Description

Skill Level: Beginner

The Effect: The spectator shuffles the deck. A prediction is shown and opened – it is the Three of Clubs. The spectator decides on a card to leave face down, dealing the other cards face up. The deck is spread face up on the table; one card is face down – the card the spectator chose. The spectator turns over the spread; the only face-up card is another Three of Clubs!

No skill required.

Note: There are three items not included but they are common items that you most likely have in your magic drawer! 

A little background: A suggestion I have offered over the years is: if you want to find something “new,” research the old books and magazines. Many wonderful routines, ideas, and presentational plots remain hidden because the layout of the publication isn’t “user friendly” (that is, packed text with few if any illustrations – and certainly no accompanying video) or the effects are not described with all the hype and bombast so familiar current magic products.

In doing research on another project, I found a clever handling of an effect that I read before but had overlooked. The method was ingenious, but it a flaw: you started dirty and you ended dirty. Two of the important questions my mentor, Harry Riser, asked were, “How do you get into it? How do you get out of it?” Because the material I create is designed for real people in the real world, I needed to find answers to those questions.

Another question I ask is, “What am I going to say while I perform this? Is there a presentational “hook” that will grab and hold the spectators’ attention?

I’m happy to say I solved all these problems. The result is Not My Job: An Open-and-Shut Prediction, based on a handling by Stewart James. You start clean and you end clean. In fact, you can give the deck away at the end if you desire. And here’s the really good news: it is easy to do. The hardest move is ribbon-spreading the deck. (The only performance requirement is you’ll need a surface – like a close-up mat or a tablecloth – on which to spread the cards.)

It’s funny, it’s amazing, and it’s yours for only ten bucks.