We’ve all been in that dreaded situation where you’ve been asked to perform and you’re completely blanking out. It’s never a fun spot to be in. Despite knowing a countless number of effects and routines, you’re not able to produce any of them during the moment any of it actually matters.

It’s not a matter of not knowing enough, it’s a matter of insufficient organization. Are you actively doing something to organize the effects that you know? If not, it’s something I urge you to prioritize. Organization is scarcely spoken about in the magic community. The only place I recall reading about it in recent memory is over at The Jerx (I recommend you check out the posts “100 Trick Repertoire Redux” [part one and two] , and “Minitoire and Shadow“). I enjoyed reading his organization tools and systems. Ultimately, I wanted to create a system specific to the social situations I find myself in, and for the effects that I usually perform. I hope you will be inspired to do the same by these ideas.

At first, I’d write down the strongest tricks that came to mind in my notes app on my phone, and when I found myself in a situation where I knew I’d be performing, I’d peruse that list. It was a short term remedy. The problem with this solution is that many excellent effects fall through the proverbial cracks, mostly due to forgetting them. Also, it was hard to pick appropriate effects for the given context. I took the time investment to create a much more thorough list, see below.

I sat down and slowly tried to recall all my favorite effects over the years. I also only chose effects that I am completely comfortable doing. This recalling process might take place over some days, weeks or months as some effects won’t come to mind immediately. The list was made on the IOS native notes app. As you can see, there are a few categorical organizations happening all at once.

First, notice the overarching category, “card effects”. I know if I throw a deck into my pocket, I can do almost any one of these effects.Then in bold, you see what the permitting situation is to do those effects. For instance, “FASDIU effects” are effects from a shuffled deck in use, anytime, anywhere. Then the effects are color coded (with a legend at the top), further specifying the conditions required to perform those effects. Is it an effect that can only be done in the hands, on the table, or is it flexible in that it could be done in either the hands or on the table? Then there are further requirements like set-ups or slight modifications to the card box for example (as seen in the picture). The idea is that now you’ll be able to cherry pick the effects and routines that fit the situation you find yourself in the best. You can do your list perusing subtly with a nip to the toilet for a pretend piss, or you can actually say to the participant that you’ve wrote a list of stuff to show to people and need a second to remind yourself of what you wanted to show them. Another option is to tell them that the trick you’re about to show them is something you’re still practicing, so you wanted to consult some notes first.

You’ve probably noticed that I’ve blurred out some of the effect names. It’s taken me a long time to curate an extremely strong list of effects, so I’m a little secretive. For sake of explanation though, I’ve left some unblurred. I chose red for “in the hands” because red can be mnemonically associated with body warmth, and blood. I chose blue for the table because it’s the opposite of red. Purple is a mix of red and blue, perfect for an effect that can be performed both in the hands and on the table.

You can create multiple versions of these repertoire lists for the different types of magic you do (you do other types of magic…right?), you can make one list for mentalism, coin magic, magic that uses only your body, app magic, and so on. Once you do that, then you can organize it all into one hyperlinked masterlist. Here’s what it’d look like in action. Say you’re going to a card magic jam session, you can check your card repertoire list for those magician-fooler card tricks you’ve stocked up on since your last jam. If you’re going to line up for that new brunch spot with a friend, you’ll know to think about doing one of those green or blue effects. Then out of those green or blue effects, you can have a guess as to which of those your friend would like the most, based on their personality.

If you’re approaching the situation with a few effects in mind, you won’t be hesitating if the opportunity to perform arises, the problem that got me to make this damn list in the first place.

Let’s be real for a second here. False shuffles don’t really work. I’ve always loved false shuffles ever since my first foray into the magical arts. There are two specific shuffles I’ve always loved, the Truffle shuffle & and the Zarrow shuffle. I’ve practiced both continuously for over a decade. Over time though, I realized something that all card magicians realize at one point or another. It’s always better to let the participant shuffle the deck, if you truly want to convince them that it’s in a randomized state. Consequently, false shuffles become this weird moment where you’re halfway committed to convincing them you’re mixing the deck, but you can’t truly go all the way and give them the deck. I usually throw some in before I do my ACAAN (the effect I do the most that requires a stack) because I feel like it can’t hurt. However, I want to move the shuffles from the “it can’t hurt to do” category and move them into a “this is a highly deceptive aspect of the effect” category.

I feel a little silly putting all that practice into the shuffles, when I arguably should have been practicing/studying deck switching techniques (if convincing the participant of the deck being shuffled was my goal). Yes, it’s less convenient to carry around another deck and choreograph a deck switch than it is to do a false shuffle on the spot. However, I’d rather sacrifice convenience for strength of effect.

What follows is my attempt to get the most out of our treasured, well practiced, and beloved false shuffle techniques. The idea is essentially asking the participant if they want to shuffle the cards and through some sneaky strategy, increase their chances of replying with a no. What follows are two gambits that accomplish this with significant accuracy.

“Can you shuffle like this?”

Here is a subtlety that applies specifically to a false in-the-hands riffle shuffle (it is your choice as to which one you use). If you don’t do any in-the-hands false riffle shuffles, you won’t be able to use this. The shuffle itself needs to be done standing. You are going to be taking advantage of the fact that there are far fewer people who can riffle shuffle and bridge in the hands, compared to those who can riffle the cards together on the table. This is how it goes. As you start the trick you do your in-the-hands false riffle shuffle, while asking them: “can you shuffle the cards like this?” You are essentially banking on the probable chance that they will say no. For now, let’s say they say no. An important point, due to the fact that they’ve answered your question, they’ve accepted that the shuffle they saw you do was genuine on some cognitive level. If they say yes, and can do the riffle, let them shuffle and do a different trick. There are ways to significantly minimize the chances of this happening, which I’ll get to in the next paragraph.

You want to ask someone that you feel can’t shuffle that way. You do this by soft Sherlockian analysis. Ideally, you have prior knowledge of whether they can riffle shuffle or not. You can observe them during a prior trick where you’ve asked them to “give the cards a really good shuffle”. Perhaps they’ve openly shared insecurities about shuffling. How many times have you heard someone say “oh god I’m so bad at shuffling” or “I don’t even know how to shuffle cards”? Let’s say you don’t have prior knowledge and decide to throw this ploy into your performance for fun. You might observe that they have long nails, or that they’re wearing finger jewelry, making shuffling an awkward task to do. Look for these aforementioned markers, and the chances of this gambit paying off will improve substantially.

Let’s continue. When they say no, say something along the lines of: “Alright, that’s OK, but can you give it a cut like this then instead?” As you ask them that question, give the deck a cut in your hands. Do a sloppy, in the hands, spread type cut. Unless you’re performing for Captain Hook, they’ll be able to take the cards off you and mimic you. Now invite them to “mix” (but really just cut) the deck again & again, and to stop whenever they want. Now they think that they could’ve riffle shuffled the deck, but are cutting over and over instead. It should feel like an “in the moment solution” that you give them. Many people don’t realize cutting the deck over and over doesn’t disturb a stack, it’ll feel like a real mixing of the cards. Plus, they would’ve seen you “riffle shuffle” the deck before you gave them the deck anyways. Remember, you are not giving them an opportunity to shuffle in any other way here. It is simply: “Can you do this? No? Okay, how about this?”

When you take the cards back, you have a fully stacked deck that’s been seemingly thoroughly shuffled by both you and the participant. By doing this gambit you are deliberately calling attention to the false shuffle that you are doing. Why would it be a false shuffle if you’ve just invited them to do the same thing? It’s a weird logic-trap that plays really deceptively. Try it out.

“Or do you trust me?”

This came about when I attended a Dani Daortiz lecture. He threw the deck on the table nonchalantly, letting the deck smear itself on the close-up pad. He then said “this is the best false shuffle in magic.” This was a poignant point in the lecture for me, and it’s something I’ve remembered ever since. His point was that if you seemingly don’t care about the cards or what order they are in, your participants won’t either. If you’re carefully holding the deck, gingerly handling each card, it’ll tell your participants that the order of the deck matters. I’m telling you this because I think it’s important you capture that same energy when you do this ploy. Throw the proverbial deck on the table with your words and body language. Keep this in the back of your mind as you perform.

You’ll want to use this gambit in a casual, relaxed performance and environment. Maybe you’re laying on the floor of your living room with your friend, showing them card tricks, for example. Maybe you’re at the bar with your colleagues after work and the bar has a deck of cards behind the counter, you get the idea. The situation is this. The deck is (obviously) in stack or in a setup and you’re doing your favourite false shuffle before the trick starts. At some point you say to them “okay and do you want to give these a mix as well? Or do you trust me? It doesn’t really matter.” Say this as if you don’t care, maybe shrug as you say it.

There was a video that I came across on social media that encapsulated the moment I’m describing perfectly, it was a video of a magician performing for an MMA fighter. What I’ve found in my experience is that many people will say “I trust you” and let you continue on with the effect, because you’ve signalled to them that the condition of the order of the deck doesn’t matter. I think the option to shuffle is enough proof for them that the deck could be shuffled. You’re giving up the control of the deck and offering them to shuffle, why wouldn’t they trust you? You’re also giving them an option to skip the shuffle and get to the interesting part of the effect. Give it a shot every time you perform a card trick (with or without a special order) to see the hit rate for yourself. You can see why you’d want to do this in a casual situation. If you were on stage or performing for parlour, this wouldn’t work at all.

Concluding Thoughts

I’d recommend coming into the effect prepared with an effect that can be done FASDIU, in the case that they do accept to shuffle. If you take advantage of these verbal ploys, each stacked deck effect you perform will be under the pretence that they could’ve shuffled the deck. Arguably, that is the main logic trap you want to interlace every stacked deck effect you perform with. These two verbal ploys are a start, but there’s more to be done to fully move false shuffles out of the grey zone. Please email me if you have any thoughts!

This is a story of a performance that I will never forget.

I was nineteen years old, and on a road trip with my at-the-time girlfriend and her family. We were heading to a family reunion of theirs that they hold every 5 years. It was sort of a big deal that she brought me along, it would mean I could meet every single family member. At that point in our relationship, we had been dating for a few years already, so they figured I was serious enough of a boyfriend to come along. In the middle of our 7 hour road trip, we stopped at her cousin’s house to spend the night. When we eventually pulled up, we were greeted warmly by the 5 member family. A husband and wife, with 3 children of all different ages. Despite being a stranger to them, they welcomed me into their home without any hesitation.

When I got into the house, I could see into the kitchen and the back garden. I was told we were going to have a barbeque outside for dinner. As we were walking through the kitchen talking, I noticed a deck of cards on the windowsill in front of the sink. I tried not to overtly look at it or pay any attention to it. Though I was aware people in her family were told in advance that I did magic, and I knew there was a big expectation for me to perform. As people went outside and started mingling, I snatched the cased deck and pocketed it. I made sure no one saw, and was confident that no one would notice that it was gone.

Some minutes went by, and I excused myself to the bathroom. I sat on the porcelain throne and began to stack the deck. I knew exactly what I wanted to do with it. I started placing it in my memorized stack. No, I wasn’t actually shitting while doing this. Once I was finished, I left the washroom and planted the stacked deck back atop the windowsill when no one was looking.

We had a pleasant dinner on their luxurious patio. I had to admit, it was hard to be present. I was so giddy and excited that I had a miracle all set up and ready to go. I knew if I was fixated on my little ruse, it’d detract from my experience of meeting my ex-girlfriend’s lovely family. I tried to forget about it and get lost in conversation. Eventually the nippy summer night ushered us back inside, where we sat around the kitchen table. It was there I was asked to perform. I asked if there was a deck of cards I could borrow, without seeming facetious. The father of the family said there was one upstairs he could go get. My heart sank.

“No Dad, there’s one in the kitchen… it’s over there!” The middle child chirped up, pointing at the windowsill. I think I wanted to kiss him at that moment. The deck was brought over and placed in front of me. I made a massive, over-exaggerated point of not touching it. I asked someone in the family to name a playing card. I don’t remember who said it, but someone spat out “Nine of Hearts!” (yes, that was literally the card, I remember to this day).

At the time, I had a special but organic tool to force a number from 1-52. I won’t say what it is now, but I utilized that (seemingly) propless tool and got the number 17. The position that the Nine of Hearts was at. I started to ham up this moment as much as I could, and instructed that the cards be taken out of the deck, and be dealt one at a time face up.

Several cards away from unveiling the Berglas Effect, the middle child has a massive seizure. He dropped to the floor, and had unnervingly long spasms and convulsions. His body jerked violently on the floor and spit dribbled from his mouth in ready streams. There were screams and tears. Pillows and sweaters were thrown around his head to shield it from the wall and table. It eventually finished. It was probably 3-4 minutes but it felt more like 30 or 40. His mother said it hadn’t happened for 5 years. They thought his seizures went away. They were on the phone with a medical professional for several hours after. It goes without saying but I’ll say it, the performance did not continue afterwards.

Don’t worry, he was completely fine and healthy afterwards. The next day we had a fantastic breakfast (incredible waffles made with egg whites with an assortment of toppings), and got back on the road after that.

I don’t know what the moral of this story is. Maybe it was a sign to fucking stop doing Any Card at any Number.

Introduction

Hi guys! We’re back. I had to hijack control of the blog from the editor so that I could post my stuff, he’s dead for all I know. I would comment on how Anagram “Month” went, but I have no access to the statistics. The damned editor does.

Now you guys are in for a treat, this is something that I consider as a little secret weapon of mine. A lot of my ideas for posts have come from self reflection after performances. There are a lot of subtleties and concepts I use unconsciously, and sometimes it takes me time to even realize that these ideas are worth sharing. The following idea is also one from the unconscious.

The Concept

The idea is to carry a singular prediction (of anything you plan to get your spectators to name). The prediction you use needs to be psychologically appealing enough for it to be chosen in performances, but not appealing enough that it’s just plainly obvious. Let’s use a playing card for ease of example. The 7 of Diamonds would be a decent choice because it gets chosen a fair amount, but it is not as obvious of a choice as the Queen of Hearts or the Ace of Spades. Once you prepare the prediction, you’ll want to place it somewhere that is easy to access, but hidden, like in a breast pocket. Then, you’ll want to do effects where you have people name their selections. Then, you simply wait until someone names your hidden prediction. The best part about this principle is that you have absolutely nothing to lose by doing this. You simply either get a perfect hit, or they never knew your prediction existed. Below are two recent performance stories to help explain how I’d use this.

Story 1

Some months ago, at a big work party, I was asked to perform for everyone. Word had gotten out that I was a magician, and the boss had asked me to do a mini-strolling gig for the evening. I accepted the challenge. It was a cool summer evening, so I just had a cotton button-up shirt and slacks on. I brought a singular deck of cards, a sharpie, and a sole 7 of Hearts in my shirt breast pocket.

The deck of cards was in a memorized deck order, so I was jazzing with whatever cards people said out loud. I was doing effects like card to box, Mnemonicosis, ACAAN, etc. When I got to the last table, I asked someone to name a card. A woman at the table named the 7 of Hearts. I said “now, what if instead of finding it in the deck you just shuffled, I had already found it? You see, I took one card from a completely different deck, and placed that card in my breast pocket. Let me empty out all my other pockets to show you that they are completely empty. I had a feeling you’d say that card, that’s why I put it there. It’s not like I could have taken it from the deck on the table because it has a completely different coloured back. Please, remove it.” I gestured for someone next to her to go into my breast pocket and remove the card. She turned it over to show everyone that it was the 7 of Hearts. Everyone went crazy.

Story 2

Two weeks ago, I sat down next to my coworker and asked her if she wanted to see a trick. She eagerly said yes. I asked her to name a playing card (the deck of cards I was going to use was still hidden in my pocket). She named the 7 of Diamonds. I asked her if she wondered why I didn’t have a deck with me. She said that she did. “You see, the reason why I’m not using a deck is that I knew you were going to say that. That’s why I wrote it down earlier. Seriously. Come with me.” I got her to get up and walk with me over to my desk. There was no one else in the office, so there was no way she could entertain the idea of an accomplice sneaking a billet onto my desk after she had named it. My desk was in view the whole time. We walked over and I pointed out a lone navy envelope on my desk. There was nothing else around it. I asked her to open it up and inside she found this:

It’s Halal!

The interesting thing is, I wasn’t lying at all during my little preambles before the revelation. This super clean, ultra hit is also a moment of Halal Magic (Jerry approved). What you are saying to them is true. You did specifically put the 7 of Hearts from another deck in that pocket (or write it down, or what have you). You do not have any other cards hidden on your person. You did have a feeling that the card in your pocket would be named.

Why I Don’t Have More Outs

Yes, you could carry around multiple outs and increase your odds of a hit, but I prefer not to do so for two reasons. The first reason is that I use this for convenience and as a “free hit”. I don’t want to be carrying around a lot of outs with me. The second and more important reason is that after the revelation, you can instantly say “now maybe you think I have a card in every pocket, or in my wallet, or in my phone case, or up my sleeves. Please pat me down, check every pocket, take my wallet and look inside of it. I only had one card with me this evening, the very card you simply thought of.” I think this is an important touch because it kills the most obvious method in their mind.

“Let’s Hear Some Non-Card Examples!”

What are some non-card versions of this I’ve used in the past? Well, thanks to this blog post by Marc Kerstein about Wikitest, I learned that “Dog” was the most searched for item by WikiTest participants. What I would do is have an envelope with a billet that had “Dog” written on it, and that would be inside of my phone case, waiting to be unleashed as a kicker ending.

In this post, I wrote about the high hit rate that eggplant gets, when you ask people to name a vegetable. I had that in my phone case (my main out was carrot, and that was in my wallet. In that case I had two outs, but this is a rare occurrence). When I asked the girlfriend of a magic friend to name a vegetable, she said “eggplant”. I asked her if I had my phone wallpaper as an eggplant, if she would be impressed. She said yes. I explained that perhaps it could be an app, or voice recognition. She hesitantly agreed. Then I said I had something even more impossible. An envelope inside of my phone case… Later that day, that magic friend said to me: “Drew, that eggplant thing earlier, how the fuck?”

Conclusion

I wanted to end this post with two more mentions of other posts where Loaded Lightning made an appearance, and why I decided to call it the Loaded Lightning Principle. If you read my post Jazz in Social Magic #5: Cloud Seven, you’ll see that this is just the Loaded Lightning principle but I made the prediction on the fly. In another one of my older posts, Jazz in Social Magic #2: Lightning Strikes Twice, I used a prediction printed on the box, I didn’t even need to have any extra items on me. In the post I wrote that I “realized” the revelation printed on the box but to tell the truth, I was waiting throughout each effect during that performance for the 4 of Diamonds to come up. In that situation, instead of someone naming the card, they had coincidentally shuffled it to the top. It was the title of that post that influenced this one.

The outcomes in the performances outlined in this post weren’t pure coincidences. I had allowed the outcome to be able to occur. Load that lightning on your person and you’ll find it striking way more often than you expect.

You may have noticed a bit of a gap in “Anagram Month”…to the extent that it no longer fits in a month. We have been waiting on Jerry to post an intro to our new anagram generator. Nothing much, just a few lines. The Editor should have known better than to trust Jerry with even a task that simple. But Jerry lost all his fingers in an accident trying to learn some of Blaise Serra’s sleight of hand techniques using a deck of cards made from thin sheet metal. After a month of poking individual letters with his nose for hours each day, he still hasn’t finished that post, so we’re going over his head and skipping it. I’ll summarize it what it was intended to contain here:

• We have a brand spanking new anagram generator. (Where by “new” I mean “have been sitting on for months”.)
• You can use it to automatically generate progressive anagrams, frontloaded progressive anagrams, two kinds of transgressive anagrams, and commutative anagrams.
• You can even create them by hand (if you have fingers and an aversion to anything resembling AI).
• For most anagram types, the longer you wait for a solution, the better the solution you’ll get.
• Sometimes, immediately running the same search again can get you different results, which you might like better!
• You can bookmark a direct link to a particular anagram you like to study it again later.
• You can practice an anagram you’ve created/generated on our anagram trainer with a single click.
• If you find any bugs or have any suggestions, shoot me an email.