This post is written by both the editor and Drew, but there is no way to indicate that on WordPress.

Hello, my friends. It’s been quite a while, I know. I wish I could say that I had a good reason for my absence, but in truth I was overseas enjoying myself at a [redacted] before the crew hunted me down and dragged me back to the Oval HQ. As the editor of the wokest magic blog around, I understand that this is unacceptable behavior. Unfortunately for all of you, nobody else is willing to do this quixotic shit for free, so you’re stuck with me. To symbolize my punishment, the title of “editor” will no longer be capitalized.

You’ll be pleased to hear that everyone else on the crew has been busy at work while I was busying myself with sinful extravagance. In fact, more than one post has been discarded due to no longer being timely, and some discarded due to being rancid screeds against yours truly for my appalling absence. As a result we have enough content built up to publish posts for some time to come.

It’s been quite a time in the magic world since we left off.

Craig Petty released an incredibly ambitious video about the most infamous patent troll in magic (Yigal Mesika, to be precise. Fuck that guy.) and finally earned our approval in the process.

The Daily Magician won a FISM award for best newsletter. Congratulations to them! Hopefully they’ll be less underrated now. Their August 3rd newsletter about consistency shamed me into returning, so you have them to thank for new posts.

And The Jerx has finally ripped us off, instead of the other way around. How could you, Andy? I think I’m getting served divorce papers, so I’ll let Drew take the reins here.

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If you’re an avid reader of The Jerx like much of the Oval crew is, you might’ve read and enjoyed a recent post of his, Bi-Reveals. Great post, right? Yeah, a really great post, if it weren’t for the fact that he blatantly ripped me off (patents are pending on this idea, so Andy better back off!). This post of mine from almost a year ago is a perfect example of what Andy calls “Bi-Reveals”. Kidding aside, I sent him the post after he coined the term and he said:

Using two Mastermind decks is a very interesting idea. Probably overkill for most situations, but I can see certain circumstances where it might be warranted. Your second post has me thinking-

I’ll cut his email off there. Yeah, I actually sent him a secret second post, one that was from earlier this year that’s currently in the back logs. I’ve been trying to nag the editor to post it so I can share it with you guys, because it’s something really devious. Hopefully this post will be too good of a lead-in for the editor to pass up.

Editor’s note: Presenting without further ado, the post he’s talking about.

The S.U.M.S. Out

By Drew

Imagine making your arm a Quiver purse. If you don’t know what that is, imagine a two way out where the destination of the prediction is named before they name their choice, and you (almost!) end clean. (Or, yes, what Andy calls a “Bi-Reveal”. The bastard. We have the evidence to prove our ideas were first in patent court!)

The Story

You’re talking with your friend about the common idea of a magician having something up his sleeve. “Yeah, many people have accused me of using my sleeves for tricks that obviously don’t have anything to do with my sleeves. Like, how would my sleeve help me tell you what number you’re thinking of? Maybe it’s a problem with how I’m performing… This time I’m going to tell you I have something up my sleeve. In fact, it’s up my left sleeve. Could you hold on to my left wrist? Perfect.”

There’s a deck of cards on the table that they’ve checked out and shuffled. You ask them to cut the deck on the table with their free hand but to not square the two packets just yet. To clarify the current condition of the deck, it’s a deck split into two packets, one ajar on top of the other. You let them freely choose between the card on the face of the upper packet or the card on top of the lower packet. Whichever one they choose to look at, you make a point to not look at the selection. They decide to look at the card on the face and while they do so, you look away. The card they look at happens to be the King of Hearts.

“Okay, you have a card in mind? You can put the cards down and let go of my sleeve now. You’ve been holding on to my sleeve the whole time, yes? I won’t do anything funny. First, feel around my forearm. Is there anything there that you can feel?”

They say that there doesn’t seem to be anything there.

“Roll up my sleeve for me please. But before you do, name the card you’re thinking of.”

“The King of Hearts,” they say. They roll up your sleeve to find a big fat tattoo of the King of Hearts.

Three Sentence Explanation

You have two outs in the same location (up your sleeve). One is a tattoo or drawing, one is a physical representation of their choice. Then you’re forcing those two options, and giving them a free choice of the two options.

The Handling of the Force

You load two force cards onto the deck after they shuffle. While not necessary, I think it feels more fair to give them the deck to shuffle before you start. You can use any technique you’re comfortable with to force the two cards.

I don’t do anything particularly special, myself. I just place the cards on top after I get the deck back from them and do a couple simple jog shuffles to position one of them on the bottom, leaving the other one on top. I then do a Cross Cut Force, giving them the option of the card on the face of the cut or the top card on the bottom pile.

Setting Up the Outs

One out is a card hidden further up in the bicep area of the shirt, the other out is a genuine tattoo (or drawing) of a playing card on your forearm. You show one and not the other depending on what card they selected. That’s it! You need to be wearing a long sleeved shirt or sweater. If you don’t have a tattoo, take a red or black Sharpie and draw a card on yourself. Depending on how loose your shirt is, you might have to keep your elbow bent throughout the trick to stop the real card from prematurely falling down the sleeve. (Or use a rubber band as Franklin suggests further on.)

How to Reveal Each Out

If they end up selecting the identity of the real card and not the tattoo, you would first ask them to release their hand from your wrist. Then after straightening your arm, you’d just openly shake the card down your sleeve, perhaps tugging the top of your sleeve with your other hand for some room, or simply gently shaking the hand with the outs. After all, you did say you had something up your sleeve. Once you shake it down near the cuff of your sleeve, ask them if they can feel it there (yes), and if they feel anything else (no). Next, have them take the card out of your sleeve themselves. If you want, you could roll up your sleeve after they take it out and avoid showing the side of your arm with the tattoo or drawing on it.

If they pick the “tattoo out” as in the story above, just keep the card lodged further up your sleeve and never reveal it. You’d have them let go, then you can cleanly roll up your sleeve to show that tattoo you’ve always regretted having. Voilà.

Additional Ideas

Fellow Oval writer Franklin had the brilliant suggestion of securing the card to your bicep with a flat rubber band. For a nice balance of security and ease of dislodgement, place the band a quarter of the way down from the top of the card. The band would be placed on the end of the card that is closer to your shoulder. On a Bicycle card, the band would be placed so that it is decapitating the heads of the angels. With a quick tug of your sleeve, it should dislodge easily. You can also itch your arm, or brush against it in the middle of a gesture. I’ll let you figure out the best way to do it for your style. Let’s say you don’t want to dislodge it because they’ve picked the other out. You can re-secure the card by rolling up your sleeves and pinning it under the rolled part, then you can finish the trick with your sleeves up. After you roll up your sleeve to show your inked prediction, there’ll be no chance of the card falling out.

You’ll need to know a convincing force that ends with two choices. I like the Cross Cut Force because it naturally presents two cards for them to select from, and they don’t have to see the identity of the card they didn’t pick. (In case they see my—I mean, your tattoo later on.)

Another idea is having the two force cards subtly marked. Then after “freely choosing” the two cards out of the deck, the participant could mix the two cards on the table, choosing one blindly. You’ll know which out to go into by reading the marking on the back of the card. This way, you can reveal before they even turn their selection face up.

Perhaps most importantly… it doesn’t have to be playing cards. If you have a tattoo of something else on your forearm, you can probably adapt this trick to work with it. For example if you’re like Jerry, and have a tattoo of a cherry on your forearm, you can hide a couch up your sleeve and perform this trick with outs for a cherry and a couch.

Concluding Thoughts

What I think makes this multiple out handling so convincing is that both outs are located in the same place, and they can roll up your sleeve or pull out the card themselves. Your language describing the prediction is also very direct and unequivocal. In addition, they can freely choose between two selections they made. They do this without showing you what card they decided upon.

One last thing. Let’s say you meet all the following criteria: You have a tattoo on your forearm, you did this trick using your tattoo, you did it on someone that picked the physical out during the performance, and they found out you have a tattoo on your forearm. How would I address that? Well, I’d probably say something like “Yeah. I’ve been getting so damn confident with this trick that instead of a card I got a tattoo here. In fact, if you know someone we can try it out on, let me know.” Now all you have to do is force the card on the new person that gets involved. This not only deepens the mystery for your friend, but sets you up to perform again! The choice of force is up to you, but I’d probably do the Reverse Psychology Force by Andy over at the Jerx.

Go out there and finally use that tattoo! Oh, I just realized that I didn’t even explain the acronym in the title yet. It’s “something up my sleeve”. SUMS.