@Dmezhkov - Seemed kinda obvious to me. Is this your handling or did you read/see it somewhere else? Also, I love your close-up pad! Where did you find it/what make is it?
@Gabriel Z. - Handling was little stiff, but you're nearly there. Liked that is also had a definite ending, a lot of O&W routines suffer from a lack of any sort of 'ta-da' moment for the final phase
@RealityOne Thanks for the nice comments, but I really don't belong on that list! I'd say Rene Lavand's routine is my favourite. I was lucky enough to see him do it live years ago. Phenomenal stuff.
For reference, my handling David mentioned is pretty much just Roy Walton's 'Oil & Queens' (from
The Complete Walton). The only things I added were the mixing of the cards at the start (Roy's starts with them alternating) and the presentation/choice of cards which takes it away from the standard O&W presentation and allows a completely free and clean display at the end (Roy's doesn't).
I like the Oil and Water plot and do believe spectators enjoy it. I believe the ideal structure is three phases, with a 'definite' ending. The real challenge is trying to find an ending that 'makes sense' in some way, as I am not a fan of just producing random coloured backs or something like that. The original Oil and Queens suffered from this problem, but the gambling presentation goes some way to make the appearance of the royal flush makes sense. Your mileage may vary...
I recently came up with a version using just the aces, which is a three phase routine that ends with a Dr Daley-style in the hands transpo. Still working on it but might get a video up over christmas provided I don't end up in some sort of food induced coma...
My favourite handling though is this:
It took me about five years (seriously) to get this right and I love performing it. I have actually tweaked the handing since I posted this video so now it's completely self-working (yay!). I also have this written up as an ebook but haven't yet bothered publishing it. Maybe next year...
Rev