Newbie working through basic Scarne on Card Tricks book

Oct 4, 2022
79
21
Hi, my 8-y.o., 11-y.o. and I (a complete newbie to magic) am working our way slowly through Scarne, Fulves and Wilson and will probably have a few questions as we go. I assume that it is not a disallowed reveal if one obliquely refers to parts of old, published tricks and cautiously asks a question such as this, to be answered by those who already have the book, of which I assume there will be a number of you given how common and popular it apparently is. After all, you’d have to own the book to follow my question, so you’d already have the reveal.

In Calling the Cards, pp. 9-11, for those with that book, the magician appears to rely on the assumption that the card he’s keeping an eye on and will choose for himself at the end will not be among the first several of the unspecified number of cards which the spectator will first point to for him to name, until the mage steps in to end the trick by choosing one (the card of interest) for himself "just for fun".

But if, say, a spectator just so happens, very early on, to indicate the very one you have then no paving stone awaits for you to stand on for the next indicated card, since you’ve already milked that first Holstein, so to speak. If they happened to indicate, as the very FIRST card, the one you peeked, you'd really be screwed. The trick would have to end right there, if I understand it correctly, which would be fine if it were already, say, card six out of 52, as that's impressive enough and you'd no longer need to pick a card yourself 'for fun', as they'd have done it for you, and you could move it to the bottom of your in-hand collection and end the trick there. But if they name it as e.g. the first card or one of just the first two or so, you’re stuck, unable to go on to a card after it because you've already used this card to call the very first card indicated. Does anyone follow me? How would you get out of that pinch? The only thing I can think of is that you'd want to be careful in the patter in the setup, saying "we'll scramble all the cards, you point to any one, and I'll name it", (rather than saying "you'll point to a number of them, this other fellow will write down the names as I call them...") so that if you have to stop at one card, it's still a successful trick (naming any one out of 52 cards blindly isn't TOO bad), just one much shorter than you'd planned. And if you don't get unlucky, then after several cards you could THEN ask a 2nd feller to start writing down the ones you've called so far...
So, if they name your special card as the first or first of 2-3, what's your save other than cutting the trick short?

You could of course restructure it completely by limiting the deck to a small (sigh!) stack of, say, a dozen cards, so that at least you'd be able to name every card, even if they ended up out of order (a quick shuffle of the stack you end up in your hand before you hand it to the 'checker' could take care of that, although you'd be unable to explain why you needed to shuffle it)
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On another note, his Aces from the Pocket seems obvious enough for my 8-year-old to see through (p.11). You’d have to alter it a bit to make it credible. Fortunately in this case I can think of one solution, which the composer David Rose would approve of. Does anyone else have a suggested improvement on that trick? Of course, we could just skip learning that one and move on to the countless others...
 

DavidL11229

Elite Member
Jul 25, 2015
589
314
Seattle
Hi, my 8-y.o., 11-y.o. and I (a complete newbie to magic) am working our way slowly through Scarne, Fulves and Wilson and will probably have a few questions as we go. I assume that it is not a disallowed reveal if one obliquely refers to parts of old, published tricks and cautiously asks a question such as this, to be answered by those who already have the book, of which I assume there will be a number of you given how common and popular it apparently is. After all, you’d have to own the book to follow my question, so you’d already have the reveal.

In Calling the Cards, pp. 9-11, for those with that book, the magician appears to rely on the assumption that the card he’s keeping an eye on and will choose for himself at the end will not be among the first several of the unspecified number of cards which the spectator will first point to for him to name, until the mage steps in to end the trick by choosing one (the card of interest) for himself "just for fun".

But if, say, a spectator just so happens, very early on, to indicate the very one you have then no paving stone awaits for you to stand on for the next indicated card, since you’ve already milked that first Holstein, so to speak. If they happened to indicate, as the very FIRST card, the one you peeked, you'd really be screwed. The trick would have to end right there, if I understand it correctly, which would be fine if it were already, say, card six out of 52, as that's impressive enough and you'd no longer need to pick a card yourself 'for fun', as they'd have done it for you, and you could move it to the bottom of your in-hand collection and end the trick there. But if they name it as e.g. the first card or one of just the first two or so, you’re stuck, unable to go on to a card after it because you've already used this card to call the very first card indicated. Does anyone follow me? How would you get out of that pinch? The only thing I can think of is that you'd want to be careful in the patter in the setup, saying "we'll scramble all the cards, you point to any one, and I'll name it", (rather than saying "you'll point to a number of them, this other fellow will write down the names as I call them...") so that if you have to stop at one card, it's still a successful trick (naming any one out of 52 cards blindly isn't TOO bad), just one much shorter than you'd planned. And if you don't get unlucky, then after several cards you could THEN ask a 2nd feller to start writing down the ones you've called so far...
So, if they name your special card as the first or first of 2-3, what's your save other than cutting the trick short?

You could of course restructure it completely by limiting the deck to a small (sigh!) stack of, say, a dozen cards, so that at least you'd be able to name every card, even if they ended up out of order (a quick shuffle of the stack you end up in your hand before you hand it to the 'checker' could take care of that, although you'd be unable to explain why you needed to shuffle it)
---------
On another note, his Aces from the Pocket seems obvious enough for my 8-year-old to see through (p.11). You’d have to alter it a bit to make it credible. Fortunately in this case I can think of one solution, which the composer David Rose would approve of. Does anyone else have a suggested improvement on that trick? Of course, we could just skip learning that one and move on to the countless others...
Re
Hi, my 8-y.o., 11-y.o. and I (a complete newbie to magic) am working our way slowly through Scarne, Fulves and Wilson and will probably have a few questions as we go. I assume that it is not a disallowed reveal if one obliquely refers to parts of old, published tricks and cautiously asks a question such as this, to be answered by those who already have the book, of which I assume there will be a number of you given how common and popular it apparently is. After all, you’d have to own the book to follow my question, so you’d already have the reveal.

In Calling the Cards, pp. 9-11, for those with that book, the magician appears to rely on the assumption that the card he’s keeping an eye on and will choose for himself at the end will not be among the first several of the unspecified number of cards which the spectator will first point to for him to name, until the mage steps in to end the trick by choosing one (the card of interest) for himself "just for fun".

But if, say, a spectator just so happens, very early on, to indicate the very one you have then no paving stone awaits for you to stand on for the next indicated card, since you’ve already milked that first Holstein, so to speak. If they happened to indicate, as the very FIRST card, the one you peeked, you'd really be screwed. The trick would have to end right there, if I understand it correctly, which would be fine if it were already, say, card six out of 52, as that's impressive enough and you'd no longer need to pick a card yourself 'for fun', as they'd have done it for you, and you could move it to the bottom of your in-hand collection and end the trick there. But if they name it as e.g. the first card or one of just the first two or so, you’re stuck, unable to go on to a card after it because you've already used this card to call the very first card indicated. Does anyone follow me? How would you get out of that pinch? The only thing I can think of is that you'd want to be careful in the patter in the setup, saying "we'll scramble all the cards, you point to any one, and I'll name it", (rather than saying "you'll point to a number of them, this other fellow will write down the names as I call them...") so that if you have to stop at one card, it's still a successful trick (naming any one out of 52 cards blindly isn't TOO bad), just one much shorter than you'd planned. And if you don't get unlucky, then after several cards you could THEN ask a 2nd feller to start writing down the ones you've called so far...
So, if they name your special card as the first or first of 2-3, what's your save other than cutting the trick short?

You could of course restructure it completely by limiting the deck to a small (sigh!) stack of, say, a dozen cards, so that at least you'd be able to name every card, even if they ended up out of order (a quick shuffle of the stack you end up in your hand before you hand it to the 'checker' could take care of that, although you'd be unable to explain why you needed to shuffle it)
---------
On another note, his Aces from the Pocket seems obvious enough for my 8-year-old to see through (p.11). You’d have to alter it a bit to make it credible. Fortunately in this case I can think of one solution, which the composer David Rose would approve of. Does anyone else have a suggested improvement on that trick? Of course, we could just skip learning that one and move on to the countless others...
For the most part you answered your own questions.
Regarding Calling the Cards: Yes you are cutting the trick short, but this shouldn't effect much. Just try to minimize any references to how many cards you'll be working with. If they point to it the first time you have performed a miracle! And have another trick ready to go quickly if this one is over too soon. You might just quickly collect the cards and just start over. "We' can even mix them up more and it still works..." I would mix them myself and start over as to not make the spectator shuffle again. Feel free to improve the trick as you see fit.

It also sounds like you may want to keep looking for more robust effects. Check out the Card College Light series by Giobbi for modern well constructed self-working card tricks. If you just really enjoy thinking about the construction of card tricks you should read "Designing Miracles" (and "Strong Magic) by Darwin Ortiz.
 
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Oct 4, 2022
79
21
Thanks for the replies and the great ideas from both of you, guys! Thanks, David, for the book recommendations. I'll need to work my way through Scarne, Fulves and Wilson first, and then the Card College Light series sounds like a good next step. I've got a LOT of learning to do in the meantime...including how to think on my feet when things don't go according to plan, and also how to ask questions like the above while revealing even less detail (sorry!).

Thanks for the link, ID4, but I'd also like to actually be able to navigate to the messages via the phone interface, so any tips would be welcome. I'm on an Android smartphone.

When on my desktop computer, at the forum level there are icons off to the top right (below ‘About’), which are a D (for me) in a circle, an envelope (conversations), a bell (notifications) with a numeral by it if there is one, and the search. But on my phone, the envelope and bell icons don’t appear anywhere, so where in the interface is the link to get to conversations? I tried clicking on everything visible, but it seemed like a wild goose chase.
 

RealityOne

Elite Member
Nov 1, 2009
3,744
4,076
New Jersey
For Calling the Cards, have the "magic card" land closer to you than the spectator when you spread them out. When you instruct the spectator to pick a card, point with your finger to the cards that are on the perimeter of the pile toward the spectator and say "pick any card you want to." Most likely, they will pick a card in the area you pointed to and most likely they will pick cards that are more towards them than you. After four cards, you can tell them "mix it up a bit, pick one over this side to make it harder." Most likely, they will pick the magic card.

You can also start the trick by telling them to "put a finger on any card." If they pick a random card, then give instructions for someone to start writing things down. If they point to the magic card, say, "keep that finger there and with your other hand touch my forehead (or your finger if they are far away)." Then say, "I'm getting the sense that your card is [name card].

You can also have them touch a card and if it is the magic card, call that card and then "accidentally" pick up two cards, glimpsing the second one. Then say, "wait, this is the one you picked, right?" Put the other card back.
 
Feb 2, 2023
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1
Additionally, it seems like you might want to keep looking for stronger results. Giobbi's Card College Light series features self-working, well-designed card tricks of the present for laptop. You should read Darwin Ortiz's "Designing Miracles" (and "Strong Magic") if you simply love thinking about how card tricks are put together.
 
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