, oh, damn it. I gotta get rid of one. That one is actually wonderful. Because you're just getting a few cards for it and you can, it's, kids love it because they're like, it's like the sucker trick. No, they want a point. Like, no, there's actually four. Yeah, that's fine. All right. Should we, you know, with 12 minutes left, should we maybe go through the plots that we do use professionally? Like our sort of go-tos maybe? Yeah. One of them. I'll kick it off by saying ambitious card.

Yeah. Yeah. So let's say you go into a gig. you can only do card tricks let's say and you've got to do 10 minutes to a group or something like what what are like the main plots you feel like are going to be the strongest for you like for you that you do not to say they have to be the best ones ever the ones that you're going to fire off well for me personally i do a lot of like a lot of transposition stuff so i'll do like card in the box type routines and different

versions of that like the card to box card to pocket type stuff so anything where transpositions are strong because my my belief is that anything that you see on a grand scale where it be illusions if you could like make a car vanish and make it appear somewhere else make a person vanish make them appear somewhere else it's like one of the coolest things that can happen in a theater show so if you can emulate that in a close-up setting even

though you're doing it with something as primitive as a pack of playing cards it's still like what it's going to be the strongest effect they're going to experience because that's normally the the coolest thing you see at a grand illusion show. So that's my thought process. So I focus on that. The multiple card select is also super important. I use as the finish to the multiple selection also as a standalone often.

And sometimes I'll do it with two or three cards, but I think card to wallet is invaluable for any close up stage. It's just a great workhorse. So I guess the, a card to impossible location plot as a whole is quite. Yeah. Yeah. Which is similar to what Jeff was writing up the homing card where the card keeps going back to a certain place. Oh yeah. Isn't awesome. Like What's a bad card to impossible location? What would be a bad possible impossible location?

Like I could think of one from the jerks, but I don't really want to go there. I saw, I saw a Chris corn performance once where he shat the deck out of his pants. And then the wrong card emerged. Yeah. Reputation maker. That one, that was maybe not the best one. I love that. Actually on hindsight, that might've been the best one. Nevermind.

Like where, where's a bad place thing. to okay like the exclusion of a transposition like in a french kiss but to an impossible location it's like dude you shouldn't do that you should here's one that i question myself on this is a trick that i like to do actually card to forehead perform only this can make your spectator seem foolish right in a sense you're making fun of the spectator on stage you know you get a card stuck on your head they don't notice it's there yeah so

there's one my two cents is i only do that trick if they're already playing the fool and they're heckling and they're amongst friends that yeah will you know i only do it if it presents itself as that guy is sort of being a bit of a dick yeah i have removed it from my repertoire as much over the last couple years opting out of it kind of for that reason it's like yeah we can make better choices yeah when you get to know it when,

when you get to know it all then it's fun um right but that's all yeah i mean i'll do it to the point where like i do a card to mouth and i just put it in the corner so i can still speak really comfortably and do what i gotta do and i'll do it like it's like in part of my ambitious routine, where i'll do it in front of their face and go is that yours and then i'll bring it back down like this and put it back on the deck and give it a shuffle and

go is that one and and it's like up this, but they don't see it because it's this instead of that. That's different because it's not about as much maybe... Someone on stage with you per se. No, no, no. I think in a stage setting, something like that is not a great time. But I think when we're in a close-up setting, it's super fun. You know, I feel like there's a different synergy when you have that, you know, when you sucker people in.

And like, for example, last night I was performing at a uni lodge student accommodation. And, you know, I went over to a table just to say hi and do a small group.

And before I knew it, it was four people deep. tape so just me and then students like around this one table like rather large table communal table and so i just sat there and gave them a really decent close-up show and that was one of the effects that i performed because you know every time i put a card down they would turn it over and check it and they were just like so hyper focused on what was happening here that i was like well let's dance in the shadows

you know because they're the spotlight right now watching all the stuff i'm like this is gonna be great so yeah if i had to say three plots that i'm actively, going to use at a corporate gig. It's going to be the card to pocket, like the homing card, right? The card keep going to my pocket. And then it's a whole deck that's in my pocket. It's going to be multiple card find. Cause then you, it's really six card tricks in one. Cause you're revealing them all different ways.

It's going to be that, that, and what would be the last one? I mean, then it's going to be named the name and card plot. So name a card and tell me how you want me to find it. It's going to be multiple card find and it's going to be, yeah, sign a card and it's kind of like ambitious, but it's going to keep going to my pocket. That would be the three hardest hitters from what I've acquired. Hmm. I don't think anyone mentioned the invisible deck. I'm a champion of that trick.

I know Nick just makes cards appear out of thin air. In a sense, doing it with a memorized deck is kind of the same thing. But if you need a good trick in your repertoire, you can go buy an invisible deck. And you're doing a top three card trick tonight if you need to. Yeah. Nick actually has an invisible deck. But if you're a regular human and just need to pretend to be a magician this week, you can buy the invisible deck from conjure.com.

That's right. If you added these this week, this is a great one that I keep in my bag. You mentioned like the six card repeat. If you need a few minutes for the side bit, I keep the three and a half of clubs in there. This can be a couple minutes of comedy, drama, mentalism. You know, you make a prediction, you force the seven of clubs and you tell them you've predicted half their card and they think, you know, it's the magician in trouble scenario.

The three and a half of clubs shows up and everyone goes crazy. What? So you're saying whatever card you pick, I've got half of it. You don't know the three and a half of clubs. Yeah. You say, I'm going to shoot. You build it up real big. You make the prediction. You force the seven of clubs and you say, I'm not very good at this. I'm I'm like 50% good. So I'm probably like half, right? So whatever card you pick, just divide it in half.

Like if you had the four clubs, make it the two of clubs, the two of hearts, the ace of hearts and face cards are worth 10. So divide your card in half. What do you get? The, the, the what the three and a, what'd you pick seven of clubs?

Well, yeah, that'd be the three and a half of clubs. That's what I got. thank you very much and your next act is you know boom okay now now it all makes sense why i got a three and a half gimmicked card from sean piper once bro in my magic do me a favor do it one time at your next gig just one time okay and listen to watch the reactions off the chart question to the group long card is there any way of doing it where it's not crude because every time i've seen it

done it's normally like you it's let's say it's like the three clubs you take out of your pants and they go it was the 10 of clubs and then you take the long card out of your business, you just mentioned that chris corn would produce the long card from his butthole. Is there a non-gross way to do this effect? I actually, I have a effect for the long card, removing it from a box or an envelope or something that is not long.

So it's a, it's a production, a production, a little hackneyed, but now it's growing and linked out of need as opposed to just. You know, a package joke.

Joke a coat pocket could be good actually because when you sort of say like i'm gonna make my prediction put it in my pocket and as you take it and you just sort of keep going out of your breast pocket that would be a good idea you have to make it you don't have to sort of tailor a long pocket but that's that's not a bad idea i actually have a vision like a pay envelope you know where you could clearly show it and then this thing just comes out yeah hey a plot we didn't cover i want to get

your thoughts the biddle trick what do you think trick see the bill is good because it's a transposition little tricks killer yeah yeah yeah i just want to make sure we bring it up i don't know i don't know that everyone knows what it is so we should definitely have brought it up yeah the bit of i recently filmed a tutorial for the bit old trick for the new project i've been doing and called it one of the more important tricks a beginner will learn you know yeah like this is

a trick you can get into right away and kill with it yeah my friend Sebastian Rodeau also known as Mr. Marmalade does this trick and has been doing it for a thousand years so he does the middle trick right but he just back palms each card and gets rid of them one by one and then and then for the fifth one he'll like steal it real quick and then do it again and then he brings each one back but then the last one is like your card and then does

the transposition into their neck I've never seen anyone get so much out of so little especially especially when it's like begin a trick and he does it so professionally. Like it's, it's killer. Yeah. Brian Saint, who we had as a guest on the podcast, he created his own variation on the Biddle trick as a, like a different performance, very worth exploring. It's in his lecture notes available on his website.

His idea is instead of one card being picked and put amongst five, it's, you have five cards picked from different spectators and then they choose which one of theirs should be vanishing. And so it's more of a, it makes sense why there's five cards and it's like you impossibly made the one that they chose to disappear and end up anywhere that you want very worth exploring, but yeah, you're right. Biddle trick. Great go to effect. You can just boom, smash out.

Yeah. I love it. I love it. I got to make sure there's no other tricks I need to crap on here. We didn't talk about cards across. Oh, it's gold. Yeah, it is. It is gold. Yeah. As I mentioned, color money is dumb with the blue and the red diamond.

Get out of here with those diamond cards. You can use the $14 card, but any trip that comes out of a vinyl wallet with specially printed junk on it, like the $14 cards, a good finish. The blue and red diamond thing. You can't even see what color they are in a dark room. What about the this and that version of that trick?

You know, this, that, and the other. that's okay those are that's words you might have words on paper in real life but so i was walking through the street and this guy came up with a blue diamond and a red diamond yeah i could barely tell them apart to begin with but he asked me to put money on it. Well, a couple of guys in the comments, both Chris and Nick, are saying oil and water. I love oil and water.

I love it far more than I love out of this world. Oh, you didn't even talk about. Yeah, that's fair. Too procedural. We didn't even talk about Akon very quickly. What do you think about Akon?

I mean, it's fun to do one, but what do you think about, do spectators appreciate it the same way they would appreciate a triumph or, you know, like a strong. because I really love Ozzy Wynn's Akon. I think it's the most direct and best fucking version I've ever seen. Hard to hate on that plot. Can't hate the plot. Totally. Same with Oil and Water. I know people like to hate it but truthfully it's a time-honored established classic and you can look at Rene LaVon doing it and influencing.

We had him as one of the most influential close-up magicians. His exhibition on World's Greatest Magic opened the eyes of many people to them who loved it. And again, it's, it's probably on the scale of things, a B grade trick.

And which means that you have an opportunity to bring it to the A plus realm. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, look, I think we covered a lot of plots here. I really love this. Keep it going in the discord, share your versions of your favorite car plots. We'd love to see your videos. And also for those who were here for Nigel's episode, the memory, the amazing Nigel, his memory PDF is in our Discord if you haven't checked it out already from a couple of weeks back. Awesome.

Let's leave the final word of card plots to Doug, I think, this week. Thanks for watching. We'll see you next time. If you're going to get yourself the Jumbo 3 of Clubs, you're going to want to get also the Jumbo 52 on 1. This is how I get around the notion of having someone name a card. So if I'm going to do the invisible deck or the brainwave, I say, Hey, I got a psychic trick, reading minds, telling futures. Do you believe in that? I give you the three 99 a minute psychic friends rate.

So just name a card, any card. And now if you present this card to your audience with the intent that you've already predicted the card, they'll have no trouble just naming the card that comes to mind. And you go, yep, it's right on there. The four of diamonds. and now you've had them name their card and you can easily take out the trick you really meant to do, the invisible deck or the brainwave or maybe it's card and phone. And yeah, these are available at conjure.com. That's your final word.