Transcript
Ben Nemzer: I want you to do me a favor. Would you help me out with this card trick?
Ann: Sure.
Ben: Great. Go ahead and pick any card you’d like. I won’t look. All right. Would you do me a favor, just take a look at it. Look at it, look at the camera. Show it to the camera. Memorize it. Picture it. Every detail. Do you have it?
Ann: Mm hmm.
Ben: Excellent. Put it right there on top. I’ll shuffle it up into the deck. Do me a favor, Ann. Would you hold out your hand, just like that for me? Good. I want you to pinch the deck, just like that. Just like that with your knuckles. Good.
And I just want you to hold on to the deck. Not too hard. Try not to let go, though. You don’t have to hold it too hard. You can let your thumb go. Just, yeah, just hold it just like that for me. Okay?
Ann: Mm hmm.
Ben: Nice and square. Hold on. Square up the deck. Good?
Ann: Mm hmm.
Ben: Good. Just like that. Are you ready?
Ann: Mm hmm.
Ben: I want you to just picture your card, all right. Really focus on it. I’m not going to do anything to you surprising. I’m not gonna try to.
Ann: Wow.
Ben: Didn’t mean to shock you there.
Ann: Amazing.
Ben: This is actually, this is probably one of the most impressive effects you can do with not all that much complicated slight.
First thing you have to do is you actually have get the card to the bottom of the deck. If you’ll remember when Ann drew a card, I actually just had her place it right back on top. Show it to the camera real quick, four of spades.
Now, using the overhand shuffle control, I’m actually able to guarantee that the four of spades will end up right back on the bottom of the deck. Once it’s on the bottom of the deck, you’re pretty much good to go.
You ask them to hold their fingers. You ask them basically to take the deck from you the same way that you’re holding it. That’s a good way to get them to take it in the same position without kind of, you know, readjusting their fingers.
So do me a favor, just take it just like I’m holding it. Perfect. Now, believe it or not, just a confident smack onto the deck will pretty much knock all the cards out of her hand except for the last one.
Ann, I didn’t tell you what was going to happen. You did not know that that was going to happen. That card just happened to be in your hand after the slap. That card and that card alone. Correct?
By being timid with the smack, what’s going to happen is you’re actually not going to hit all the cards out. They’re only going to slide about half of them down. And then she’s going to be left with a third of the deck, or a half of the deck, or a fourth of the deck, whatever, and you’re going to have to keep smacking.
So basically what’s happening with the smack here is, as I’m smacking down on the deck, you really want to make sure you’re getting a really good downward motion because that’s going to cause all the cards to slide, literally, off of the bottom one.
And Ann, she’s already told us she did not know to prepare for this. She was not trying to hold on to that card. She didn’t even know I was going to slap them.
But the slap really does work. And it’s a great effect.
It’s very impressive to the spectator when they’re left with their card staring them in the face.
