What is the most useful sleight in card magic?

The most useful sleight, in my opinion, is the jogshuffle. I guess it dependon you style. I'm a big admirer of Harry Lorayne and Paul Gordon. Both of these artists are very creative when it comes to exploiting the jogshuffle.
 
But any magician, even a beginner, can always tell when a double lift has been performed.
The goal of a double if to flip two cards exactly as you would flip one card. If the double has achieved this goal, you wouldn't be able to tell, no matter if you were a magician or a laymen. Obviously, whoever you're watching needs to work on their double which is no surprise, because nearly everyone needs to work on their double so that it looks EXACTLY the same as the flipping of a single card in every way, shape and form imaginable. This includes both technical skill and body language. There are very few people in the entire magic fraternity that can execute a perfect double (with the one single exception that I know of being Benjamin Earl).

The double lift is not the hardest sleight to perform; it is the hardest sleight to perform deceptively.
 

The Dark Angel

forum moderator / t11
Sep 1, 2007
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Denver, Colorado
The goal of a double if to flip two cards exactly as you would flip one card. If the double has achieved this goal, you wouldn't be able to tell, no matter if you were a magician or a laymen. Obviously, whoever you're watching needs to work on their double which is no surprise, because nearly everyone needs to work on their double so that it looks EXACTLY the same as the flipping of a single card in every way, shape and form imaginable. This includes both technical skill and body language. There are very few people in the entire magic fraternity that can execute a perfect double (with the one single exception that I know of being Benjamin Earl).

The double lift is not the hardest sleight to perform; it is the hardest sleight to perform deceptively.

Hence: The DL is the best sleight. No cookie for you.
 
Sep 3, 2007
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Kentucky - Temporarily
Double lift??? A pass/shift???

First of all, there's no such thing as the most useful sleight. However, the most versatile, and this is debatable with certain people, is a palm.

Anyone who has studied, and I mean STUDIED card technique and theory from old books and manuscripts will understand that a palm is among, if not the, most versatile sleight with cards as well as the adaptation for other things such as coins and small objects.

The palm. A grip is not necessarily a sleight but is part of technique when executing legerdemain.

I can do just about anything other sleights can do with only a palm. Force, switch, change, control, etc.

|| sean ||
 
Oct 12, 2007
546
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Orlando Fl
In my opinion, this is really an impossible question. It's like asking Blondes ofrBrunettes (but that's a bad example because we all know Jennifer Morrison > Blondes + Brunettes, but I digress).

As DawnOfMagic said ever so elegantly, every sleight contributes to a different trick in a different way. It's only after you combine all the sleights and make them flow with presentation that you get magic.

I agree, but the one used most id probably the Double lift
 
Oct 9, 2007
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0
The double lift is not the hardest sleight to perform; it is the hardest sleight to perform deceptively.

Surely all sleights should be performed deceptively? Anyone can perform a DL, but doing one that no one will notice is incredibly hard. And misdirecting a DL isn't like misdirecting a pass or a palm, you need the spec to see you flipping that card over, which is the total opposite to a pass.

I'm just using a pass as an example. Seems like everyone nowadays thinks the pass is the be all and end all of card magic. I use to be afraid of it, now I just throw one in if I'm in the mood.
 
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