- Hello, everybody.
Welcome back.
And today, we're gonna get
into my favorite opener,
favorite opener with a
deck of cards, that is.
So go grab your deck of cards,
and let's learn the ins and outs of,
I don't have a name for
this, so comment below
what you think the name
of this trick should be.
Everybody, I think,
knows a version of this,
and it's very, very standard.
The only sleight that
you need to know for this
is a control and a double lift,
but we're gonna try to
make it more than it is
with a few simple little subtleties.
If you haven't already
seen, my last video taught
the push-off double lift,
my favorite double lift,
so you should learn that
first, then come on over back
to this video and let's get
into my favorite opener.
Now, before I go into
this, it's very important
that I let you know that
this is not necessarily
my favorite go-to effect
when it comes to magic in general, okay?
I'm only talking about a deck of cards.
What's the first thing
that I would usually do
with a deck of cards?
I say usually because
I'm gonna talk about,
in a more broad, commercial sense, now,
I do different types of magic
for different environments,
for different situations,
and I'm sure everybody else does, as well.
But, nonetheless, this is
a very straightforward,
go-to effect that you can use
in your day-to-day performances.
A lot of people use different things,
like ambitious card, for
example, as their go-to effect,
but I think that we should start smaller
and build from there.
So this version, believe it or not,
has been transforming over the last,
I would say, close to 20 years.
When I was 10 years old, I would
do a version of this trick,
and it included a glide.
So over the years, I came up
with different subtleties and handlings,
and I think this is the
best version, in my opinion.
So let's go ahead, look
at the routine first,
and then get into the explanation.
Alright, for this effect
you're going to need
a knockout white edition deck of cards.
If you do not have one of these,
stop this video right now,
'cause you need this particular
deck for this effect.
So I'll wait.
Good, got one?
Perfect, come on back.
So, obviously, I'm just
kidding, you could use any deck,
but preferably, it is a knock deck,
because they are so awesome.
52 cards, any one that you
want, it's a free choice,
not that one.
I'm just kidding, take
it out, show it around
to everybody, make sure
they all know what it is.
Does everybody have it?
They all nodded yes, and
you can place it back
anywhere that you want into
the middle of the pack.
I don't know exactly where
it is, but I know for a fact,
oh, it might be sticking out there.
I know for a fact that it's in the middle.
Obviously not the top card,
right, five of clubs is not it.
Hold out your hand, if you don't mind.
We're gonna do a little
experiment to try to find,
to see if I can find your card
in a little different way.
Five of clubs goes into your hand,
and place your other hand on
top of it, if you don't mind.
My idea is to try to take that
five out of your hand, okay,
so that's the first way
of finding the card, okay?
Basically stealing it.
Watch carefully.
I just do this.
And I just do this, don't move.
(quiet popping)
I think that might have
worked, I'm not sure.
Oh, yeah, it's perfect,
I took the five of clubs
out of your hand.
That's step number one.
Step number two,
to get your card into your hand.
If you just take a deep breath, now,
if you lift your hand slowly,
and if you turn that card over,
you'll see that it is exactly
your card, the nine of spades.
Okay, so, for this effect,
it's important to note a few things.
First and foremost is, you do
not want to dilute the magic
when doing routines or effects
that involve a double lift.
For example, if I take
the seven of hearts.
I used to just go like this,
and then look, it would change,
or I'd place it here and
I'd snap, and it'd change.
And then it evolved into having
it in the spectator's hand,
and I'd snap my fingers
and it would change,
but it didn't give 'em
enough time to perceive
something real and plausible,
and the obvious method was,
oh, how did you switch the card?
Right, so, rightfully
so, this is something
that we have to overcome
when doing effects like this.
So the way that this effect started for me
is I would literally force a
card, have them shuffle it,
and then control it to the bottom
while looking through the
pack, and then I'd say,
is this your card?
No.
And then I would do a
glide, where I'd take,
you know, the second to bottom.
I can't even do it now.
And then switch the card, right?
So it was obviously the step underneath
learning the double lift,
we're doing a cop change
or something like that.
But once you do learn that,
the obvious thing to do
is to show the card and
then just make it change,
which I think is no good,
you're diluting the magic
for such a powerful little effect.
So, with that being said, the
performance style within this
is going to be particularly for causing
no method to be realized
in the spectator's mind.
Now the performance that you just saw
is a little bit different
than what I do day-to-day,
just because we did not
learn some of the steps yet,
so usually what I would do
is I would have them
name their favorite card,
have them shuffle up the deck
and name a favorite card of theirs
or any card that they want, and
I'll get into it from there.
In this routine, in the
performance you just saw,
I just had a card selected,
which I rarely do,
and I'll talk about why
in later theory videos.
But I rarely have a
card selected like this,
but I would just control it back,
and I controlled it to
the top of the pack.
So in any case, you want that card on top,
whichever way that you feel
that it's more comfortable
for you getting it there.
And now we can start the effect.
Now I'm gonna show the
top card and, in doing so,
I'm gonna say, I'm going
to show you something
that's going to lead to finding your card.
So before, what I used to say is,
look, I'm gonna make
it come up to the top,
is that your card?
No, that's not it?
Okay, well, look, I'm gonna take this card
and change it into your card, okay?
So that was just a straightforward way
of thinking about things.
So now you're gonna say,
forget about your card for a second.
I'm gonna show you something
that's gonna lead to me finding your card.
I show the top card being
the seven of hearts,
and I do a push-off double lift.
If you do not know this one,
it's taught in my earlier video,
the one right before this one,
called the push-off double.
And I show the seven of hearts and I say,
obviously this is not your
card, 'cause you put your card
somewhere back in the center.
And I do a little bit of a, like this,
as if, you know, that's
exactly where it is
and I'm gonna try to find it from there.
Now, from here, I'm gonna take it back
and place it into their hands, as I say,
hold out their hand.
So this goes into the spectator's hands.
Now, at this point, what I used to do
is do another double lift,
and then change this card
into the card that they
had in their hands,
and then that one changes,
it was all very confusing, okay?
So now I just want to
literally have that one card
be seen again and again.
So they think they have the seven.
I'm going to control now, moving the card
from the top to the bottom of the pack,
and I do that just by slip
cutting one card, alright,
so slip cutting, just with your thumb,
taking one card there and
then cutting multiple packets
with your first finger, doing
kick cuts like this, okay?
And that ultimately takes the seven
from the top to the bottom.
So once again, there's the seven.
They think that the
seven is in their hands,
and just like this, the card
is now on the bottom, alright?
Now I'm going to place the deck
on top of the spectator's hands
and do one of these pulling actions,
as if I took out the card from their hand.
If you want to be a little bit fancy,
what you can do is, as you're doing that,
you're going to palm
off, do a gambler's hop
of this as you flash this bottom card,
before taking out the cards.
So you can do this and place
the deck into their hand,
on top of their hand, rather,
pop it up, and then show
that you took the seven out,
which wasn't there a second ago.
I, you know, sometimes do this, 50-50,
depending on my situation
and my surroundings,
but it's just as good, is
you just place this on here,
say, wait a second, pop, and reveal
that the card is now in your hand.
So that's step number one, you say.
Now this is good because
it had nothing to do,
this is an effect all in itself,
so this is really a two-step effect.
Now, they can still obviously feel and see
a card in their hand,
but that doesn't matter
because you're gonna place it to the side,
and now you're gonna say,
here's for step number two.
Step number two is to get
your card inside your hand.
Now, you say that, it is
very important to say that,
because a lot of the
times, they might even,
and I've had this happen
before, where they say
there was nothing in my
hand and the card appeared.
So anything that you can do
that psychologically puts the
effect in a better position,
right, on the wow scale, is
obviously to your advantage.
So they have the card in their hands,
they have their hand on top of it, you go,
squeeze tight, I'm gonna try to make, now,
your card appear in your hand.
Do you remember your card?
Alright, now you say something.
I like to say this line a lot,
it has nothing to do with anything,
but it makes them pay more attention
and be more serious with this,
whatever's about to happen.
You say, take a deep breath,
and you take a deep
breath with them, alright,
and a lot of the times, instead of just
snapping the fingers, I
think that's really not good
when trying to create a magical moment,
so do something else.
Squeeze their hands, take
their hands and go up and down,
like this, with it, keep your
hands there for, you know,
an almost awkward ten
seconds, look into their eyes.
Go up and down, take a deep
breath, poke them a few times,
okay, from the bottom, from the top,
like pinching their skin, right?
Anything that you can
do that would take away
from the method of, hey, it
was there in the beginning,
because if it was really
there in the beginning,
hey, it would be easy
just to snap your fingers
and then show the card, right?
So we don't want to do that.
We want to create another method
around this area right here,
pinch, do this, up and down,
lift up your hand slowly, though, slowly,
you tell them slowly lift up their hand.
They do so, and now, you'll see
that they turn over their card,
and it's that much more slow
because they really can't
believe it, at this point.
They turn over the card,
it's the selected card,
and you take your bow.
Alright, so there you have it.
That is my favorite
go-to opener card effect
that I usually do when I
pull out a deck of cards.
It's important for me to have
things like this in your arsenal,
so that you always have something
that is just hard-hitting
and, but I think the most important thing
to take out of this video
is to not do things really by the book.
Don't just do a double
lift, snap your fingers,
and show the card.
Don't just put a card in the middle
and magically make it come up to the top
in, like, two seconds.
Think a little bit more outside the box.
So little subtleties, like,
okay, your card's still here,
take a deep breath,
okay, hold out your hand,
place the deck on top,
okay, wait ten seconds,
okay, just give it time.
You don't need to rush
everything all so often.
I think it makes it even more powerful.
So even though this is a very
quick trick and very simple,
you can really build it into
something more than it is.
Good, so if you liked this video,
or the past ones that I've done,
and got something out of
it, and if you like me,
or if you don't like me
and if you just like my cards, either way,
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