Tag: red black shuffle

A Shuffle and a Cut to Order!

I’ve been playing with some shuffle sequences. You can see one of them at this blog post from a few days ago called Red / Black Separation. In a natural extension of that shuffle sequence I came up with what I’m calling A Shuffle and a Cut to Order.

Here’s what it looks like:

@louiefoxx Shuffle and a cut to order! #cardtrick #magictrick #shuffle #cards #poker #magic #magician ♬ original sound – Louie Foxx

I like the progressive nature of this routine where the cards go from shuffled, to separated by color to finally them all in new deck order! The trick has three different beats to it (but not three effects) which I like and each builds upon the previous. The other night thing about this over the previous Red/Black Separation is that this is much easier to do!

I’m glad I kept playing with this!

-Louie

Red / Black Separation

I’ve always like red / black separation card effects. I think it’s because when I was a teenager I saw a John Mendoza VHS tape where he did a routine called “the squeeze” or something like that. The effect was a deck was shuffled and kept going back to red/black order.

Over the years I’ve done several versions of this in my close up magic. The other night I was playing with a version that I had come up with as an offshoot of something else I was working on.

Here’s what it looks like:

@louiefoxx Two shuffles, that’s all. #cardtrick #magic #cardmagic #magictrick #cards #shuffle ♬ original sound – Louie Foxx

Then ending where they separate into suits I like, but not sure that to non-magicians that payoff is any better than just red/black. Also I think it needs three phases. The first two could simply be shuffles into red/black. Maybe the second shuffle is a zarrow and up the ladder cut?

I’ll play with it more and actually try it on someone this week to see if it plays well.

– Louie

Unseen Kicker…

Lately, I’m trying to be better at directed practicing. This is working on something specific, versus just playing around with palms, or whatever. Last night I was I was practicing the Quad-Triumph that I posted about recently. Basically this is a Triumph type card effect that uses four shuffles instead of the traditional single shuffle.

One thing that hit me was that at the end there could be a subtle kicker. Right now the cards start in a mixed order and they end in a mixed order. If they ended in a known order, that would add a layer to the trick. Ideally that known order would be new deck order.

Last night I was able to figure out how to get the cards into an order that was one half red and the other half black and the end. Unfortunately this little touch will largely go unnoticed as it happens at the same time as the cards all facing the same direction. It’s one of the those things that if a magician see it, it will add to the effect to them. It’s the little things, things that don’t need to be there and won’t be seen by most people are what makes something art.

This is visually pretty good, and definitely takes the trick a step further. It’s a good compromise for now, but I have a feeling I’ll be working more to figure out how to get it into new deck order.