Adjones, you want constructive feedback, and you'll get it.
The tent vanish version was brillant, loved it, need some bit of tweaking to be perfect though. Other than that, here ya go:
I personally can't say that "you destroyed the trick" by making it demand a setup, because this is a taste for each performer, you're magic, you decide if you will take the effort to do the setup or not. I personally do use a version with the same setup ( way different version however .. )
Now, first of all, the spreading of the cards at first. Even though you plan to do a move, the spread could be more elegant. Don't be sooo *tight* about it, its true that it makes the move easier, but in practice you really can make the spread larger than that. Here's a tip: Move the right hand away and in towards the deck, spread em up forming a large spread then a smaller one, don't make it fixed like that. Check Card College for more info, as it has alot of helpful tips on this paticular move.
"Its not on the top or bottom", this is usually said when you do a move which is not soo clean looking ( shuffling, wierd looking move, or its done as a cover for a move ). Here, you push the card ultra-cleanly, if you're performing for laymen, this actually will make them suspect something. Its enough that they don't know that we can control cards invisibly, let alone pushing a card cleanly and instantly showing it on top or bottom.
After you "estimate" and show the five cards, you're not doing the biddle move here, so there is no need to count them this way ( you count: "1,2,3,4,5, is your card one of these?" ). Use a cleaner way ( since you obviously want this to be as clean as possible ), just take them with the right hand and table the packet into the deck, spread the cards cleanly and just say " I cut to five cards, Is your selection one of these? excellent*.
After you show them that you managed to correctly *guess* their card, then instantly go into vanishing it, then making it appear in the deck, from my experience this is just too bizzare for them, that you have to *prepare them* that you are going to do something. A perfect line to say here is "well, you don't seem that impressed, lets try something else" or anything like that, you get the idea. This actually makes you one step ahead of them, making it very hard for them to re-construct the trick, because as far as they're concerned, you showed them TWO tricks, not one.
Instead of that version of Tent Vanish, you can actually palm off the bottom card and do a vanish, vanishing the jack visibly, this actually has the bonus that it makes you automaticly in postion to do the count, without any fiddling with the cards. Try it out, up to you to see which one to use. If you still want to go with the version as in the video, instead of transfering the cards in a fishy way, just spread em up, then cut em. You can do this without looking at the cards at all.
Of course, handing the deck to the spectator is far better than putting it down, but I think you already know that, haha.
Hope this helps man, this actually can kill laymen if done at a relaxed pace.
The way I see it, the original has the advatage of being anywhere any deck, and they can count the cards after you vanish the selection. Again, you're magic, select your favorite and perform whatever version you like. its not like you're a working pro who's looking for cares alot for his pocket space and setups .. etc ( or are you ?
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Hope this helps man, glad to see someone asking for help, and I hope you got it. Bare in mind that these are my opinions based on how my magic look like.
