card magic – MagicShow.Tips

Max Maven’s Ansology

On Monday, I went in to have hand surgery. It’s a trigger finger release; hopefully, I will have full use of my middle finger on my right hand again! Before the surgery, I ordered the Max Maven book, Ansology. The night before surgery I started working through the book. This book is a combination of several previously published Max Maven books along with a little bit of new commentary.

A hand with cards and a Magic book by Max Maven

The nice thing about this book is that it doesn’t rely on heavy sleight of hand for most of it. So I’m able to work through a lot of this stuff with only one hand. So far two great tricks I found are Abacus and Out Of Sorts.

Abacus is an epic trick with multiple endings; it feels very modern, even though I think the trick is like 40 years old. The only drawback is that the trick uses a full deck setup, so for this trick to work, you’d really need a deck switch before you do it.

Out Of Sorts is a great hands-off card trick where you not only tell the audience where their mentally selected card is with your back turned, but you also tell them what it is. This trick does have a bit of procedure up front, which I’m not a fan of; however, I think the payoff makes it a real head-scratcher. I think this is going to be my go to trick right now with only one hand.

I’m looking forward to going through more of the book. I’m familiar with one of the books that’s contained in this anthology Of previously published Max Maven Books. This style of magic, which relies heavily on procedure, math, anagrams, and very light sleight of hand, is great for me right now!

-Louie

Doing Card Tricks Onstage

This is going to be an angry old man post. If you’re doing card tricks onstage and the audience needs to be able to tell what a specific card is, DON’T use normal poker-size cards. I can’t clearly see them from the third row.

There are options to make things play further back into the audience. Card-Shark makes two great options. Number one are large index cards, those have indexes that are a little bit bigger than standard cards. The best option to still keep the feel of a normal card trick, without going to jumbo cards are the Phoenix Parlour sized cards. These have larger indexes and are physically larger than poker sized cards.

Here’s a picture of the different card’s indexes:

playing cards with normal and large indexes

And here they are lined up:

You can do *most* sleight of hand moves with the Parlour sized cards. I’ve done my card to pocket routine with them and that involves palming a card!

Move up a size and reach a bigger audience!

-Louie

Writing Patter for a Card Trick

There’s a routine that I’m playing with that uses just the face cards, and they end up being arranged into pairs. Here’s the script that I’m working on for it:

I have all twelve of the face cards. They’re all shuffled up.

(Show cards mixed)

And like a veggie platter, no pears/pairs.
While I deal them, say stop whenever you want, and I’ll mix them at that point.

(Do Paul Curry’s Swindle Switch mix)
They’re more mixed than when I do the laundry. Thanks to Brown vs. The Laundry room, that decision entitles me to pink shirts! Hopefully you mixed them in the right spots to arrange them in pairs like wedding rings, matching in cut, color and three months salary.

Let’s find a spot, give me a number one to twelve.

(Deal to that number and show the next two cards match!)

They match! Let’s do it again, like the time warp!

(Deal to that number and show the next two cards match!)

We need even piles.

(Deal two piles of four cards)

Touch a pile, but choose wisely; the other pile will be banished to the third circle of hell, which is Cerberus and snow. Which isn’t too bad if you like winter and dogs.

(Deal the unpicked in a row. Fan out their pile)

Touch a card.

(Flip the card they picked face up, then deal their cards in a row opposite yours)

And I’ll pick a card.

(Flip over a card. Remove the other two columns of cards that weren’t picked and show they don’t match. Then flip over the cards opposite the two face up cards to show they match!)

They Match!

Method wise, this is a combination of two Nick Trost tricks. This is still in the very early phases of development.

-Louie

Is Your Double Lift Good?

One of the problems with magicians is that when they get busted doing a move, they think the person is a “heckler”. Here’s a social media post I recently came across:

Here’s the main problem, every double lift looks like a double lift. Then add in that everyone who has had a passing interest in magic learns the double lift. Put those together, and 90% of double lifts will get busted by anyone who has learned a couple of card tricks.

OK, so what do you do about it?

In the summers, I perform a lot for teenagers, and when I noticed that it was starting to be a problem, I removed traditional double lifts from my close up set. I do use one, but in a weird way, and if someone busts it, because of how it’s used, I can show them they’re wrong.

Think about it: if someone learned two card tricks and one of them is the double lift in the context of an ambitious card style trick, then when you show them your ambitious card routine, you’re showing them a beginner’s magic trick. You might as well take out the ball vase at that point. You need to do something to separate yourself from basic magic tricks.

How do you do that?

Put in the work and figure it out! That’s exactly what I did for my That Way More card routine. I created something that doesn’t look like what they know and use techniques that aren’t typically used in the routine that kids learn.

-Louie

A Close Up Magic Routine

There’s a new sequence I’m playing with for my stage show. This is close up magic with projection. This whole sequence is done solo, with just me onstage. Here’s what’s going on:

1: Stand Up Chop Cup: This is the chop cup routine from my 2025 PCAM Lecture Notes. This routine doesn’t use a table and is done solo onstage with no projection. It ends with the production of a tennis ball.

2: Shuffle Routine: I move to the table, with the close up camera on it. A deck of cards is introduced and shown in new deck order. It’s shuffled a few times and is spread out to show it’s back in new deck order. This is repeated a second time.

3: That Way More: This is a modified version of my horizontal Ambitious Card routine. I’ve published parts of this routine in Vanish Magazine.

4: Card in Tennis Ball: The ending of the sequence is the selected and marked card comes out of the tennis ball that as produced at the beginning of the sequence!

What I like about the sequence is that it ends with a callback to the tennis ball that was produced at the beginning of the sequence.

-Louie

An Easy Trick with an Elmsley Count

Here’s an easy color changing backs sequence with an Elmsley Count. I came up with this the other night, but it feels like I’ve either come up with this same sequence before or read it somewhere.

You need three red backed cards and three blue backed cards. The set up from the top down is: red-red- blue-blue-blue-red

1: Do an Elmsley Count to show four red backs
2: Do an Elmsley Count to show three red and one blue. The final card of the Elmsley Count goes to the bottom of the packet.
3: Do an Elmsley Count to show two red and two blue.
4: Do an Elmsley Count to show one red and three blue.
5: Do a final Elmsley Count to show four blue cards.

There you go, not much to it. Pick up some cards and try it for fun!

-Louie

Stud Playing Cards – New Old Stock!

When I’m on the road, I frequently stop to stretch my legs and walk through junk shops. I was super surprised to find two unopened decks of old stock Stud Playing Cards!

These were my favorite playing cards when they were available. They haven’t made them in years. I think someone (US Playing Card Co.?) made another batch of them about 10 years ago; however, they were on a different stock than the original, and basically Bicycle Cards with the stud back printed on them.

I’m planning on adding these cards to the stack of nice cards that I practice with. They’ll last longer that way than a working deck that lasts 45mins to a hour.

-Louie

Color Change with Cards

A couple of days ago Doug Conn posted about the book Card Finesse by Jon Racherbaumer:

His post about the book, made me remember an cool card move that’s in that book. Well, I’m 99% sure it’s in that book, it might be in Card Finesse II.

I had to slightly adjust the camera move. When done as written, there’s a slight flash that the normal human eye watching won’t see, but it won’t withstand repeated viewing on the internet.

-Louie

Off With His Head – Magic Trick Review

In a box of old magic tricks that I came across, there was David Regal’s Off With His Head. This is a packet trick that is essentially B’wave, but with different beats and effects. B’wave is a prediction, with multiple things that prove you committed to the prediction. Off With His Head is a magic trick, where several different effects happen.

In Off With His Head, the effects are:
1: The back of the selected card changes color
2: The faces on the selected king disappear (cut out of the card)

I used this trick as my “trick of the day” at the fair I was performing at.

I wish this trick had a third beat to it, like B’wave does. I guess I could have the card appear face up, or have all the other cards blank. It would give a third beat; however, I’m not sure either would add to the trick.

I’m liking this packet trick and I’ll probably keep doing it until I wear out the cards.

-Louie

PADO Card Trick’s Ad Review

The ad for the trick PADO came across my social media feed, and I have some thoughts on just the ad. I want to be clear, I didn’t buy this, these are just my impressions of the ad for the trick.

First of all, the cover for the ad when it was served to me has the palmed card flashing. Here’s the screenshot of the ad for PADO:

This is a very minor thing, and could have been an auto generated cover that the magic company had no real control over. Alright, here’s the actual demo:

Whenever I see a demo where the table is so black that you can’t tell where it ends and the magician’s black clothes start, this is a trick that uses black art. More than that, it’s also probably (I could be wrong) manipulated with a filter to make the black colors blacker. This is fair game for online content, but not in person performing. Once again, I would love to be wrong about this.

Why is it important to know if it’s black art?

If it is, you can’t do this trick “walkaround” without carrying a special surface to do it on. That severely limits where you can do it. You can’t do it on any tabletop. I guess the term “walkaround” can mean a lot of things, but it’s going to be difficult to do on a picnic table in the park on a sunny day.

Another issue I have is that the website says it’s for “beginners”; however, in the trailer there is a control and mercury fold. To accomplish those, the magician in the video drops his hands below the table, then there’s a camera cut. If they can’t do the sleight of hand deceptively in front of the camera for the demo, then it’s not beginner level (in my opinion).

Personally, I think this would be great for magic that’s filtered through a camera where you can be in control of lighting and the black balance, and not when you’re performing to a group of people in front of you. The magic company is selling something that technically could be done in those scenarios, but it probably won’t be something you can do 100% of the time in those scenarios.

There is Brent Braun and Andy Glass’ Chattanooga Kickstand which looks very similar, but without the black art.

What’s written above is my opinion without seeing the PADO gimmick- just my commentary and opinion on how this is being sold. I would love to be wrong, and I could do this on any surface…and it’s not a recreation of the Brent Braun and Andy Glass gimmick.

– Louie