Alexander de Cova

A card pre­dic­tion using only two small blank file cards. Any­time, any­where, in the pocket/​wallet and almost impromptu. One of the res­ults of my nev­er-end­ing search for “nat­ur­al index sys­tems”. It was born in an emer­gency, when I did­n’t have the Knep­per out­fit with me, because I picked the wrong wallet! 🙂

Now I carry this one with me all the time. Such an obvi­ous idea, and such fun work­ing this. I am pretty sure someone else must have thought of it already, but I nev­er read some­thing like it in the lit­er­at­ure. If so, then I “rein­ven­ted” it, or bet­ter, “hit upon it inde­pend­ently”. I like the com­bin­a­tion of the age-old “show-one-hide-one” prin­ciple with Kenton’s bril­liant trick. But any­way, here we go!

You have to know Kenton Knep­per­’s bril­liant “Kolossal Killer” effect. If not, go get the manu­script. When you under­stand the trick, you under­stand the little twist here. This is just a humble replace­ment of the cards used in Kenton’s effect. Nev­er ever wor­ries about the play­ing cards for the index, just go along with scratch paper…

Write onto the cards as shown in the photo. On the back of each one, write “I was only one off” or some­thing along the lines. Have these two cards ready in your wallet.

Depend­ing on what the spec­tat­or chooses (of course, you guide him into the hearts suit as to Kenton’s instruc­tions or use any of the the diabol­ic sys­tems the men­tal­ists have come up with), you pull out the right card and hide the non-cor­res­pond­ing value with your thumb on the Queen, 9, 6 and 3. If it is a 2, 4, 5, 7, 8, 10, Jack or King, turn around and show the second part of your pre­dic­tion. That’s it.

It can­’t be any more minimalistic …

P.S.: Of course, you could make up more cards, includ­ing the aces, and make up cards for each suit. This should res­ult in 12 index cards cov­er­ing the whole deck, which fit nicely into one of the com­mon index wal­lets. I prefer the min­im­al­ist­ic approach for prac­tic­al reasons …

The Him­ber Wal­let is a very use­ful tool. But some­times, it is easy to get con­fused as to which side to open. I know that a seasoned pro has no prob­lem with that, but this hint is dir­ec­ted at the ama­teur and cas­u­al performer.

In order to make this fool­proof, I use a tech­nique which I want to call “body memory”. Instead of think­ing “left” or “right” (which is eas­ily con­fused in the heat of a per­form­ance) you will only think “thumb”, which is much easi­er to remem­ber for the body. And you know it from Facebook …

The wal­let is on the table with the first com­part­ment to be opened up. The right hand approaches the wal­let in order to open it. You will see the thumb is at the left side of the wal­let. Think “thumb” and open the wal­let with the thumb. Pick up the wal­let and place it onto the left hand.

Remove the object and put it onto the table (there must be a motiv­a­tion for that, of course). Now the clos­ing: Again, you think “thumb”. This time, the left thumb closes the wal­let, thereby giv­ing it auto­mat­ic­ally that secret turn. Put the wal­let onto the table.

Next time you pick up the wal­let with the right hand, again think “thumb”. The right thumb opens the wal­let as before, this time the oth­er com­part­ment will be opened. All the dirty work done and you have a nice and incon­spicu­ous secret turnover as well!

If you like this and can use it – thumbs up!

Recently my friend Jon Allen informed me that he had a new ver­sion of his best selling trick “Par­agon” in the pipeline. He sent me a little private video clip and I was fas­cin­ated! You do the same Par­agon effect, but then you use a clear key chain attach­ment for the stor­age of the card.

I thought: “What a great idea!” The switch (Par­agon tech­nique) looks just beau­ti­ful and con­vin­cing. it is prac­tic­al. You can carry it around every­day. The gim­mick will be really sturdy and hold up to a lot of usage (it is car­ried in the pock­et every­day). I really like it.

You are not lim­ited to per­form the signed play­ing card to impossible loc­a­tion, but – for every­day use – could do a small men­tal­ism piece with a blank card, etc. Even the signed bill would be fine (and, in “impromptu” situ­ations, maybe even more fit­ting). A per­fect killer effect to carry around everyday.

Then Jon told me that a guy had con­tac­ted him that he had a ver­sion of the signed card in key chain already on the mar­ket and it would­n’t make any sense for Jon bring­ing out his thing. Well, I was aware of this trick as well, and the guy’s ver­sion is a very fine con­cep­tion and a fine trick, BUT – hon­estly I think Jon’s hand­ling and the clean­ness of the switch is bey­ond all. It all boils down to the trick being anoth­er ver­sion of the signed fol­ded thing to some­where. What really counts is the switch.

So, sup­port Jon to bring out his ver­sion, and tell him not to with­draw it. It would be a shame. Both ver­sions have their place in our mar­ket, while I tend to think that Jon’s meth­od­o­logy is much clean­er and con­vin­cing. Both ver­sions are rel­at­ively easy to do.

Magic has become a broad field and there is some­thing for almost every­body. I believe that both ver­sions belong into the pock­ets of ambi­tious magi­cians and both of them are plain fun to per­form and play around with.

Simon Aron­son is a card magic geni­us. I love his work. There is one trick that has fas­cin­ated me thor­oughly, and that is his “Ad-Jacent”. What a great trick!

Des­pite hav­ing it, I would­n’t per­form it, because I am a lefty, and all the reg­u­lar peek work is out of reach and imprac­tic­al for me. So, here for all my fel­low lefties, my simple and crude ver­sion of that same trick, ded­ic­ated with a deep and humble bow to Mr. Aron­son. Des­pite lack­ing some of the “fin­esse” of the ori­gin­al, it has some prac­tic­al value (at least for me). Again, a lovely “magi­cian’s life hack”.

You need a deck, a match­ing double-back­er and a double-faced card, show­ing a Joker and an indif­fer­ent card on the oth­er side. The double-back­er is marked in the corners with a pen­cil dot on both sides for think­ing-free handlng.

Set-up: Double-back­er on top, second from top the double-facer, Joker side down (deck is face-down).

Per­form­ance: Hold deck face down. Double lift and turn the top two cards face up. Joker is seen. Thumb the Joker off the deck onto the table. Have two spec­tat­ors each select a card. Make sure you don’t let them select the double-back­er, for a bet­ter effect.

Pre­pare for the TILT. Take first selec­ted card and insert into TILT, “loos­ing it in the deck”. False shuffle, keep­ing the top two cards in place.

Put the deck onto the table and have the second spec­tat­or place his card on top of the deck and cut it in the middle. Replace the cut. The two chosen cards are now besides the double-back­er. Spread the deck face down on the table with a wide rib­bon spread.

Now for the rev­el­a­tion. Take the Joker and begin mov­ing it along the spread (from the end toward the middle). Have the spec­tat­or stop you, when it is about in the middle of the spread. Insert the card at this point. Make sure it is not in between the double-back­er an a chosen card (easy to see because of the secret pen­cil mark­ings on the double-backer).

Now imme­di­ately turn over the rib­bon spread in the well-known “macho dis­play mode”, show­ing your skills at turn­ing a spread of cards over. Do it with grace and con­vic­tion. Or just cleanly turn over the spread.

The spec­tat­ors see a face down card in the middle (sup­posedly the Joker). The cards dir­ectly to the right and left are the chosen cards! Clean-up with your favor­ite method …

I know, very very simple, but then – it works like a charm. A no-skill no-brain­er so to say. Have fun! 🙂

Simon Aron­son es un genio de la car­to­ma­gia. Me encanta su tra­bajo. Hay un juego que siempre me ha fas­cinado, es su “Ad-jacent”. ¡Qué gran juego!

A pesar de ten­erlo, no lo podría hacer, porque soy zurdo, y todos las manio­bras están fuera de mi alcance y no son prac­tic­ables para mi. Así que, aquí para todos mis ami­gos zur­dos, mi sen­cilla y pura ver­sión del mismo juego, ded­ic­ado con un fuerte abrazo a Mr. Aron­son. A pesar de la defi­ciente “finura” en com­para­ción con la ori­gin­al, tiene un val­or práctico (al menos para mi). De nuevo, un pre­cioso “hack para la vida de mago”.

Se neces­ita una baraja, un juego de doble dorso y una carta de doble cara, que muestra un Joker y una carta indifer­ente a cada lado. El doble dorso está mar­cado en las esqui­nas con un punto de láp­iz en ambos lados, así parece que sea de libre elección.

Pre­para­ción: doble dorso en la parte super­i­or, la segunds desde la parte super­i­or, la carta de doble cara, Joker hacia abajo (la baraja está boca abajo).

Rep­res­enta­ción: Mantén la baraja boca abajo. Haz un doble lift y gira las dos primer­as cartas boca arriba. Joker se ve. Pul­gar el Joker fuera de la cubierta sobre la mesa. Ten dos especta­dores que selec­cion­en una carta. Asegúrate de que no les dejes selec­cion­ar el doble dorso para un mejor efecto.

Prepárate para el TILT. Coge la primera carta selec­cion­ada en TILT, “per­dién­dola en la baraja”. Haz una mezcla falsa, manteniendo las dos cartas en top en su lugar.

Pon la baraja sobre la mesa y haz que el segundo especta­dor ponga su carta encima de la baraja y corta por la mit­ad. Com­pleta. Ahora las dos cartas están a los lados de la carta de doble dorso. Extiende la baraja cara abajo sobre la mesa.

Ahora la rev­ela­ción. Toma el Joker y comi­enza a moverlo a lo largo de la extensión (desde el final hacia el centro). Que el especta­dor te pare, cuando esté más o menos por  el medio de la extensión. Inserte la carta en este punto. Asegúrate de que no se encuen­tra entre el doble dorso una de una carta ele­gida (fácil de ver debido a las mar­cas secretas del láp­iz en el doble dorso).

Ahora gira inme­di­ata­mente sobre la extensión de la cinta en el cono­cido “modo de visu­al­iza­ción macho”, mostrando tus habil­id­ades en el giro de la extensión. Hazlo con gra­cia y con­vicción. O sim­ple­mente de forma limpia.

Los especta­dores ven una carta boca abajo en el medio (se supone que es el Joker). ¡Las cartas dir­ecta­mente à la dere­cha y su izquierda son las cartas ele­gi­das! Acaba limpio con tu méto­do preferido …

Lo sé, muy muy simple, pero entonces – fun­ciona como un encan­tami­ento. No requiere de habil­id­ad o de gran memor­ia, por decirlo de alguna man­era. ¡Que te diviertas! 🙂