This month I want to share some thoughts on two items. First, a brief look at one of my favorite routines with the Memorized Deck: The Birthday Book. Then a few more thoughts on my handling of the Haymow shuffle which I described last month.

            The Diary Trick or Birthday Book was created by Alex Elmsley. It is a brilliant concept. You show a full year diary and open it to show that written into the diary, for every date of the year, is the name of a playing card. The diary is set aside and a spectator is asked to reveal the month and date of his birth. The same spectator selects a playing card from a deck, and when he opens the diary and looks up his birthday, the very same card is written in for that date. Elmsley used a repeating bank of only ten cards, and the book therefore could not be looked at very carefully. The 1^st, 11^th, 21^st, and 31^st dates all had the same card written in. As did the 2^nd 12^th, etc. Simon Aronson came up with the idea of using his memorized stack in conjunction with the Birthday book. His routine is excellent and you may want to look it up in his book: Simply Simon. You’ll find it on page 96 under the title: Happy Birthday. Simon’s idea is to use the numerical value of the month (January equals 1, February 2, and so on,) and add it to the date to come up with a total for each date of the year. You then write into that date, the card that falls in that position in your memorized deck. For example, my birthday is August 31. Adding 8 (for the eighth month) to 31, we get the number 39. In the Aronson Stack, number 39 is the six of hearts, so that’s what you write in for that date. In this way you fill up the entire diary and can calculate in your head, almost instantly, what card is written in for each date of the year. You simply force that card.

You could use a regular deck, but the effect is strengthened enormously if the selection appears to be very fair and you do not look through the deck at all. By using a deck that is already set up in Aronson Stack order, you can quickly and easily force ANY card without having to look through the deck to find the force card you need. Simon has his own solution as to how to do this for the effect: Two Beginnings in his book Try the Impossible. Its on page 172. Mike Close uses a different procedure that you’ll find in his book: Workers 5, p 156. They are both excellent, and my handling borrows a little from each of them. Let’s use my birthday... August 31. I simply add 8 and 31 in my head and get 39. I don’t have to even worry about what card it is, I just need to know that it’s 39 cards down from the top. I’m going to force that card using a simple cull. But first, I need to get that card about five to ten cards from the top of the deck. This is NOT critical. All is not lost if it’s four from the top, or thirteen from the top, but five to ten is what I prefer. Prior to offering the spectator a selection, I just give the deck a casual cut. It’s completely fair and makes the selection appear to be a random one. But, the cut was an estimation: I just tried to cut from five to ten cards above the 39^th card. (In other words, I try to cut from 29 to 34 cards down from the top.) Even if you’ve never done any estimation work, this is not difficult. And, you can relax because if you don’t hit in that range you can easily fix the situation. As I square up the cards after the cut I do the all around square glimpse to get a quick look at the bottom card. You may use any glimpse you like; you just need to know what the bottom (or top) card of the deck is. Let's say that I see the King of Hearts. That’s great, I know it’s the 30^th card in the stack, and I want to cull the 39^th card. As I begin to explain to the spectator that he is to touch a card, but not remove it, I begin to push blocks of cards over with my left thumb. It’s quite easy to push three cards at a time and you just watch and count. With three blocks of cards, the card on the left in the last batch of three will be the card you want to force. You cull it under the spread, and your work is almost done. As far as the spectators are concerned, the trick hasn’t even begun. With the force card riding under the spread you continue to thumb cards over to the right and when the spectator wishes, he touches one card. At this point, break the spread, with the touched card as the bottom card in the right hand. At this point, stress that the spectator can change his mind if he likes You can go further into the deck, or back some, whatever he wishes. Usually they decline to change their mind, but this emphasizes the fairness of the selection. If they do want to change their mind, reassemble the deck in a slightly spread condition with the force card still hidden under the spread and let them touch a different card. When they do, again break the spread with their selection on the bottom. (At least as far as the spectators are concerned.) You continue to offer them the chance to change their mind until they decline to do so. When they do, table or pocket the cards in your left hand. You now ask the spectator to look at his selection, and you quickly square the spread cards in your right hand and tip it up to show them the bottom card. Done casually, this is completely deceptive, although the force card has been switched for their selection. As an “afterthought” decide to let everyone see the card, and remove the bottom card and show it around. You now either table that card, or if working standing up, you can put the card into your breast pocket, but leave the majority of the card in view, facing the spectators. The deck is reassembled and attention is focused on the Birthday Book itself. The spectator is allowed to look at the book. Finally, ask them to look at their own birthday and read aloud the card that is written there. It is the card they freely selected. This is a fairly quick effect, and for intelligent spectators, it is absolutely mind-boggling. To reset, you have only to replace that one card back in it’s proper position. An easy way to do this is to fan the deck. Since you know right where it has to go (in our example, the 39^th position) you fan so that you can see the faces of the cards in that area. It is very fast and easy to spot where the chosen card has to go, and you take the card from your pocket or the table and plunge it into the deck. To the spectators it appears that you just stuck it back in a random location.

            But what if your original cut is off? You simply cut again to correct the situation. For example, lets say in our example that when I glimpsed the bottom card that I saw that it was the Ten of Hearts. Since that’s the thirty-eighth card in the Aronson Stack, I’ve cut too deeply. The card I want to force is on the very top of the deck, an impossible position to cull from. I cut a very thin block from the bottom of the top (trying for five to ten cards). Because the cut was so thin, I immediately follow it with a false cut. Again, I glimpse the bottom card and know where I’m at. On the other hand, lets say that after the first cut I glimpse the bottom card and it’s the Queen of Hearts. That’s the 26^th card, and my force card is way down at position 39. I could spread over the thirteen cards before I cull but I’d prefer to cull a little sooner than that. So, I just cut a thin group of cards from the top of the deck to the bottom. Again I glimpse and know where I’m at.

    August 21, 2005. I've revisited this write up to add a couple of additional points on this force. First, Simon discusses his handling of the cull force in conjunction with the effect: Two Beginnings in the book "Try the Impossible." (Page 171)  There is another variation of the cull force in Roberto Giobbi's book "Card College Vol 1" on page 191. My handling is very much like the Giobbi version, except that I often work in venues where I don't have a table. Therefore, I can't table the left hands packet. I find it easy to still put the right hands cards into the left hand, squaring them up in the process, but with the selected card outjogged.

    There are other ways to force a card from a stacked deck. I'll mention two of the possibilities. Both will assume that you have made an estimated cut and the card you need to force is the sixth from the top. If you do a second deal, you start to deal single cards onto a pile on the table. The first five are dealt from the top, and as you're dealing them, you explain to the spectator that you want him to say stop whenever you wish. In this way, he has no chance to stop you until after you reach the force card. After the first five cards are dealt, you start to deal seconds, and you keep dealing seconds until he says stop. When he does, you hand him the top card of the deck as his "selection."

    I would suggest that you deal stud seconds, turning each card face up as you deal. (Of course, you do the same with the first five single cards.) In this way, you keep your deck in order, but, more importantly, when the spectator says stop, the face up card is dropped on the table. Now, it's more natural to hand them the unseen card on the top of the remaining cards in your left hand.

    There's another excellent way to force a card assuming that you've cut it to a known position a little way down from the top of the deck. It uses the JB Kard Kop invented by Johnny Benzais. It was explained in Harry Lorayne book: Close-Up Card Magic. That's long out of print, but fortunately Harry has included most of the text of that book and several others in his "Classic Collection. This is available directly from Harry Lorayne. With this move, you deal the cards above the force card straight until you get to it. Then you "Kop" the card and keep dealing. When the spectator says stop, you drop both of the cards in your right hand onto the tabled cards, and have the spectator take the top one as their selection. In this version, you cannot deal face up, and so you have reversed the order of the small group of cards on the table. This is easily corrected. Here's one way: as the spectator looks at his card and shows it to the other spectators you pick up the dealt cards and casually give them an overhand shuffle. You just run then singly, reversing them, to restore the sequence of your stack. Drop them onto the tabled remainder of the deck. After the trick is over, you will only have to return the selected card to it's proper place in your stack.  

            Both Mike Close and Simon Aronson use a patter ploy that I did not like. They talk about the difficulty of finding the right birthday card for someone. This is word play, a birthday card, in our culture, means a greeting card from Hallmark (or their competitors) that says “Happy Birthday” on it. It has nothing to do with a deck of playing cards. I found this confusing and not particularly entertaining. And, I wanted to get away from having to hand write 365 cards into a diary. For one thing, my handwriting is terrible. And so, I came up with the idea that there actually is a Lucky Playing Card for every day of the year. Why not? We each have our own Zodiac Sign, or Birthstone, even the appropriate flower... why not a lucky playing Card. And so, I printed out and bound a little fake booklet. The cover reads:

Hallmark Greeting Cards

Presents

YOUR LUCKY PLAYING CARD

The Lucky Playing Card for Every Birthday of the Year

 

With a little artwork, and printed on my printer, it looks quite official. I claim that I picked it up at a Hallmark store, and suggest the spectators can do the same. I know this is a minor infringement on Hallmark’s name, but as I do not make these in quantity and sell them, I doubt if I’ll ever have any legal problems. But it gives a kind of “official” atmosphere to the premise. Inside, the months, dates, and playing cards are all printed out, one month to a page. And, if I ever loose it, or it becomes too soiled, I can just print out a new one.

            Whatever version of the effect you use, Mike Close’s, Simon Aronson’s, or mine, I believe you will find it to be a very strong effect made even stronger by using a memorized deck.

Last month, I explained my own version of the Haymow shuffle. For completeness, I am going to include that description before I explain how it can be used to move a block of cards of any size from top to bottom:

 I believe that I originally learned the Haymow shuffle from Royal Road to Card Magic by Hugard and Braue. I’ve done it for years, and was rather surprised, in discussing it with another magician that I was doing it differently. I checked Gene’s instructions and also the Royal Road again, and indeed, what I’m doing is somewhat different. I don’t know how I fell into this action. Perhaps I read the instructions wrong in the first place. But, it works just the same even though it looks quite different. For completeness, here’s how I do it:

 The deck is held in the left hand dealing position and a bunch of cards are pushed off the top into the right hand. The number is unimportant, but I push about half of the deck. The left hand is raised until it’s just above the right hand and the right fingers push a small block of cards from the top onto the bottom of the left-hand packet. This is probably six or eight cards, but it’s not important. The left hand is lowered back to its original position, and the left fingers push a small block of cards onto the bottom of the right hands cards. Again the left hand is lowered and the right hand pushes off a small block of cards onto the bottom of the left-hand cards. If you’re pushing off roughly the same amount of cards each time (except for the first time, of course) then the packets in the hands remain about the same size and you can keep going as long as you like.

            When you stop, if you have a corner or belly short in your deck, you can easily cut the deck back to starting order.

            If you try that, deck in hand, you’ll find it’s easy to do. So now, let’s use it to accomplish something: moving a block of cards of any size from top to bottom. My primary use for it is as a way to get ready for the Simon Aronson Three Phase Poker Deal from his book: Bound to Please. I do not intend to explain that routine, but you must begin the routine with the ten of spades on the bottom of the deck. This is the eleventh card in the Aronson Stack. I do this in the process of the Haymow Shuffle. The deck is cut approximately in half, but the upper half goes into the left hand. To do this, here’s one simple method: With the deck held in dealing position in the left hand, the right hand comes over and takes the entire deck from above in Biddle Grip. The right index finger swivel cuts approximately half of the cards back into the left hand. This is the original top half of the deck of course. With some help with the fingertips and thumb of the left hand, the cards in the right hand are moved into a dealing position in that hand as well.

You begin the Haymow Shuffle by pushing a block of cards with the left thumb off of the top of its cards onto the bottom of the left hands cards. But instead of a random number of cards, push off exactly three cards. This is very easy. Now the right hand pushes off a block of cards from the top of it’s half onto the bottom of the left-hand cards. This can be any number; I usually do four or five. Again, the process is reversed and the left hand pushes off a block of cards. Again, it pushes off exactly three. And again the right hand pushes a random number of cards off the top of its pile onto the bottom of the left hands cards. The third time that the left hand pushes cards into the right hand, it again pushes exactly three cards. At this point, you’ve pushed a total of nine cards off of the cards in the left-hand pile. Again the right hand pushes any number of cards onto the bottom of the cards in the left-hand pile. Finally, the left hand pushes just two cards onto the bottom of the cards in the right hand. The right hand now places its entire pile onto the bottom of the left hands cards and the deck is squared. You have transferred exactly 11 cards from top to bottom, no other mixing has been done, and you have the ten of spades on the bottom ready to do the Aronson Poker Deal.

            You can move any number of cards you wish. For example, if you wanted to move fifteen cards from the top to the bottom, the left hand pushes four cards in it’s first “turn.” four more cards the next time, four more cards the third time, and finally just three cards. To move larger groups, you may want to move five or even six cards each time. Keep a running count in your head. In the above example, as I do the shuffle, in my head I say: "Three, six, nine, and eleven."

            I hope you find this simple procedure a useful addition to your arsenal. As always, I invite comments, suggestions, ideas, questions, etc. You may reach me at:

deloomis@mindspring.com

            And, feel free to visit my web site to see those commercial items that Loomis Magic has available.

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UPDATED OCTOBER 15, 2004

Copyright 2004 by Dennis Loomis