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

What is the most useful sleight in card magic?

emagician

emagician

Oct 11, 2007
277
2
I know many sleights but I know you know more, so what, in your opinion, is the most useful sleight of all card magic?
 
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 honestly don't think it matters what is most useful. I can create the same effect of a card coming to the top of the deck with a pass AND a double lift, but it looks the same to the audience. They don't care whether you're doing a self-working effect or a knuckle-busting one. They can't tell the difference.

It's not just the sleights and technical aspects of the trick - while they are very important as well, it's the performance that really counts in my mind.

John :cool:
 
i would say with out a doubt that the double lift would have to be the most useful sleight. it can be used as a color change, a control, a switch, ect. its entirely angle sensitive and can be done as slow as you want. more tricks spawn from the double than anything else. of course all sleights are important, but i dont even think its a question what is the most useful.
 
Honestly people should think before they post these uselss threads. Of course its the double lift, it's always been the double lift.

I'm sorry that I am being so harsh, but really think before you post a thread, it would make the site a lot more organzied.

I'm pretty sure the double lift is the move thatt fooled houdini, can't remember to well, but I've seen videos and heard that rumor.

If you can do a double lift that no one can detect, then you can get anyway with basically anything
 
A good pinky break, multiple life & turnovers and a convincing force (in my opinion since I cannot do a good classic force, the Hofinzser(sp) spread force is the next best thing)
 
Pinky break and all kind of breaks,we need it for almost all the effects..
Double Lift very USEFUL..


Pass I think is used but not everybody perform it, because dont give the time that deserves..
 
Eddie has the right answer in my opinion. How many of you actually practise your grips? Mechanic's? Biddle? Dealer's?

Followed by breaks. Breaks are WAY underpractised by so many magicians nowadays. Thus the large, gaping hole in front of the deck when they hold a break. Holding a break is not just "leaving a gap between the cards". It's more than that.

Mr Fisher should be able to tell us more.

- harapan. magic!
 
maxrob22 said:
I think its a grip not a sleight.
I would have to say the double b/c of the simple magic you can produce with it all the way to the complex ways to use it.
Robbie:D
Click to expand...

You don't understand my point. And GRIPS are and SHOULD BE considered as sleights.
I agree with Harapanong that breaks are really not practiced. It is really important much as the double lift. Without the break, the double lift would be much harder to achieve(not saying doing it without a break is bad) but lots of people depend on breaks to do their double lift.


@Ampersan,
For once I actually don't find this thread useless at all. It is your opinion that you think the double lift is the most important sleight, others have different opinions.
It helps others understand sleights more clearly. I would agree with you if this was "your most favorite sleight" thread but it's not. It is our opinion which sleight is most important to us personally.
 
I would have to said the double lift b/c it is the one sleight I used the most, and b/c you can do so many things with it.

Tyler.
 
In my opinion all sleights are important depending on what the performer wants to accomplish.

But if you were to ask me what is the card sleight I use the most, it would deffinately have to be the "double lift" like many others in here.

JFH
 
I will have to go with the majority and say the double lift. Not only is it probably the most important, but the most DIFFICULT sleight to perorm. Yes, I said one of the most difficult to perform. There are loads of sleights out there that, even if you were a professional magician, you could not see anything not normal. Palms, Passes, Side Steals, Bottom deals, Second Deals, Center Deals, Convincing Controls... the list goes on.

But any magician, even a beginner, can always tell when a double lift has been performed.

My view may be wrong, but the only time I know I can do a certain sleight is when other magicians can't see me doing it. Simply because I perform to other magicians 80 percent of the time.

Never have I seen a trick where I have not spotted a double lift, even Paul Wilson's Ultra Natural. I know people will disagree, but it's just an opinion :D
 
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