This may have been asked before but illicited poor responses. By starting this post will hope myself and others to investigate tried and tested effects from fellow Café members to seperate the good from the bad and not be conned into buying poor effects or merely get straight to the 'good stuff' in a book or on a dvd.

I shall start and lets see if we can get a list compiled with an eventual outcome at the end....

I'll start.....

1.'Stealth' (wallet) by Peter Nardi type effect
2. Kollosal Killer by Kenton Knepper

3. PK time
4. good old trusty center tear

5. Heirloom
6. Side-Swiped

7. ESP Telepathy Cards

I have performed the following effect a few times and like it a lot - nice for closeup mentalism. It's by Jim Sisti and appears in the May 2004 issue of Magic. It's based on the Date-A-Cation effect by Larry Becker. The performer predicts one of six quarters chosen by the spectator. It's very easy to do if you have the necessary prop. Sisti calls it, "Light mental magic."
Richard

Mental yarn works very nicely in this setting

Also one that goes down well is De Tour De Force - mental magic with playing cards but an added twist, it gets them on your side as you appear to fail then recover, nice touch!

11. Dyment's Sign Language on two people simultaneously.
This is my current favourite effect.
I carry it everywhere(!).

I LOVE "scroched" for close-up performances.
Then Kolossal Killer is great too, as well as a Max Maven 's "Contimental" and Phil Goldstein's ( ) "desire".
Then you can do great things with the OBCS.

Would the centre tear be described as close up mentalism?
if so, then yes!!!

-Francisco

Positive Negative
Osterlind CT

Heirloom

The 'other' Kurotsuke effect

Chronologue

(Although I wouldn't do Chronologue and Heirloom in the same act)

I love 'Heirloom', it gets great reactions every time. Others:

Positive/Negative
The Invisible Deal
'Being There' (Sensory Projection)

I have to say though, after reading Dan Harlan's terrific piece on Equivoque, and then discovering "Scorched" - I can see this becoming one of my favourites.

Trying not to repeat other effects already mentioned, I quite enjoy preforming the following:

-Richard Osterlinds Watch Routine

-Double Date Delight- P.K. Coin Surprise, From Richard Busch's Peek Preformances.

-- Banachek's PK Time
-- Divining a Thought of card [with an out -- Inv Deck]
-- Divining Thought of card w. break peek
-- Equivo. w. coins
-- Pretending to be able to divine their horoscope sign by scanning a borrowed bill
-- Dollar bill switching to foreign currency after asking if they've traveled overseas recently [if they say yes and you switch to the right currency.. it's a mirac...yes a miracle...Or if they're planning overseas travel, you get some wide eyes.] If it doesn't work, you question their veracity and say they lead a double life. [gets laughs you use for misdirection into next effect]
-- Jay Sankey's Serial Divination
-- Paperback book test w. Banachek's thought-of letter
fib

I would second Contimental. I used this yesterday and it went down a storm.

Marc pauls - coin in hand.
a naughts and crosses trick my friend showed me from Syzygy.