All tricks easy to figure out?

[T'ai Chi]

Are all magic tricks easy to figure out??

I can't say I've met one yet that is too challenging to figure out.

That's not to say I have the dexterity, skill, acting, presence to do any, I don't, except for the canned ones and the easy ones, but just that most all tricks I've seen seemed really easy to solve.

What are some peoples' candidates for hard/near impossible to figure out tricks?

[Garrette]

TERASABOS

Five cups, mugs, hats, whatever...it doesn't matter.

Spectator takes something, preferably of emotional value, it doesn't matter what, and places it under one of the cups, etc.

Magician legitimately does not see which one it is placed under.

Magician returns and proceeds to turn over the cups until only the one is left.

No gimmicks. No sleights. Free choice by spectator.

Caveat: Impossible to figure out when performed by a skilled magician. Easy to blow the presentation.

[fsol]

Derren Brown did that with 6 cups as part of his russian roulette show and said that the russian roulette technique was the same principle. Now, not knowing how TERASABOS works, I wouldn't know if he was telling the truth or just using misdirection.

[Zep]

Figured already. Would "movement" be a key clue?

[Garrette]

Not movement, gestures, facial expressions, anything. No forcing a choice on the spectator.

If Brown did his six cups the same as TERASABOS, I'm not sure it could--in the details--be the same as the russian roulette method.

I'll give one semi-hint in the interest of full disclosure and say that the magician almost always turns over the right cup as the last one.

On occasion, the magician will instead turn the cup over on the first or second turn, but he let's you know that's what he's doing; it's not a mistake.

Now if that doesn't screw up the non-magicians' attempts to figure this out, I don't know what will.

[Zep]

No, not "movement" referring to the people, "movement" referring to the cups or whatever.

[Garrette]

Nope, not that either. At least in the case of Terasabos. I don't know about his russian roulette method.

The method is extremely simple (in concept, not execution), diabolical for that reason, and not at all related to what you think it would be.

There are NO tells (to use a poker term).

No more hints or answers.

[reprise]

Having watched Derren Brown on TV last night and being totally captivated by many of his performances within that show, I was quite delighted today to find that he explains on his website the methodology behind them and even offers "practise this skill" type exercises.

I understand the "mounting hugely expensive illusion which people will no longer want to see if they understand how it works" argument, but I remain in awe of the illusionists who can perform "simple" illusions whose execution I understand perfectly so well that they still enchant me. That - to me - is "magic". I know perfectly well how the various "joined rings" illusions work, but seeing them well executed still thrills me more than the "smoke and mirrors" (pun fully intended) disappearing elephant style illusions.

[Zep]

I don't know or play poker. What's a "tell"?

[Garrette]

A 'tell' is a giveaway that you don't know about.

For instance, in poker you sometimes have to bluff, which means to keep betting as if you have a strong hand when in reality you have a weak hand.

A 'tell' might be that everytime you bluff, you start drumming the table with your fingers or tapping your toes or humming a song or smirking or raising an eyebrow.

A fellow poker player who discovers your tell will always know when you're bluffing and when you're not, but you will never know how he knows. You just keep losing.

---

For TERASABOS, I was only trying to communicate that there is no equivalent in the method. The magician doesn't jiggle the table to see which cup moves less than the others, or see how the light shines less through one than the others, or see which one the spectator tries to look at least. Nothing like that.

The magician simply fools you in TERASABOS and fools you in such a way that, if you are not familiar with it, and he presents it in a manner similar to Derren Brown's manner, you are astonished, devastated, dumbfounded, bewildered.

[Zep]

I can think of at least three variations on a theme that is extraordinarily simple and easy to set up for this trick, yet they could easily go wrong too. How do I tell people without blabbing it, and how do I get to know if this is how it was done?

[Zep]

Thanks, Garrette. I understand now. No, my theory on this does not involve such complicated actions, and does not depend on "looking into their eyes" or stooges, etc. It's one of those things that is so obvious once you can see it, that even a child could do it.

[Peter S.]

The Hawk, one of Max Mavin's routines is completely impossible to figure out, even if you are familiar with the Gibreth Priciple, on which it is based.

[Zep]

Peter, you are speaking English but making NO sense... But since I'm not even remotely a magician, I'll just leave it alone for now!

[Brown]

At TAM2, I'll be happy to demonstrate some tricks that people almost certainly will not be able to figure out... and I'm a crappy magician!

[Garrette]

Hey! That's one of my performance names! Back off, dude, and bow to "The Crappy Magician!"

P.S. 'tis twoo, 'tis twoo, 'tis pity, 'tis twoo, but I am a crappy magician on the technical side of it. I do the presentation very well, though, if I may say so myself and I may because nobody here can stop me.

So there.

[Peter S.]

Quote:

Originally posted by Zep
Peter, you are speaking English but making NO sense... But since I'm not even remotely a magician, I'll just leave it alone for now!

Okay, imagine this:
The magician freely shows a deck of cards and places the deck of cards in front of two people. He asks one of the spectators to give the deck a cut and each of the two spectators take a card from where the deck was cut. The cards are replaced and the magician asks each of the spectators to cut the deck again, (while this is done the magician looks away so there can be no doubt that the magician has no idea where the cards are in the deck). The magician cuts the deck in two piles and asks one of the spectators to riffle shuffle the deck. The magician then takes the deck and starts to deal the cards face down on the table. At some point the magician suddenly stops and asks one of the spectators to name their card. The magician then asks the spectator to turn over the card the magician stopped at to reveal it is, in fact, the card named. The magician then gives the deck a shuffle and starts to deal the cards again to find the second spectator's card, but stops saying, "This is boring, let's try something different..." The magician then looks into the spectators eyes and, after a few moments of concentration, names the second spectator's card.

It's interesting to note that throughout most of the trick, (until the magician cuts the cards for the spectator to shuffle), the magician does not handle the cards; all of the cutting and shuffling is done by the spectators. It's also important to note that the deck is not marked or stripped and may be examined.

[roger]

Quote:

Originally posted by Peter S.
It's interesting to note that throughout most of the trick, (until the magician cuts the cards for the spectator to shuffle), the magician does not handle the cards; all of the cutting and shuffling is done by the spectators. It's also important to note that the deck is not marked or stripped and may be examined.

Examined, as in I can look at the faces of the cards to verify it is a normal 52 card, four suit deck?

[wert]

^^^Yep, it's a normal deck. I use this effect now and again. Very puzzling and effective "impossible Location".

[Brown]

Quote:

Originally posted by Garrette
Hey! That's one of my performance names! Back off, dude, and bow to "The Crappy Magician!"

Well, I shall say then that I am a "pitiful" magician who has no intention of quitting his day job.

In all fairness, I am a better juggler than a magician, and a better magician than a singer.

[Brown]

One of the tricks I've recently developed is a combination of about four different tricks. Basically, the performer makes a prediction, and shows the prediction to some spectators, but not to others. (For better measure, one of the spectators signs his name below the prediction.) The prediction is placed in the center of the table face down, and is not touched by anyone until the conclusion of the trick.

The performer then invites a spectator (or two or more spectators) to select, one at a time, a certain number of cards from anywhere from a shuffled deck that is spread out before him. The spectator is invited to shuffle the cards he selected, and to select a smaller number of cards from this group. This smaller number of cards is shuffled, and a single card is selected from this group.

The performer then recounts all that has happened up to this point, emphasizing that everything has been done with the free choice of the spectator, and that there was no way the performer could know what cards would be selected at each stage. The performer then reminds everyone that, before the first card was selected, he made a prediction that has been sitting in full view the whole time, and has not been touched. The question is... will the chosen card match the prediction?

When the chosen card is turned over, the spectators who saw the prediction early on might start to laugh or otherwise disclose that the prediction that they saw was incorrect. The performer invites one of them to turn over the prediction, and incredibly, the prediction is indeed correct! (Even though the prediction is different from the one they saw earlier, the spectator's signature is below the correct prediction.)

The result is a surprise for all of the spectators, some of whom see that a freely chosen card was accurately predicted. For the spectators who saw the prediction ahead of time, they are doubly surprised, because they thought the performer goofed in making his prediction.

I doubt that anyone other than someone very knowledgeable about card magic could figure out how this trick is done.

I will not reveal how this trick is done. I will say, however, that the trick does not always "work" as I've described. If the spectator inadvertently fouls up the trick, there are techniques for recovery in which I nevertheless find the predicted card, and these techniques are almost as baffling as what I've described.

[Cain]

Quote:

I can't say I've met one yet that is too challenging to figure out.

Nonsense. Maybe you "figured" out a possible solution, but it's hubris to say that you figured out "the" solution. Unless you've seen a trick repeated several times to different audiences, how can you be sure you've discovered the secret?

Ah, the illusion of certainty... truly the most powerful self-working effect known today.

[Zep]

I agree! Regarding some tricks, I sometimes believe I have figured out A solution, or possibly a number of solutions. But without the magician revealing HIS method to me, I'm never certain I am right.

And, of course, some tricks I have yet to figure out... That's the fun of this, for me! Like solving cryptic crosswords (which I can't do very well anyway).

[T'ai Chi]

Quote:

Originally posted by Cain

Nonsense. Maybe you "figured" out a possible solution, but it's hubris to say that you figured out "the" solution. Unless you've seen a trick repeated several times to different audiences, how can you be sure you've discovered the secret?

Ah, the illusion of certainty... truly the most powerful self-working effect known today.

I haven't seen any trick that I couldn't figure out so far. Not to brag, but that is just the truth.

Sure, there are MANY I couldn't figure out right after seeing it done, but after some reflection, experimentation, and using simpler tricks/methods as building blocks to solve the larger trick, it is usually pretty easy to come up with a very plausible solution to any trick.

[Cain]

Which tricks are you talking about? The one where grandpa "grabs your nose"? Or maybe it's the one where he severs and restores his thumb.

I remember one guy offering the following "explanation" for Blaine's handling of the invisible deck in his popular special:

"He just reverses two or three cards(near the top, bottom, or middle of the deck, and then asks hundreds of random people on the street to name a card. He's bound to be correct a few times."

Well, yeah, that's a *possible* explanation. Is that how Blaine did it though? No.

[LW]

As I've said before, I'm not even a competent amateur magician and more like a lazy wannabe.

However, this is one effect that I once presented:

I walked to a girl I know and asked her "Hey, name a playing card" (or, more precisely, I asked it in Finnish "Hei, sano jokin pelikortti"). After she named one, I asked her to put hand in the pocket of my overcoat, take out a sealed envelope, and open it. It contained the card that she had named.

You may ponder about that one.

[T'ai Chi]

Quote:

Originally posted by LW
As I've said before, I'm not even a competent amateur magician and more like a lazy wannabe.

However, this is one effect that I once presented:

I walked to a girl I know and asked her "Hey, name a playing card" (or, more precisely, I asked it in Finnish "Hei, sano jokin pelikortti"). After she named one, I asked her to put hand in the pocket of my overcoat, take out a sealed envelope, and open it. It contained the card that she had named.

You may ponder about that one.

Well, there are many methods for doing that. What comes to mind first, would be akin to Blaines' 'think of a card, but not the jack of spades/queen of hearts, that is too easy..' etc., routine.

(edited to change ace of spades to jack of spades/queen of hearts)

[Garrette]

Heck, figuring out a way to do that trick is easy.

What I can't figure out is how the heck he said:

"Hei, sano jokin pelikortti"

[Brown]

Al Jaffee of Mad Magazine wrote a book about magic in which he "explained" some of the tricks. For example, Jaffee describe how can a magician make it appear as though water runs uphill. The secret is to tilt the entire auditorium, audience and all, with a hydraulic jack.

Could it be done that way? Maybe. (There are some magicians who use a very similar principle, tilting or moving an entire stage to achieve an effect.) But usually there's a simpler explanation for some of these startling tricks.

I have often thought I'd figured out a trick, but upon learning how the trick was actually done, I felt like a dope because the the secret was so much simpler than what I'd imagined.

[LuxFerum]

Quote:

Originally posted by LW
As I've said before, I'm not even a competent amateur magician and more like a lazy wannabe.

However, this is one effect that I once presented:

I walked to a girl I know and asked her "Hey, name a playing card" (or, more precisely, I asked it in Finnish "Hei, sano jokin pelikortti"). After she named one, I asked her to put hand in the pocket of my overcoat, take out a sealed envelope, and open it. It contained the card that she had named.

You may ponder about that one.

Does your overcoat have 52 pockets?

[roger]

Quote:

Originally posted by LW
As I've said before, I'm not even a competent amateur magician and more like a lazy wannabe.

However, this is one effect that I once presented:

I walked to a girl I know and asked her "Hey, name a playing card" (or, more precisely, I asked it in Finnish "Hei, sano jokin pelikortti"). After she named one, I asked her to put hand in the pocket of my overcoat, take out a sealed envelope, and open it. It contained the card that she had named.

You may ponder about that one.

Good God, I figured out the trick!! You found a way to get a pretty girl to stick her hand in your pocket! Very sneaky. Well done, sir, well done.

[LW]

Quote:

Originally posted by LuxFerum

Does your overcoat have 52 pockets?

No. Only three (and that was really the only pocket with an envelope inside).

[Brown]

Quote:

Originally posted by LuxFerum
Does your overcoat have 52 pockets?

This is how Al Jaffee "explained" a similar trick.

[LW]

Quote:

Originally posted by roger
Good God, I figured out the trick!! You found a way to get a pretty girl to stick her hand in your pocket! Very sneaky. Well done, sir, well done.

I have also another to do with two pretty girls where I get to hold their hands and gaze deeply into the eyes of the prettier one.

I give a deck of cards to the first one, ask her to cut it and deal five cards to herself, and then give the dect to the other so that she can do the same. Then they both get to decide which of the five cards they like most, and exchange the other four with each other. Then I ask them to shuffle the five cards well so that I can't possibly know which one was the original.

The first girl then deals the cards face up on the table, I take hold of her hand and divine her card by gently moving her hand over the cards.

Next, I ask the second girl put extend her hand palm up, put all her cards on the palm and cover them by the other hand. I then put her hands between mine and stat to gaze deeply into her eyes, asking her to think about her card. Then I name it. (Though, to tell the truth, looking into pretty eyes is so distracting that I sometimes need two tries to get the right card).

[T'ai Chi]

Impromptu tricks that involve hot females.. That would be a magic book I'd buy.

[Cain]

Quote:

I have often thought I'd figured out a trick, but upon learning how the trick was actually done, I felt like a dope because the the secret was so much simpler than what I'd imagined.

I think we should all refer to this as Cain's dictum. If you're not certain how an illusion works, the solution is simpler than you suspect.


Tai Chi- hot girls do not come included

Besides, applying Cain's dictum, I've already got it all figured out: marked cards.

[LW]

Quote:

Originally posted by Cain
Besides, applying Cain's dictum, I've already got it all figured out: marked cards.

Not that I've ever used my marked deck for anything, but here's a helpful hint for those who want to create one:

If you devise a nice binary encoding of the different card values (two bits for suits, four for values), remember to mark them so that the more visible color represents "one" if you don't want to use time to learn to do one's complement arithmetic in your head.

Trust me in this.

[T'ai Chi]

A simple solution to using marked decks would be for the spectator to bring his own deck and ask if the magician would care to exchange decks.

Also, the spectator, when examining the magician's deck, could flip deck like a flip book, and see if the backs of the decks are changing as it is flipped.

[Silicon]

Jeeze, David Blaine's doing the Invisible Deck?


Did he get that at the Magic Shop at Disneyland?





Are some tricks so ubiquitous that they really shouldn't be performed by anyone over 12 years old?



Brown, sounds like your trick is a really great one. I'd love to see the trick and the variations you came up with.

For my impossible to figure out trick, I nominate The Turk. Anyone who admires cabinet illusions will enjoy the history of the first "machine" to beat humans at playing chess. It was a masterful illusion. And It'd still fool em today.

[Tesserat]

Quote:

Originally posted by T'ai Chi


I haven't seen any trick that I couldn't figure out so far. Not to brag, but that is just the truth.

Sure, there are MANY I couldn't figure out right after seeing it done, but after some reflection, experimentation, and using simpler tricks/methods as building blocks to solve the larger trick, it is usually pretty easy to come up with a very plausible solution to any trick.

"but after some reflection, experimentation, and using simpler tricks/methods as building blocks to solve the larger trick, ", - this is a "pretty easy way"?

Sorry T'ai Chi, but the only way that you can say that you've come up with a plausible solution (or more accurately, a workable technique) is to practice until you think you can do it as well as the trick you saw, and then show your version to someone who's seen the trick. If he says it's not the same, you don't have the solution. And a "plausible solution" is not the same as a solution, which would be a workable technique.

I've "figured out" a few techniques, only to find that if I actually go all the way to trying to perform the trick, there's a catch somewhere.

I'm lucky to have as a close friend an incredible magician, Shawn Farquhar, who's won many awards in close up magic. He shares almost all his techniques with me, with the result that I can figure out a lot of tricks. But even Shawn will sometimes show me a video, and say "I'd love to know how he does this. I got an idea, but it seems awkward"

If Shawn can be fooled , anyone can.