Hi,

I'm currently reading some magic theory books (e.g.: "strong magic" from ortiz) and therefore think a lot about the theoretical background of card tricks. I also enjoy creating my own tricks (although I'm pretty new to magic) and the following one is an example.

It's basically a variation of dream card from Ortiz (or at least the plot of Dreamcard was the inspiration) and I'm wondering what others think about the plot/effect.

The effect would be something like the following:
The magician riffles the cards with the thumb until a spectator says stop. It's a fair choice and the spectator really gets the card he wants (and can also change it). The card is placed face down on the table, the magician turns his back to the spectator to not see it while the spectator looks at the card (let's say it's 9H). After that, the card is returned to a location where the spectator says stop. Before it gets inserted, the magician asks the spectator to sign the card to ensure that the card will be unique. The card is then genuinely lost in the deck and the cards are shuffled multiple times. Then, a second spectator selects another card (magician riffles the cards until he says stop). The magician turns the card over and tells the second spectator to also sign the card (let's say it's the 4C). He instructs the spectator to hold his hands closed over the table and the magician puts the 2nd spectator card (while it's face up with the signature visible) under the hands of the 2nd spectator on the table. The card is then covered by the hands of the 2nd spectator and can't be seen anymore. He then shuffles the cards and says that he still needs to find the first spectator's card. He takes a card from the middle of the deck, puts the card face down under the hands of the first spectator and announces that it's the spectator card. He then asks the spectator to say loud the name of his selected card. The magician then behaves like something went wrong, but quickly recovers and says that he will fix it. With just a single snap, he let's the card disappear under the first spectators hand. After a quick pause, he mentions, that he instead teleports the card under the 2nd spectator's hand. When the 2nd spectator slowly lifts his hands up, the first spectator card with the correct signature can be seen. The magicians continues: "If the first spectator card is under your hand, logically your card must be under the hands of the first spectator". The first spectator then lifts his hands and a face down card is seen. The magician intructs the spectator to look at the card and to announce if it's the 2nd spectator's card. The first spectator then says "no, it's not the correct card". The magician looks again like something went wrong. He openly turns over the full deck of cards looking for the 2nd spectator card (4C), but it can't be seen in this deck. He asks the first spectator which card he received and the first spectator shows a blanko card (empty face). The magician then says: "Oh, I know what happened. I just teleported your [point to spectator 1] card over to spectator2, but I forgot to teleport the spectator2 card back to spectator1. The card must therefore still be there [point to the card which was covered by the hands of the 2nd spectator; the 9H signed from the first spectator]. Spectator 2, can you please lift up the card and check if there is something under it?". The 2nd spectator then lifts the card up, but there is no other card under it. When he turns over the card, he see's that on the back of the card the 4C with the signature of the second spectator can be seen (one side would be 9H with spectator1 signature and other side would be 4C with the spectator2 signature).


Now to my questions:
*) Would you say that this is a "good trick" or is there something which would prevent you from performing something like this? Is it complete ********? Or could something be improved?
*) For me, it was especially important that both spectators see the correct back of their cards during the trick before the climax shows that it's the same card. Also that I start with all 52 cards (ungimmicked) cards and end with 52 cards, one of them beeing the doubler with both spectator selections, one blanko card and the 50 other cards (which don't contain the two spectator selections).
*) Is the plot in general "too complex"?
*) Is it good, that I have 2 situations with the "magician in trouble"?
*) The trick is sometimes not 100% logical, e.g.: In the first selection the magician turns his back to the spectators to not see the card, but later, when the card gets signed, he's facing the spectator with his body (but can look away). Moreover, it would be more logically to let the spectator sign the card while the magician looks away, but the trick requires it like described (I would solve it by acting like I just had the idea to also sign the card)
*) The trick is also not logical because the first selected card can't be seen by the magician (to motivate to turn away from the spectator), but the 2nd selection is turned over by the magician and therefore the magician see's the second card. I would explain this with something like "Since we now use signatures to detect the cards, I can also see this card").
*) The final climax that both spectator cards are the same card would explain the previous climax. When the 2nd spectator initially lifts his hands, it's a first climax because all spectators openly saw that I put before the 2nd spectator card under his hands, it's therefore a first "climax" to see a different card there (I basically just turned the card over under his hands). After the final climax, the spectators know that I just had to turn over the card and would therefore know the solution for the first climax. Would this lead to a situation where a spectator thinks: "I know how he did one part of the trick, it's therefore not so interesting" or would the final climax be strong enough to foul them?
*) In general: All the above mention points are drawbacks, but I think the final climax is strong. Would the final climax justify all the drawbacks? Or would you say that a trick with such drawbacks should not be performed?
*) Do you have any other comments, critism or feedback? Really looking forward to read your thoughts!

Hi Schlawiner,

In English there is an expression, "we can't see the wood for the trees". Not sure if they have the same in German?
Anyway... your description is so complicated, it is hard to follow what is supposed to be happening!
Maybe it would be clearer during an actual performance - but that is something I would be worried about! Having the card(s) jump around under the spectators' hands seems fun - but it might be better to keep THIS effect simpler and more direct.

In the end, there is a double-facer signed on both sides. This effect already exists. It is known as Anniversary Waltz. Dream Card is different. (Both are very powerful.)

Dream Card -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kiI9UKv45QA

Anniversary Waltz -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TLKqdT32Irk

If you watch Docc Eason's performance, there are plenty of "convincers" that imply (1) they see the backs of their cards (2) they are two separate cards (which then merge into one).
There is only one thing I personally would change - I would prefer the cards to be selected by touching their backs, as you described. (Gary Ouellet has a great solution to this).

I hope this helps
N

The effect I believe is transposition, two cards switched places. All the rest was the script or presentation. I got lost reading it. Its needs some editing.

Even though the card can be freely chosen, don't lose a chance to practice a force. They may or may not choose your card but it's one more chance at getting better at forcing.

It's pretty bad when we can't even figure out what the effect is!!!

Hi there!

I try to clarify the trick by just summarizing the most important steps:

*) Spectator 1 says stop to get a random card. He can change his mind to use another card, so it's a fair choice. He's holding the card in his own hand while looking at it. Later he signs his card. The card is fairly lost in the middle of the pack.

*) Spectator 2 says stop to get a random card. Spectator 2 also signs the card. The card of spectator2 is then put under the cover of spectactor 2's hand on the table.

*) In reality, Spectator2 received the double backer with the signatures of spectator1 and spectator2 on each side. So the overall trick is "card fusion" or "Anniversary Waltz" as you named it.

*) Now to explain why spectator2 has a double backer under his hands (from a logical perspective): The magician looks for the card of spectator1 (which was lost in the deck), he finds a card and puts the card under the hands of spectator1 (it's a blanko card). Then he asks spectator1 to name out loud his card => magician behaves like something went wrong (wrong card is under the spectator's hand), so he will fix it: He fixes it by transposing spectator 1's card under the hands of spectator2. => After showing that the card is under spectator 2's hand, spectator1 lifts his hand and it's a blanko. => Explanation is that the magician forgot to also transpose spectator 2's card under the hand of spectator1. So the "transposition" of spectator 1's card to specator 2's hand left a blanko card and spectator 2's card must also still be under his hand because it was never transposed away (because the magician "forgot" this step) => So the card is turned over and it can be seen that the 2 cards merged.


I didn't know that this card plot/trick is named "Anniversary Waltz", thanks a lot for this information! I also found that Darwin Ortiz has a "card fusion" and an "ultimate fusion" in his books.

The biggest difference to these effects is that with the above presentation, the first spectator holds his card in his own hands. When giving the card to the spectator, the card is intentionally placed face down on the table, so that the spectators remember that they saw the back of the card and that the spectator took the card, so it's no gimmicked card. It's to enhance as much as possible the believe, that it's a normal card.

Obviously, an index is used to get a double backer matching the spectator 1's selection. And then the spectator 1's selection is secretly changed with the double backer before he signs the card.

The overall idea is also that the card trick should first look like a normal "card transposition trick", but then changes to something they didn't see coming (card fusion) for the climax. And at the same time it should somehow be logical (the magician transposed one card to another, but forgot to transpose the other card back and that's why there is now an empty card and one card with two faces).

The trade-off is that this trick allows spectator1 to hold the card and see the back of it, but the downside is that it makes the overall story of the trick more complex (maybe confusing) and the handling a lot harder because it requires more sleights. Moreover, the presentation has not an emotional connection like the one from your linked video on "Anniversary Waltz".


I can also try to record a short video of it in the next days, but I'm not sure if I'm good enough yet to do all the required sleights flawlessly.