theory11 — Magic Tricks & the World's Finest Playing Cards

Magician fooler

If you don't mind my asking, why? Magician foolers are only for showing off. Exception being Derek Dingle who made a respectable sum selling magician foolers that he never performed in a paid show to other magicians.
 
Magician foolers are nice but imo the best type of magic is when you do a classic routine with a new spin or perhaps feigning a pass etc. There's an excerpt of Teller talking about how he was in another country watching the classic routine of Cups and Balls and the magician, instead of placing all 3 balls under one cup, just feigns the action of placing the balls into 1 cup and Teller playing along with the trick was like "Ok each ball is under each cup" as any laymen would do. To his surprise the magician didn't move any of the balls and even though Teller pretended to guess like a laymen would, he was delightfully surprised to find out that in his mind he thought all 3 balls were under 1 cup but actually none moved. Magician foolers can be as simple as that so don't think there is a "KING OF MAGICIAN FOOLERS" type trick because the simplest alteration or pretending to do a pass etc can be a delight in itself to fellow magicians.
 
I think a lot of magician fooling tricks are awesome because if they fool someone who knows how it should work, then it will totally blow a laymen's mind. However, I also saw the interview with Teller talking about how he saw all the sleights of cups and balls, but, in the end, the balls were exactly where they had started. That, in my opinion, is a true fooler because we think we know the outcome, and instead we are left thinking like a regular person. Sorry, though, I do not happen to know any magician fooling tricks.
 
On the flip side, though, tricks like that cups and balls thing are not good for a layperson. They will most certainly not appreciate the subtle nuances and on purpose flashes, they might just think the tricks sucks eggs haha.
 
I do not perform for magicians. I perform for the general population. When I do work in front of other magicians what ends up fooling them is my left handedness.
 
Parker Nolan said:
I think a lot of magician fooling tricks are awesome because if they fool someone who knows how it should work, then it will totally blow a laymen's mind.
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Right there, you just said the exact reason why magician foolers are on the market at all: because magicians think they must be the best effects in existence.

I mentioned Derek Dingle before. Lots of magician foolers. That was his best-selling material. But do you know what stuff he actually did during his paid gigs to the laity? Cigarette through coin. Ambitious card. Professor's nightmare. Cups and balls.

Another example: I attended a Luke Jermay lecture in '09 wherein he demonstrated his use of a gimmick that fooled Max Maven. That routine is now commercially available. But in that same lecture, Luke said that he has never performed this in a paid gig. His bread and butter? Q&A acts. The routine was an experiment in performance theory, but he knew it was far from the most commercial thing in his repertoire.

If you want to buy these things, it's your money. Just be aware that these are not commercial effects. They were never intended to be performed for non-magicians.
 
Steerpike said:
Right there, you just said the exact reason why magician foolers are on the market at all: because magicians think they must be the best effects in existence.

I mentioned Derek Dingle before. Lots of magician foolers. That was his best-selling material. But do you know what stuff he actually did during his paid gigs to the laity? Cigarette through coin. Ambitious card. Professor's nightmare. Cups and balls.

Another example: I attended a Luke Jermay lecture in '09 wherein he demonstrated his use of a gimmick that fooled Max Maven. That routine is now commercially available. But in that same lecture, Luke said that he has never performed this in a paid gig. His bread and butter? Q&A acts. The routine was an experiment in performance theory, but he knew it was far from the most commercial thing in his repertoire.

If you want to buy these things, it's your money. Just be aware that these are not commercial effects. They were never intended to be performed for non-magicians.
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To build on this more. What laypeople will except as magic and what will fool magicians are miles apart. Magicians get into this trap of thinking like magicians. \

Right now I have two versions of the same effect. The effect is a card is shown in a box. The card can be seen the entire time. From a deck a card is selected signed and lost. In both effects the card is dumped from the box. The box is now empty and the card shown to be the signed card. One version was a gift but sells for $90. The other came from a $30 book that had 20 or so effects that are all workers.

The $90 version is a clear box that sits there the whole time. It looks like a really strong effect but will someone really believe that card sitting there the whole time is their card? It didn't do over will with my lay test group. They all knew a switch had to have happened since there was no way that red card in the box could have been the signed card.

The other version? I have a BLUE back card folded in a card box. You can see the card the whole time. A card from a RED back deck is selected and signed and a mini ACR happens with them telling me where to stop the cuts. After a couple of times the card box is picked up. The BLUE card is dumped into my hand and the box is now empty. The BLUE card unfolded by the spectator to be shown that this card is their signed card and the back color changed from RED to BLUE. This was the one they talked about. This was the one that blew their minds This one is crafted at home for less than $10.

Of the two effects, the magicians I know like the clear box. The people who pay to see magic liked the color change version that is home made.
 
I don't worry about fooling magicians. Ever. I worry about making a good performance. Usually if I'm performing well, I fool everyone because the easiest way to fool people is to suck them into a performance so they're not really paying attention to the mechanics. Specifically searching out 'Magician Foolers' is pointless unless fooling magicians is how you will get paid.

You want to fool a magician? Use anything out there, but use it in an off-beat way. Perfect example of this is a stack. When I first started experimenting with stacks I did some tricks for the local magic club. One kid, a friggin' prodigy performer I might add, liked the tricks and asked what I was using. I gave him some resources and pretty much forgot about it. A few months later at another meeting, he fried me with the same stack I used because he used it in a way I wasn't expecting, and because he got me caught up in his performance.

Some of the best performances I've seen only fooled me the first time. When I purposely stopped letting the performance pull me in, it was obvious what the method was. But every time I actually sat there and enjoyed the performance, the method flew over my head.

So don't look for magician foolers. Just become a good performer. And that's something that no one can just go out and download themselves and rip you off with.

petecardmagic21 said:
This effect fools a lot of magicians that I've performed for. It is very fast, visual, and has an engaging storyline that captivates the audience right from the start.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eaARqhkiNnU

Please let me know if this effect fools you :)
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It did not. Sorry.
 
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