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Nice work. A couple of points I noticed that you might find useful. First, as the dirty hand comes away from the deck, there's a very definite change of pace, and loss of fluency. To my mind, the DPS should be performed as one fluid movement, or maybe as one fluid movement, a pause, then a...

One thing that occurred to me on the production of razors. Like Steerpike says, with your current plot, you lose the effect of surviving a normally lethal ocurrence. However, if you were to produce all the razors clean, with no blood, this would give the audience a moment of relaxation and maybe...

Just for the sake of balance, I'd like to say that I found it very difficult to grasp the DPS when learning it directly from Erdnase. It was only when I watched John Carney's palming DVD that I got it. So, for someone coming to the move for the first time, I can recommend learning from Carney...

Sorry, I must not have been clear. Smith certainly was the illustrator. However, he met the author (or someone claiming to be the author who could do all the moves), in a hotel in Chicago in 1901 to do the illustrations of his hands. EDIT: A caveat to that. Smith couldn't remember doing all the...

Martin Gardner's theory has now (in the mind of many, including me) been discredited, or, at the very least, called into question. It relies on information suplied by a demonstrable liar called E L Pratt, and Andrews doesn't fit the description of the author given by Marshall Smith...

The way to make it 100% invisible is to only ever do it when people aren't looking. In other words, really think about your timing and misdirection as much as the movement of your hands, and make that an intrinsic part of your practice. I recommend studying the card work of Tom Mullica, Dave...

Depends how long and how well you practice. That's a very individual thing, so it's a hard question to answer, but I would say a bare minimum of six months to get enough moves down to form a routine. Even then, it won't be perfect, but you may consider it good enough to present.

To be honest, it's hard for me to judge objectively, because I've owned Jeff McBride's set for years, but I've only recently seen Jeff Sheridan's. I really like the teaching technique on the Sheridan set though, so, if I was just beginning with these techniques I'd probably go for that one.

It's down to individual style, but I think we're fooling ourselves if we expect a modern audience to feel anything other than patronised if we pretend to be doing anything supernatural. My character is one of a sleight-of-hand artist, and I think that elimates a whole class of heckler, without...

Something I've used before when someone's constantly jumping in, asking to shuffle the deck at an inopportune moment or whatever, is, "I'll let you in on a bit of a secret. I'm not really doing actual magic...obviously I'm just demonstrating an illusion, so I'll let you [shuffle/examine the...

Well, out of the two options you mentioned, Jeff McBride's DVDs are definitely the way to go then. You might also consider Jeff Sheridan's card manipulation DVD set from Penguin Magic, which has a brilliant teaching method, where you see Jeff teaching the moves to a beginner (in this case Jay...

It really depends what your aim is really. Traditionally, the back-and-front palming, Jeff McBride style of manipulation is done on stage, whereas Daniel Madison or Dan and Dave Buck flourish-work is done close up. However, there's no reason why this has to be the case, and I'd love to see a...

Sorry. Just checked it myself and it's not in there. I must have got it confused with Kabbala. Ignore that! However, it is on Ackerman's DVD. I'm sure of it.

There's also one in Marlo's Seconds, Centers and Bottoms (part of his Revolutionary Card Technique series). It's also taught on Allen Ackerman's Advanced Card Control Volume 2 DVD. They call it a "Minus One Bottom Deal" rather than a Greek Deal though.

Not really the same thing. As this thread has been created on a public forum, the implicit intent is that people should respond to it. That was my response. If Brian Tudor had created the thread himself, then he would clearly be inviting us to comment and express opinions on the subject. As it...

No, I don't think I should do anything of the sort. I think it's none of my business.

We should probably be careful about assuming that this is "our" Brian Tudor. There are laws against libel or defamation in most countries, and there is more than one person called Brian Tudor.

I'd really love to organise an event where the top card guys competed in a game of poker, with the rules along the lines of Vernon's games. Maybe each player could be bankrolled by a corporate sponsor, and the winnings are donated to a charity of the winner's choice, with another gaming expert...

Fear of approaching people to perform is a form of stage fright, which can affect even the best and most experienced performers. It's nothing to do with how good or well-rehearsed you are. In Derren Brown's Confessions of a Conjuror he recounts how he would procrastinate interminably before...

No offence meant, but just to avoid potential future embarrassment, Daniel Madison isn't exactly a gambling expert. He's got a con artist and card cheat performance persona, which is all good and a nice hook, but, in reality, he's not up there with Forte, Turner, or England. And this has been...