René Lavand’s Trick

Since my youth I was addic­ted to the ‚cut­ting the aces‘ by Dai Ver­non (see Stars of Magic). Espe­ci­ally when I lear­ned of the thea­tri­cal pre­sen­ta­tion of PUNX, which is descri­bed in his book ‚Setzt euch zu mei­nen Füßen‘. What a gem!

But then the method was too unsure for me, also I always felt it didn’t look ‚right‘. So I went on to deve­lop some­thing to fix that.

Wit­hout the help of Mark Elsdon’s ‚Hid­den Gems‘ eBook this rou­tine wouldn’t have been pos­si­ble. In this book he points direc­tion to a David Brit­land concept/​trick, on which my rou­tine is based. Thank you, Mark!

The solu­tion was David Britland’s con­cept of the so-cal­led ‚cyclic aces‘, which he published on his blog CARDOPOLIS. This ope­ned my eyes and finally tur­ned out as the solu­tion for my ver­sion of the PUNX trick.

These days, because the trick is done genui­nely one-han­ded, I repla­ced the unknown gam­bler in PUNX‘ story with René Lavand in my script.

The effect is an incre­di­bly clean cut­ting to the aces, done to a lovely story about the great man. My main con­tri­bu­tion is in making the method almost self-working and – most important for me – SAFE. If I had to do a trick in TV, then this would be high on my list of pre­fer­red items …

Here is a little video clip that I made for the GENII maga­zine with a demons­tra­tion of the basic routine:

What you need:

A ‘Baraja Lavan­dia’: It clo­sely matches the decks Rene Lavand used to use. The cards are slightly bevel­led and should have a used look. As if the mas­ter had given the deck to you as a sou­ve­nir. The con­di­tion helps to hide the gimmick.

The gim­mick is a spe­cial card, which makes sleight of hand unneces­sary. Take the two Jokers and glue them tog­e­ther to form a thick and broad card. The cards should over­lap for about 1 mm. On the face of the Jokers put two tiny drops of UV-har­dening glue (or use epoxy glue). I use the popu­lar BLUEFIXX, which har­dens in seconds.

This is simi­lar to the ‘Koorn­win­der Card Con­trol’ gim­mick, only applied on the face of the card. It pre­vents a vacuum in bet­ween the cards during the cut­ting pro­ce­dure and gua­ran­tees pro­per cuts.

A fin­ger ring. Mine is made by Lolo from Sevilla, Spain. It is a Mor­gan Sil­ver Dol­lar, which Lolo skillfully trans­for­med into a fin­ger ring. The ring has actually not­hing to do with the trick, but is a lovely ring …

The set-up:

(from the back to the face) Ace, rest of deck, Ace, gim­mick card, Ace, 4, 10, J, Q, K (all Spa­des), Ace of Spa­des, 8 – 10 indif­fe­rent cards.

Per­for­mance:

This is a rou­tine that clo­sely emu­la­tes the style of Rene Lavand. The trick is per­for­med with one hand only, as Lavand did. Because of this the rou­tine appears as an impres­sive demons­tra­tion of sleight of hand, despite the fact that it is almost self working.

Take the cards out of the case and give them your best false shuffle and false cuts. Spread them face-up on the table. Be careful not to flash the top ace. Gather up the spread and put the deck face down in front of you onto the table. The gim­mi­cked card is well hid­den, due to the bea­ten up con­di­tion of the cards. You will now start the cut­ting pro­ce­dure as con­cei­ved by David Britland.

Cut about a third from the top and place the packet in front of the deck . Then cut to the gim­mick card, which is about ano­ther third from the remai­ning deck on the table. Put this packet on top of the first third. Finally, place the rest of the deck onto the other two thirds. This is the basic cut­ting pro­ce­dure, which you will repeat with each other ace. Turn the top card of the deck face up and put it on the table in the front. You cut to the first Ace.

The second Ace is hand­led the same way: cut a third from the top, and put it bes­i­des the deck. Then again, cut to the gim­mi­cked card and put this third on top of the first one. Put the last third on top and turn over the top card – ano­ther Ace.

Now the story chan­ges and you are going to do the same thing, but with the cards face up. Turn the deck face up. The gim­mi­cked card will be in the top third, so be careful when cut­ting. Cut off a few cards (about ten) and place them on the table. Cut to the gim­mi­cked card as before and the third Ace will appear on the tab­led packet. Place this on top of the cut off packets. Take the Ace from the face of the deck and place it onto to table.

Turn the deck face down again. The gim­mi­cked card will be near the top. It took me awhile to figure out how to get out of this situa­tion. I had the idea to include a chall­enge in the story: what if the spec­ta­tor gives the deck a com­plete cut before the per­for­mer cuts to the last Ace? This is the per­fect solu­tion and will deceive the spec­ta­tors, even magi­ci­ans. The spec­ta­tor gives the deck a com­plete cut in the middle. This sends the gim­mi­cked card more or less back where it was in the beginning.

Now you go through the tri­ple cut­ting and turn over the top card: it is a Four. Put it onto the table and deal the next four cards face down onto the table. The next card is the Ace of Spades.

For the finale, turn over the tab­led cards to show the Royal Flush in Spades.

Here is a sug­ges­tion of the pat­ter. Adapt it to your style or create your own.

«Rene Lavand was an Argen­ti­nian card mas­ter and I met him at a con­ven­tion in Italy many years ago. He was famous for his skill with the cards and his poe­tic pre­sen­ta­tion of his mar­vels. This is astoun­ding, because Mr. Lavand had lost his right arm as a child, and the­r­e­fore was forced to do all these won­derful card mira­cles only with one hand.

Being young and sne­aky, I thought I know it all and wan­ted to chall­enge the grand­mas­ter. So I approa­ched him and asked, if he could cut to the Aces in a shuf­fled deck [false shuffle and false cut the deck]. So I shuf­fled my cards and put them in front of him.

He said that this was very easy for him. He only nee­ded three little cuts, and voila – the first Ace was on the top! [do the first cut­ting sequence]

Of course, I wan­ted to see it again, and wit­hout hesi­ta­tion or any false moves, he cut the cards a second time and had the second Ace on the top [do the second cut­ting sequence].

I was speechl­ess and thought of a way to beat the old mas­ter. I asked him whe­ther he could do that also with the cards face-up! He said, he never tried it that way, but will do so [turn deck face-up and per­form the cut­ting sequence]. After he cut the cards as before, the third Ace was sta­ring in my face. And he did that using only his left hand!

I couldn’t believe it and really wan­ted to trou­ble him. So I asked whe­ther he could still do it, after I had cut the cards [turn deck face down].

[address a spec­ta­tor] Could you please cut the cards for me and com­plete the cut [spec­ta­tor cuts the deck].

Mr. Lavand didn’t hesi­tate and pro­cee­ded to cut the cards as before. He tur­ned over the top card, and it was a – Four. Ha! I thought I got him, but he said that the Four is only an indi­ca­tor card. All he had to do was to count four cards off the deck and the next card would of course be the last Ace [count the four cards onto the table and turn the next card face-up].

And he gave me some useful advice and a war­ning: Never unde­re­sti­mate peo­ple you don’t know. It could hap­pen, next time when you play cards, that you hap­pen to meet someone who always has the bet­ter hand [reveal the Royal Flush to com­plete the routine].

And so ended my one and only mee­ting with the great Rene Lavand. Funny thing is that I don’t know till this day how the hell he did it …“

This article, along with some pho­to­graphs, will be published in my column in GENII magazine.

[For the Spa­nish rea­ders: As you can see, I am using Javi Beni­tez’ won­derful ‘tapete’ (means close-up mat) in a crea­tive way. I use the other side of the tapete. Which distin­gu­is­hes me from magi­ci­ans like Tama­riz, who use the black side…]