Im interested in a man called Dad Stevens.( Mysterious Kid)

Does anyone know where there is any info on this card cheat apart from revelations books ,videos?

Or does anyone have any stories about the man they have heard?

Thanks in advance.

Aside from hearing his name a lot in the movie shade, the first thing that comes to my mind is the "Stevens Riffle Shuffle", which is a simple, but brilliant way to track cards shuffled into a deck. It can be found in the classic magic of Larry Jennings. Hope that helped.

Giobbi, Roberto Giobbi: Card College 3
Dad Stevens, King of Card Cheats

I thought I remember some stuff buried in Karl Fulves manuscripts on riffle shuffle also.

Stevens control you mean
I got the card college material.not much there.
the Fulves stuuf is about the stevens control .
havnt got that but thanks guys

Dad Stevens might not exsist. If you have read Marlos RCT, The Havana Second you will see that magicians invent such characters now and again.

If he didn't exists someone would of spilled the beans by now. The Havanna deal was faked for the purposes of money. No money was made from the Stevens control, cull, and the rest of the riffle shuffle work that Stevens introduced.

Besides, someone must have introduced these exceptional moves to the fraternity. Vernon? I doubt it, he would of taken credit for it especially in later years. I'm pretty sure there was a Stevens.

I just recieved a copy of Genii magazine on the center deal and saw a picture of Alan Kennedy, and I'm now interested to find out about Stevens.

Anyone else with a theory?

Hmmmm...I found an interesting post...

http://www.themagiccafe.com/forums/searc......=3511115

Ha.. I think that's was a joke.

In revelations Steve Freeman openly talks to Vernon about Stevens and they were talking seriously not in jest.

Vernon said that he had never seen anyone that good.

If he were talking about himself I'm sure the others there would at least crack a smile.

Someone somewhere must know something.

For anyone who hasn't seen it, here's a quick transcript of Dai Vernon and company talking about Dad Stevens on Vol.8 of the Revelations tapes:

Vernon: "You could write a whole book on nothing but Riffle shuffling, on block transfers as Marlo named them. Stevens never talked about a block transfer..."

Freeman: "He was the one who initially gave you the idea..."

Vernon: "Oh, yes, yes, he was the one... I couldn't detect anything he did. But he started us thinking about things like that. Everybody in magic's heard about 'Stevens can run-up and Stevens' control'..."

Ammar: "Dad Stevens."

Vernon: "... and all that kind of thing. He was a fellow who made a lot of money, bought a $250,000 home [...] in Illinois, on the outer side of Chicago. He made a fortune gambling. They used to call him 'The Mysterious Kid'. The only time I ever cried watching a magician, tears came to my eyes when I saw him work. I was in my late 20s at that time - I thought if a fella went to Alcatraz or Sing Sing Prison with a pack of cards and they told him that at the end of twenty years they'd let him out or he was going to be condemned to death [unless] he learned to do certain things he might have accomplished something like that..."

Ouellet: "He was that perfect?"

Vernon: "Oh, PERFECT! Tears came to my eyes 'cause I knew enough about cards to know... 'cause he'd take an ordinary pack of cards, let you shuffle [Vernon grabs the deck], he'd let you shuffle the pack and he'd say: 'Now Vernon I'll show you something you've never seen before [Vernon's Riffle shuffling by now],' and he'd just give the... and without any hesitation whatsoever [he'd] get three-of-a-kind on top, I mean NO hesitation, none whatsoever. None of this kind of thing [mimics a clumsy Riffle shuffle, sighting cards as they fall], none of this business... He'd just take the cards and he was talking, 'You know some people...,' and he'd shuffle like that and he'd say, 'Cut the cards,' and he could hop the cut beautifully on a pick up, beautiful... anyway, and then he'd have three-of-a-kind. And I stupidly said to him, 'Is it possible to get four?' He got sore, he said, 'Four! Who the hell wants four!? Three-of-a-kind, if you can't win with those you should give up playing cards. Who wants four? You'll get thrown out on your ear if you deal yourself four-of-a-kind.' He didn't care about a trick, all he wanted to do was have three-of-a-kind playing Poker."

That's awesome NeoMagic. Thanks for the transcript.

There is an interesting riffle shuffle in Jennings 67 called 'Dad Steven's Other Shuffle'. It predates the zarrow and it looks brilliant.

This is great guys keep it coming

Tony Giorgio has pointed out the origin of Dad Stevens aka The Mysterious Kid in the Giorgio Letters in Genii. I don't remember the date of the article.

Can anyone shed any light on what the giorgio letters are about?

Tony Giorgio strongly suggests that "Dad Stevens" was not a real person.

In his introduction to the book "Revelations," Perci Diaconis refers to the Dad Stephen's Riffle Shuffle work as Vernon's. Would a top scholar like Diaconis make such an error?

Peter

Did anyone ever see Stevens, besides Vernon?

Hi Peter and slakk,

I do not understand why Vernon in his swan-song DVD revelations volume quoted by Neomagic, would give such a vivid account of a gambler he professed to admire so deeply if he was an invention. Also, the Stevens riffle shuffle cull control is so well suited as a card table/gambling artiface. To my mind, this does lend credence to the idea of the move emerging out of the exacting conditions of the gambling table rather than from the more 'relaxed' world of card magic entertainment and Stevens does seem to be as good a source as any in this respect. Maybe Diaconis chose to assume it was Vernons because there was no additional external validation of Vernons contention that it originated with Stevens. I suppose it will continue to be a bit of a mystery.

Regards,

Paul H

Once again, did anyone. besides Vernon, ever see Stevens.