One of the things that I do every now and then is get a deck of gaffed cards and try to figure out tricks to do with the different trick cards. I don’t read/watch the instructions, that makes this a fun creativity exercise. Right now in my office I have a deck of the Ultimate Gaff Deck that I bought because I was playing around with a four ace trick and needed some double backers.
This pack is sitting on my desk and I opened it this morning and the first thing that I noticed is that there is a set of cards for a three card monte using double ended cards. I took the cards out, set them on the table, then immediately thought, “why do all the monte routines that use these cards have them flat?”
![Three card monte](http://www.magicshow.tips/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/2020-07-30-07.03.21-768x1024.jpg)
When you see this trick done in movies or for real on the street, the cards are always bent.
![Three Card Monte](http://www.magicshow.tips/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/2020-07-30-07.04.03-1024x768.jpg)
The only reason that I can think of is that having them bent changes the handling a little bit. If you think about the time that these gimmicked three card monte routines started getting popular with Unconquered Card by Mike Rogers and Micheal Skinner’s Ulitmate 3 Card Monte, I bet writing up a routine with them bent would have been rough and made the routines harder to sell.
You can hide the gimmicks just fine with the cards bent.
![Gimmicked Three Card Monte](http://www.magicshow.tips/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/2020-07-30-07.03.43-768x1024.jpg)
I’m planning on playing with them today and see if I can come up with a short routine with them.