Jan 5, 2009

Studying new card tricks: Gambling Tricks

As a magician, it can't be helped but be too flashy sometimes when performing tricks. Over the years however, I've learned that sometimes the simplest and subtlest act is the most effective especially to the most doubtful of audiences.

This realization led me to review again Erdnase's Book as well as to study gambling techniques. The techniques for both are quite similar but I found gambling techniques more effective since it's very subtle. Although something I found disadvantageous about it is the use of a table. Although my style is generally walkthrough, finding a spot in the table to do a trick is quite a hard especially during parties where the food is overflowing.

I actually first came to know certain techniques when I got to see a feature on John Scarne, exposing the methods of cheating in gambling. That's the first time I heard about Bottoms, Seconds and Pull- Throughs. The documentary didnt only show cheating methods but also good tricks and the narrator just sounded really entertaining and fun.

Unfortunately my skills aren't really that good and I'm still practicing a lot of these methods. So far the only gambling theme magic that I could say that I am good at is the Classic Three Card Monte. No special cards, no gimmicks just pure sleight of hand. I still have to test it though to the real world but since I'm really hesitant at it (for the fear of being arrested especially if performed in public) so I might be just showing it to friends.

Another thing that I'm working at is a "always winning hand trick" wherein a series of shuffles and cuts would always leave me with a winning hand no matter what. I know I'm still far at producing this effect but who knows, I might just nail it.

Oh well for now I jsut have to read and practice more, until then...

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