Stone and tommy,

Yep, nice points.

Silver,

I think Lawrence is talking about me. But the key is that I'm afraid he didn't grasp what I meant. He doesn't know that if I had to name ten outstanding Magicians, Jay would be close to the top of the list. It's not the man and the mastery of his art I am talking about, but the usual cons and swindling context, that I personally find too much aggressive in the video. Tommy or Stone have understood my thoughts, I have understood their ones. Lawrence should face no trouble to wrap it up .

Even though I know he's not your favorite reference Arnold.....Erdnase tells us not to stand out at the table, to blend in and become nothing that anybody would consider any different than anybody else at the table.
That's one kind of con, and in your earlier post Arnold, your observations were 100% accurate.

Ricky Jay is (in this video) demonstrating another type of con, one which requires a completely different handling of the mark, and a completely different personality for the person executing the con than the personality Erdnase describes above.

In other words, nobody in this thread is confusing anything.
Pontification certainly isn't instruction.

The thing that makes this forum different from all others here on the Café is that most of the regular contributors understand that the learning process is one that is ongoing, and further those contributors willingly accept instruction from other members of the forum, and in fact seek it out continuously.

This also tends to make folks who populate this forum somewhat alert to those who might tend to pontificate rather than instruct....to lecture rather than to inform.

In this case, I await the information which implies that "several" posters to this thread don't understand the premise behind the video.
I suspect that the only person not truly understanding the entire academic scope of the topic is Lawrence.

Guys should probably stick to what they know if they're going to lecture.

Actually, in re-reading the thread, I too cannot see any posts showing that they don't understand the premise behind the video.

Hm.

Actually this name reminds me something, but what... I just can't remember.

If you really want to see some nasty hustles you have to see a pool hustle. This is when the mark thinks he has some speed and has no idea how good the hustler really is. The hustler will insult him to no end. End up telling him that his best game cannot beat his worse game. So lets go, give me your best game and I will beat you and give you my worse game and still beat you...now if it is straight pool the next thing out of the hustlers mouth is "you break". If nine ball he will say rack them I will break. I am talking about top shooters not good shooters. I have heard more than once the hustler say "even if you beat me I am better than you"..when you hear this statement RUN. What this statemenmt does is make the mark, say "how can you be better than me if I beat you", (now it is all over) You are about to get an *** whooping.

Thanks Tommy that is a great link to a cool clip. If I remember right the ten card poker deal was written up as a con in one of the Vernon Inner secret books, although I don't remember which book. I have been reading about the ten card poker deal in the Phoenix.

Lawrence, also had some important comments and if I may add three card Monte has also been a street con that uses a script. There is a lot of good information on the script part of three card Monte on the DVD that is offered by the School for Scoundrels.

There is also a PDF on the DVD. Well worth getting if anyone is interested in three card Monte.

I hope this helps.