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bishthemagish Inner circle 6013 Posts |
I wanted to write a little bit about the punch deck and what I feel about it for magic. The thing I like about the punch deck is that it was a real cheating method that was used by card sharps to take advantage at the card table. I think that magicians as a group came to know about the punch deck was from Walter Scott. A music teacher and vaudeville music performer who may have used it when he played cards between shows.
In vaudeville there were 4 shows a day and once you did your seven to ten minute act you had a lot of time to kill before your next show. Often about 2 hours or more between shows. The shows were about 2 hours and then there is time to set the stage to do the same show again for a different audience. So the acts and agents used to play cards between shows. Like they did in the circus on the train in what was called a privilege car. This was a car on the circus train that it was allowed for acts and other people connected with the circus to play cards and dice during the train ride to the next town. Back in the days of Walter Scott most of the acts played cards. I have no idea where Walter Scott got his training for using the punch and the strike second and the master grip. But the first time I had read about the punch was in the book Phantom of the card table by Eddie McGuire. This book was a manuscript written up for a small group of magicians. Then it was published in the linking ring. Then it was published in booklet form. When I first got the book I did not understand how to make a punch. But later met Jack Pyle and much later than that he showed me what the punch can do as a way of entertaining audiences. Jack was a student of Erdnase and a student of the Phantom of the card table and used these methods with his act and often with a bridge deal. In fact Jack Pyle considered the bridge deal so strong he almost always closed his act with it. Later on I decided to work out a stage act as a pickpocket. And I wanted to do close up as a card sharp magician. Book them both at the same time. I would work close up - lift some stuff while I entertained in the audience. Then give it back on stage as I call them to the stage - do my Dads rope tie have them tie me up for the rope tie - so I can't lift any more stuff. Do the comedy escape and lift more stuff. Well the problem with it was that I worked it for a while and there most often was not enough guys in the audience that had put on a suit or a sport coat. So that limited the amount of stuff I could lift and re-lift. So I never got to do the act they way I wanted to. I also used the coat loop pencil with my logo on it as a cover to lift stuff from a sport coat. Just put it on a sport coat as the came in the room. And when I helped them take it off I could get all sorts of stuff. My Dad (Billy Bishop) thought that this whole thing was a great idea and was going to book me into the saber room with this act. But because of things he never got around to doing that. So I set the act aside after doing it for a few months and went on to other things. I met Terry Vecky who was one of the best magicians in Chicago. He loved the idea for the act and said I should do the punch deal. Then he suggested the book the punch letters by Ray Grismer. I ordered the book and picked up a copy of Marlo in Spades from Magic inc and I started to work on the punch deal routines using the second deal. I was doing the bridge deal one night in the kitchen at home and my dad walked in. He asked who showed you that? I said no one it is written up in these books. He said, don't do it around town or at shows because this bridge deal was Jack Pyle’s trademark effect. If you do it and get a reputation for doing it word might get to Jack and he might get upset at you. It is better if you wait and then ask Jack later - most likely he will teach it to you and if that happens you will get all his little bits of business with it. So I worked on it at home and years later Jack Pyle and I became good friends. And he showed me his bridge deal with the bits of business and I have tried my best to pass this info on to the next generation on my DVD - 4. More later and jump in with your own thoughts if you like!
Glenn Bishop Cardician
Producer of the DVD Punch Deal Pro Publisher of Glenn Bishop's Ace Cutting And Block Transfer Triumphs |
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ImpromptuBoy Special user Toronto, Canada 898 Posts |
Glenn,
I absolutely agree with you. The punch is a wonderful tool not only for magic, but for demonstrations of actual cheating. I use it all the time, and I use your ideas from your DVD about the punch deal. Great work! Keep it up! Your ideas and thoughts about gambling really fascinate me. The ideas you share with the rest of us magicians are really valuable. With respect, Michael |
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bishthemagish Inner circle 6013 Posts |
Thanks ImpromptuBoy/Michael. It is interesting how performers do an effect and after years doing it becomes their trademark effect and they become known for one or two effects by the agents and clients that remember them.
I knew Jack Pyle as a kid - then later after I grew up and started doing shows and putting an act together. It was a different relationship after that because the older magicians started to see me as one of the guys. The thing about the punch is that there was this hush - hush thing about it in magic and I have found very little information about it in print. Some used it for mentalist effects and others for poker and bridge deals with a second deal. I enjoyed the Walter Scott book and the punch letters book by Grismer. I was also impressed that Walter did a demonstration of getting a hand with a blindfold on. But because you feel your way with the deck and do not need to see it - the punch can work in the dark venues I like to work in. You can deal in sort of a lazy way and it is unexpected. The same with the cull - just shuffle the cards in a relaxed lazy way as if you are losing the four of a kind or mixing in a selected card - and it works. Thanks for the kind words - more later.
Glenn Bishop Cardician
Producer of the DVD Punch Deal Pro Publisher of Glenn Bishop's Ace Cutting And Block Transfer Triumphs |
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tommy Eternal Order Devil's Island 16544 Posts |
Great read Glen thanks. We still get a few show business people at my poker game but not so many now, as there are just not so many live acts, all around. Even poker has gone on TV and the internet. The most famous actor in recent years we had over was Peter O'Toole (you know, Lawrence of Arabia), but he came to play snooker as it happens and he is not a bad player. Any way I am sure Walter Scott had a field day using the punch in games around show business people with his band. I loved watching that film of Scott talking. You can just tell, by the way he talks, that he was 100% genuine. Can you imagine what Gazzo felt like when he found him, he must have been speachless for a change.
Tommy
If there is a single truth about Magic, it is that nothing on earth so efficiently evades it.
Tommy |
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bishthemagish Inner circle 6013 Posts |
Hey Tommy.
From what I understand Frank Sinatra was quite a card player. He did a movie where he cheated at cards called the Man with the golden arm. He gets caught cheating and gets beat up at the end of the film. One of the best movies about marked cards is kaleidoscope with Warren Beatty. He breaks into a playing card factory and marks the decks and then wins big in casino's. Then helps the English police catch a bad guy. It is a cool film. There is really not that much written about the punch in magic - since the Walter Scott days. What I have on it is mostly done by Ed Marlo. There is punch ideas in Marlo In Spades considered by many as one of Ed Marlo's best works. There is some stuff in Marlo's Magazine. Ray Grismer wrote the Punch Letters published by Jeff Busby. Some good stuff in there including some stuff about mental effects. But I am not into mental effects I like poker deals. Then there is a little bit more expanded info on the punch in Phantoms of the card table by Gazzo. The Cardician Video had Ed Marlo talking about the punch and how to put the work in. And a well routined poker deal he did for Jack Pyle. Then there have been some routines by Ortiz, Steve Draun and a few others. And most of it is a re-routining of the use with the second deal. But not that much in my opinion is written on the punch in view of some great card men that have used it including Dai Vernon (He had a few ideas in the Grismer Punch Letters book as I remember) and from my understanding Charlie Miller also used the punch. The only performer that I know of that used the punch as a regular part of their act and got a reputation for the effect - the bridge deal was Jack Pyle. That to me is sort of a mystery. The punch is a great tool but I see little of it in the history of magic considering a lot of great card men/magicians seemed to have used it - at least for a while. I use the punch as key cards with the MB Shuffle as I feel that there is a lot of stuff that can be done with the punch and considering all the people like Marlo, Vernon, Miller, Scott, Grismer, Pyle who were a lot more into cards that I am and wrote a lot of books that I learned from. I wonder why this useful tool has so little information on it in magic history and use!
Glenn Bishop Cardician
Producer of the DVD Punch Deal Pro Publisher of Glenn Bishop's Ace Cutting And Block Transfer Triumphs |
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halcon Loyal user 251 Posts |
Quote:
On 2006-01-06 22:58, bishthemagish wrote: hmmm! perhaps, those that really knew about it, thought it was to good to become public. It is one of those things, when done well, defy's explanation. how is it, you can have someone shuffle, cut the deck, hand you the deck and you deal a winning hand without so much as looking at the faces? not only that! But, as Jack Pyle demonstrates, deal while carrying on a conversation and not even look at the deck? that is genious. Halcon |
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ASW Inner circle 1879 Posts |
Quote:
On 2006-01-06 22:58, bishthemagish wrote: I wonder why this useful tool has so little information on it in magic history and use! I think, because although a subtle and powerful tool, there are limits to the applications that are possible. Marking the spades and dealing a flush in poker from a shuffled deck is always good, though basic. Personally, I think you can't beat the routine Ortiz created, "Raw Deal", which is a very subtle use of the punch, and something that will fool those hip to the idea. (As long as you don't talk about pegged cards and stuff when sessioning). In fact, you can borrow someone's deck and cap the cards required, then do the routine without worrying about the dupes being seen, then cop out the hand (which is the only one they see). That'd really hurt most hardcore card guys. I've done "Raw Deal" for casino surveillance staff and really screwed with their minds... One idea Glenn missed is the marking system in the Vernon Chronicles that gives value and suit. Not really for gaming, but would be killer for magic and mentalism, I'd bet. I like Glenn's idea of using the peg for a cull shuffle. I might try it out with the Diaconis version of the Erdnase cull. cheers Andrew
Whenever I find myself gripping anything too tightly I just ask myself "How would Guy Hollingworth hold this?"
A magician on the Genii Forum "I would respect VIPs if they respect history." Hideo Kato |
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tommy Eternal Order Devil's Island 16544 Posts |
Andrew
"you can borrow someone's deck and cap" That's Cool! Thanks for the tip. You could use that with Glens cull idea someway also I think. Tommy
If there is a single truth about Magic, it is that nothing on earth so efficiently evades it.
Tommy |
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bishthemagish Inner circle 6013 Posts |
Quote:
On 2006-01-07 04:17, Andrew Wimhurst wrote: I agree with Andrew that the punch has limits as all card sharp methods. The idea for me is to take one of these card sharp methods and then use it for magic. Often you have to go in a different direction and walk a different path than others did with the same card sharp tool. What book is Raw Deal in?
Glenn Bishop Cardician
Producer of the DVD Punch Deal Pro Publisher of Glenn Bishop's Ace Cutting And Block Transfer Triumphs |
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griff13 New user 61 Posts |
Raw Deal is on page 44 of Scams and Fantasies With Cards
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bishthemagish Inner circle 6013 Posts |
Quote:
On 2006-01-07 04:17, Andrew Wimhurst wrote: If this is what I think it is, Vernon used to do this with a s-card and he fooled a lot of magicians using that with their deck in the early days. I talked about this in my blog and because I most often use only 4 cards have the work in it is easy to load in the cards in and out and as long as you know what cards are being used it works well. It is also great to do this with your own deck. That is you can start with a regular deck. Put the cards in - use them - take them out and end with a clean deck.
Glenn Bishop Cardician
Producer of the DVD Punch Deal Pro Publisher of Glenn Bishop's Ace Cutting And Block Transfer Triumphs |
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bishthemagish Inner circle 6013 Posts |
Quote:
On 2006-01-07 08:27, tommy wrote: As I am not up on some of the more modern terms of talk in magic and being dyslexic I find some things really confusing when I read them. Is capping a deck adding cards back to a deck after a holdout of cards while the deck is shuffled? My terms are most often from Erdnase and Scarne and Vernon and are a little old school. The pass was a shift not the hop. The hop was a move to hop a few cards off the top of the deck after the deck was cut into two piles. Hop them to the second pile and to the top of the deck while the cut was complete. When I learned it was not considered to be a shift because just a few cards hopped from one half to another to null the cut. I find some of the terms confusing today and I am just trying to keep up with the times. I also posted some Punch deal performance tips in the secret sessions section of the Café. Enjoy!
Glenn Bishop Cardician
Producer of the DVD Punch Deal Pro Publisher of Glenn Bishop's Ace Cutting And Block Transfer Triumphs |
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tommy Eternal Order Devil's Island 16544 Posts |
"Cap" I took to mean, to add, say four, stranger cards to the borrowed deck. These four could be punched cards. Obvously the problem with that is duplicates. But I think the idea must have some uses in magic.
If there is a single truth about Magic, it is that nothing on earth so efficiently evades it.
Tommy |
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ASW Inner circle 1879 Posts |
Capping the deck is adding held out cards back to the deck.
Whenever I find myself gripping anything too tightly I just ask myself "How would Guy Hollingworth hold this?"
A magician on the Genii Forum "I would respect VIPs if they respect history." Hideo Kato |
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bishthemagish Inner circle 6013 Posts |
Thanks Andrew Wimhurst.
That is partly why I wrote that way as often I am a little confused and I am not the best writer and my mind jumps often when I write.
Glenn Bishop Cardician
Producer of the DVD Punch Deal Pro Publisher of Glenn Bishop's Ace Cutting And Block Transfer Triumphs |
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tommy Eternal Order Devil's Island 16544 Posts |
Well I don't get it! How do you use that "capping" with the punch with a borrowed deck?
"In fact, you can borrow someone's deck and cap the cards required, then do the routine without worrying about the "dupes" being seen, then cop out the hand (which is the only one they see)."
If there is a single truth about Magic, it is that nothing on earth so efficiently evades it.
Tommy |
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ASW Inner circle 1879 Posts |
You'll have to read the Ortiz book Scams & Fantasies with Cards, grasshopper.
Whenever I find myself gripping anything too tightly I just ask myself "How would Guy Hollingworth hold this?"
A magician on the Genii Forum "I would respect VIPs if they respect history." Hideo Kato |
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tommy Eternal Order Devil's Island 16544 Posts |
A cunning mix of potions various!
If there is a single truth about Magic, it is that nothing on earth so efficiently evades it.
Tommy |
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camador Regular user Salamanca 170 Posts |
Quote:
On 2006-01-07 04:17, Andrew Wimhurst wrote: So Andrew, does this mean that you're holding a deck of cards again? Regards |
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tommy Eternal Order Devil's Island 16544 Posts |
Or a pebble!
If there is a single truth about Magic, it is that nothing on earth so efficiently evades it.
Tommy |
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