It feels like there has been a renewed interest in the Curry Open Prediction plot recently (what with all the drama surrounding Unnamed Magician), and behind the scenes here, it’s a plot we at the Oval have discussed on multiple occasions. Each of us has our own favorite methods, but methods are useless without a presentation.

It feels like 99% of the presentations out there for this and similar plots fall into two veins: prediction and influence. Both of these lean more toward magician-centric than participant-centric, and the specific mechanics of the plot don’t seem well-justified by either of these presentations. So here’s my attempt at truly making the participant the star of the show in a presentation that feels grounded in reality and makes the mechanics make sense in context:

“Have you ever seen those IQ tests where they give a sequence of abstract images they say form a pattern and then ask you what the next one in the series should be?”

“After the first few easy ones, I always struggle with figuring out what the rule is supposed to be with those things. But it feels like I get them right more often than I should even when I’m just guessing. It’s like my intuition is better at continuing a pattern than my rational mind is at explaining how that pattern is constructed. So the last time I played with them, I tried a trick: I overloaded my brain to see if I could get that rational part of my mind to just reinforce instead of override my intuition. The way I do it is like this: I sing an old song I know the lyrics to while I study the pattern, and then, even if I can’t figure out what the rule I’m supposed to be following is, I just go with my gut after a minute or so. Would you like to see if it works for you?”

“I had a mathematician friend of mine come up with an intricate formula for reordering a deck of cards. It’s just barely on the edge of what most people can figure out logically. Any simpler and many people can figure out the rule, but any more complex and the resulting pattern becomes completely inscrutable to everyone. Anyway, I stacked this deck according to the formula he gave me, and we’ll see how well you can intuit the pattern in it, such as it is. Watch the cards closely as I deal them and try to work it out. Pay attention to the value and the suit.”

Here, I start dealing cards face-up one-by-one. After I’ve dealt about around ten, I pause the dealing and continue:

“Hopefully, even if you haven’t quite spotted the rule yet, your intuition is starting to put something together. So let’s pick a test card that you haven’t seen yet.” Here I spread through and then square up the dealt cards before naming the forced prediction: “How about the King of Clubs? What you’ll do is deal these cards one by one, face-up into this pile and look closely at each card and try to get a feeling for what the pattern is doing. At the same time though, I want you to sing a song that you know well. Any song you know by heart. It’s very important that you don’t get so wrapped up in trying to figure out the pattern that you stop singing or mess up the song. You have to be doing both at the same time. But when your intuition of the pattern says it’s time for the King of Clubs to come out, I want you to put that next card face down. Again, it’s okay if you haven’t worked out the rule yet—rely on gut instinct if necessary.”

I won’t get into the weeds on what I usually say next because how to continue from here depends on the method. Drew’s preferred method has him doing the dealing the whole time, and there are only a couple of beats between the face-down card being dealt and the whole deck being spread out face up to reveal that the only face-down card is the target card. Other methods might have the face down card set aside and a certain amount of byplay and time misdirection might be needed to “do the business.” But all such endings can be worked into this presentation. For example, if you have a marked deck or an actual stack, you could continue like so:

“Hmm, you might actually be right. I still can’t do the calculation in my head, but if I remember correctly, the card that came after the King of Clubs was the Seven of Spades—go ahead and keep dealing—and then the Two of Hearts. Dang, I really think… There aren’t any Kings of Clubs in the rest of the deck are there? Go ahead and spread them out face-up. Nice, so if this is indeed the King, it’s the only one in the deck, and you figured out where it would be.”

To wrap things up after the reveal, I like to lead into a discussion of whether they had really intuited the pattern or if it was just luck, and whether they put any stock in psychometrics at all. And if I’m performing for someone that is unstoppably curious and will desperately want to know what the rule is, I shuffle immediately after the reveal. If they ask for the rule, I give them the rule for the Bart Harding Stack and claim it was just a minor variation on that.

Further Use of the Presentation

One could also, if using a stack or marked deck, go right into a performance of OOTW using the same justification of a pattern in the order that they are intuitively uncovering: Pick up the undealt talon (or a smaller portion thereof) and deal a few cards face-up into color piles to “make sure you’re mentally at the right place in the pattern”, then hand the participant the next card (black) to place on either pile as they sing. Then just keep moving the red cards to the bottom and having them place the black ones into either pile.

Once there are only a few more mixed colors before the red block, claim you’ve reached the ones you’ve been skipping, and deal the mixed ones face-up onto the opposite colored piles, to “show how this subpattern begins.” Hand the stock of reds to the participant to deal out. And when you want to use that old subtlety of “oops, no, this one was red actually,” you can point to some mistake they made in the song they’re singing as the cause of the error.