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Transcript
00:00 I bet you can't guess what's inside my little toolbox here.
00:05 Have a guess right now.
00:07 If you guessed elephant, you're wrong.
00:10 If you guessed llama, you're wrong.
00:13 If you guessed playing cards, well I guess I'd have to pay off on the bet.
00:19 But I'll never pay off on the bet on any of the gambling moves you're just about to see
00:25 to add to your toolbox.
00:27 [Music]
00:37 Gambling moves are always great for magic because, not just for magic tricks, but people love gambling demonstrations.
00:43 Especially here in the United States, of course, where poker has become almost a phenomenon.
00:48 It's nearly as big as the Super Bowl now.
00:51 So let's do a couple of little gambling moves for you.
00:53 Let's say I'm going to play a little game of four-handed poker.
00:57 So I'll give the deck a little shuffle for my audience.
01:03 Let's give them a little cut and deal out four hands of poker.
01:07 We'll just deal out one card in this case.
01:09 You see, I've managed to control for myself the Ace of Spades using a simple overhand stock control.
01:17 So how do we do it?
01:19 This is easy as pie.
01:21 You know, people think gambling moves are really difficult, but even professional gamblers will tell you
01:25 very few of the moves are that difficult.
01:27 They want them easy and natural.
01:30 So I'm starting off with the Ace of Spades on top of the deck.
01:35 I'm going to go into an overhand shuffling action, and I'm going to shuffle three cards on top of it.
01:40 Or one card less than the number of players I desire.
01:44 Four-handed game, three cards.
01:46 So I shuffle one, two, three.
01:49 I in-jog the next card, and now I shuffle off.
01:54 Nice and sloppy.
01:57 As I come in, my right thumb hits that in-jogged card, squares in, allowing me to take a break on it.
02:05 Now I can either cut at this point, or I can shuffle off to the break if I like.
02:09 So I can do another little shuffle should I desire, shuffling off to my break.
02:13 Once that's done, I'll tell you, my friends, it's put that Ace of Spades
02:18 fourth down from the top of the deck.
02:22 If you're a bridge player, and who isn't? Well, I'm not.
02:33 But if you are, you might want to learn how to control two cards for a game of bridge.
02:38 Let's look at this little shuffling action.
02:41 It's quite an interesting action, by the way, so I'm going to give a little shuffle just as so.
02:49 Tell you what, I'm going to shuffle them again, I think, just as so.
02:54 We're playing a game of bridge, which is four players.
02:56 That's one, two, three.
02:58 There's one Ace for me.
03:00 And of course, if I go all the way through the deck, the very last card is going to fall to me.
03:04 And hey, lucky me, that's also an Ace.
03:08 So during those two shuffles, what we've essentially done is control one Ace fourth from top,
03:13 maintaining the other Ace on the bottom.
03:16 Let's have a look how.
03:18 One Ace starts off on the bottom of the deck.
03:21 One Ace starts off on the top of the deck.
03:24 I'm going to go into the same kind of overhand shuffle action to stack the top card,
03:29 but I've got to leave this little guy behind.
03:32 So, I reach in, my left fingers curl against the deck,
03:36 and as I reach in, I keep that Ace in place with pressure from the fingers.
03:41 So I'm leaving that Ace in place as I lift out the block.
03:45 So the Ace stays on the bottom.
03:47 As I come up, and now I add three cards onto the top card.
03:51 One, two, three.
03:53 I in-jog the next card, and then I shuffle off sloppily.
04:00 Now I'm going to reach in, and just as I did before, I'm going to take my break
04:04 with my right thumb on the in-jogged card.
04:08 This allows me to have a break here.
04:10 And now I'm going to start another shuffle.
04:12 But what I'm going to do also is maintain that Ace in place.
04:16 You can see this maybe from the front there.
04:19 See, the fingers are still going to use that pressure as I lift.
04:23 So as I start to take off the first little packet,
04:26 I'm actually holding that Ace in place.
04:30 I'm pulling the Ace onto it.
04:33 Then I'm going to shuffle off right up to my little break on the thumb
04:39 and throw on top.
04:41 What's that done?
04:42 Well, exactly as we did before, it's put one Ace forth from the top,
04:47 maintain the other Ace on the bottom.
04:50 And that's a naughty bit of bridge cheating, my friends.
04:53 [Music]
05:03 One of the greatest skills in gambling, as the gamblers will tell you,
05:07 is the ability to run up a hand in a riffle shuffle,
05:10 or as magicians would call it, riffle stacking.
05:13 I'm going to show you riffle stacking 101, make it easy for you.
05:17 Let's say you ask the audience to call a number of hands.
05:20 They've called four hands.
05:23 We'll do a fair shuffle, just as so.
05:27 I'll then ask my audience which hand they want to win.
05:29 Let's say they say hand number three.
05:32 We'll give the cards another little shuffle.
05:35 Let's even add in a cut.
05:39 They called four hands.
05:41 That's one, two, three, four, one, two, three, four.
05:46 They called hand number three to win.
05:48 If you were a Texas Hold 'Em player, you wouldn't call them two Aces.
05:51 You'd call them American Airlines, A-A.
05:56 Riffle stacking has got this godlike reputation for being incredibly difficult.
06:01 It's actually not as hard as you'd think.
06:04 Let's take a look at it.
06:06 I start off with the two Aces on top of the deck.
06:09 Now, shuffling up four or five cards can get tough,
06:12 but you know, with the joy of Texas Hold 'Em, two cards in the pocket,
06:16 you need the ability to shuffle two into place.
06:19 I'm going to pull my sleeve up here,
06:21 see if I can actually make this really apparent for you.
06:24 I ask them to call out any number of hands,
06:27 and within my Off-Broadway show, Strange and Unusual Hobbies,
06:30 yes, got a plug in without Rob realizing.
06:34 I do this as part of a gambling routine.
06:36 I ask any member of the audience to call out any number of hands
06:39 for a game of Texas Hold 'Em.
06:41 Let's say they say five.
06:43 My left thumb starts to riffle up the deck,
06:45 and I now put my--
06:47 I'm sorry, my right thumb starts to riffle up the deck.
06:50 My left thumb pushes in, and I let four cards drop on top of it,
06:55 maintaining a break at that point.
06:58 So I do one card less than the number of hands they call.
07:02 I split the deck to one side, still holding the break,
07:06 and start--this is really awkward with my arms up,
07:09 but we'll try and do it for you--and start the shuffle.
07:12 I hold back just one card on the right hand.
07:15 That's really easy. Don't worry.
07:17 I let the four cards drop in,
07:19 then I let the single card drop on top of that.
07:23 Then I square up.
07:27 That's put exactly the number of cards I need between the aces.
07:30 I then ask them which of those five hands they want to win.
07:33 Let's say they say hand number three.
07:36 I drop two cards, again, one less than they say,
07:41 split over, and now all I'm going to do
07:44 is leave a big block in the right hand,
07:47 drop that in so I haven't disturbed my stack,
07:50 and drop the two cards on top, square up.
07:55 Now when we deal out five hands,
08:02 those aces have been stacked exactly into position
08:07 using Riffle Stacking 101.
08:11 So mucking for fun.
08:21 I've got a little ace of spades here.
08:23 Let me just check my card.
08:25 Yeah, now I've got the ace of diamonds.
08:27 Mucking is the art of switching cards,
08:30 palming and switching cards.
08:32 In this case, the card's right here.
08:34 This is, of course, a flat palm, not a magician's palm.
08:37 A magician's palm is here.
08:39 This is a flat palm where the card is held
08:41 between the little finger and the thumb.
08:45 The card that's going to be switched is on your table, just as so.
08:48 Now what's going to happen is, as I come in here,
08:52 I'm going to let that bottom edge drop down.
08:56 That card is going to go underneath the card on the table,
09:00 and just before it squares, my left thumb is going to lift up
09:05 and pull back.
09:08 So there's the ace of diamonds.
09:11 It goes underneath, I lift, and pull back.
09:17 A little variation on this for you
09:20 is you can actually come underneath and just turn the card.
09:25 So let's do this very openly for you, obviously.
09:28 As you come underneath, this time you lift, your fingers come in,
09:32 and you can just turn the card face up.
09:35 The muck move can also be used with multiple cards,
09:51 especially for the game of Texas Hold 'Em or a demonstration on it.
09:55 Checking your cards and switching them for aces
09:58 is impressive to any audience.
10:01 They really want to learn this stuff, trust me.
10:04 They don't want to learn the card tricks.
10:06 I'll say, "Can you teach me that?"
10:08 So how does the muck move work in this case?
10:10 It's really exactly the same action, you just have to be really tight on it.
10:14 So we have American Airlines, two aces,
10:18 flat-palmed in the right hand.
10:21 We have our 6-10 on the table.
10:24 Again, as the hand's going to sweep in,
10:27 the two cards are gripped between the third and the little finger,
10:32 just a little bit, allowing you to release the thumb,
10:35 which lets those cards slide underneath the cards on the table.
10:40 As the hands start to coalesce,
10:43 the left thumb lifts up the two cards into a flat palm and moves back.
10:49 Now, it's really wise to add shade here, or cover,
10:53 if you will, from this hand.
10:56 Now, lucky you, it's very natural in Texas Hold 'Em games
10:59 for people to do this to look at their cards.
11:03 That's exactly what you'll see the professionals on TV doing.
11:07 You can do that and switch the hands,
11:10 so you use this hand as shade as you do the switch.
11:15 Don't keep them covered too long.
11:17 After all, this is a magic trick, not a poker tournament.
11:21 So you just want to say, "I'll check my hand,
11:24 "and that's how long it takes me to switch in."
11:27 American Airlines.
11:30 You know, magicians call this palming.
11:33 Gamblers call it advantage play.
11:35 Casinos call it cheating.
11:38 Ooh!
11:50 In the gambling world, skinning the hand means stealing from a hand,
11:54 which would mean, of course, you've got some extra cards in your hand.
11:57 So how do you get those extra cards in your hand?
11:59 Let's just say, for example, to make this simple,
12:01 we're playing a little head-to-head poker.
12:03 So we're playing a little...
12:06 little head-to-head poker here.
12:10 At this point, you have five cards.
12:13 I've got six cards.
12:15 That's giving me a little edge over the hand.
12:18 Well, that's what cheating's all about, I guess.
12:21 So first of all, before I skin the hand,
12:23 let me show you how I get that extra card.
12:26 Elsewhere on your toolbox of moves here,
12:28 you're going to learn second dealing,
12:30 somewhere along the line, I'm sure.
12:32 And this is exactly half of a second deal.
12:35 Say I deal one, one, one, one, one.
12:42 At this point, I do a two-card push-off,
12:44 and I deal two cards to myself.
12:46 And it's four, four, five, five.
12:49 So I get that extra card.
12:51 But this is an extremely deceptive action.
12:54 I can do...
12:59 a hand of poker like this,
13:00 so you end up with your five cards,
13:02 and I end up with a whole slew of cards to choose from.
13:06 But a real gambler, of course, wouldn't do that.
13:08 They'd take the advantage of just one card.
13:11 So we've dealt out a hand.
13:16 I have my extra card in it.
13:18 That's called the double deal, by the way.
13:21 Now I'm going to have a quick, sneaky look through my hands.
13:24 We're allowed to conceal as much as possible
13:27 because we don't want people sneaking looks over our shoulders.
13:30 It's very useful for the gambler
13:31 because now he can hide all of his cards.
13:34 I've got six cards.
13:35 I don't have particularly great cards here.
13:37 You know, on many magic DVDs,
13:39 I suppose they would have set up a fantastic hand here.
13:41 I didn't.
13:42 I just decided to just go dead for it.
13:45 I'm going to take my worst card and skin it off,
13:47 or I may take one of the better cards
13:49 and hold it to switch in later on.
13:51 Let's assume I'm going to lose that two.
13:55 Very common in poker for people to do this kind of action with their cards.
14:00 Very common indeed.
14:03 I've just skinned off the two, by the way.
14:07 I've already skinned it off.
14:09 See, as I'm going to start moving my cards from top to bottom,
14:13 I'm going to push that card down with my fingers,
14:16 squeeze across into a flat part right here.
14:20 So now I can move the cards from top to bottom
14:23 exactly as a great many poker players do
14:26 and then just move the hand away with that skinned off two.
14:31 Magical applications?
14:33 Maybe you can steal off a fake card or something.
14:36 Gambling applications?
14:38 Not going to tell you that
14:39 because I'm sure you can think of millions of them yourself.
14:41 Entertainment applications?
14:43 While you're doing a gambling demonstration,
14:45 doing moves like this and using the correct terminology
14:48 will give you a lot of credence amongst people
14:50 who actually know about playing cards.
14:54 Here's another little thing for your toolbox
15:04 that's one of the ones that definitely separates the men from the boys.
15:08 Palming cards.
15:09 Oh, I sense panic at you just right now.
15:13 Palming cards is one of the ones that gives even some professionals
15:16 terrible tremulations.
15:19 Let's look at various ways to palm cards.
15:21 So we can put the deck down
15:24 and have the card in a magician's palm.
15:27 Now a magician's palm, before I show you how to get into it,
15:30 is between the tip of the little finger and the base of the left thumb.
15:35 So it's kind of, these fingers aren't doing anything.
15:38 You know, you see a lot of people like, "I've got to claw it."
15:41 But don't.
15:42 Also, avoid this terrible fish hook, as Vernon called it.
15:46 You want that thumb in.
15:49 So you're just holding between the little finger and the base of the thumb.
15:53 These fingers are nice and loose,
15:55 which allows you to have a nice natural looking hand on the table.
15:58 And in fact, at the edge of the table, if you're like this,
16:01 it just looks as though your hand should be there.
16:04 But you're palming the card.
16:06 There are various ways to get into this palm.
16:08 Let's give you a nice easy way to do it.
16:12 As the right hand comes over,
16:14 the right little finger touches onto the corner of the top card of the deck.
16:20 It pushes it forward just a smidgen, just a tiny little bit.
16:25 You don't need much.
16:27 So as the right hand comes over, that left little finger just pushes,
16:31 allowing that card to spring up into the right palm.
16:37 Now, the moment you do that, pull back your first finger onto the deck.
16:43 You see, this was advocated by Paul LePaul, this little finger curl.
16:48 And it's genius.
16:50 It doesn't seem like much, but trust me, check this out.
16:54 Let me show you why.
16:55 I'm going to go into my palming action here.
16:57 So my little finger has allowed that card to spring up into the hand.
17:01 Now, I'm palming a card.
17:05 Do the LePaul action.
17:07 Now my hand is empty.
17:09 Could be palming, not palming.
17:12 This action is just really disarming to have that little first finger on the deck
17:19 while you're palming your card.
17:22 You don't want to be caught too dirty palming cards too often, trust me,
17:25 because when you've got that card palmed, now you want to get rid of it.
17:29 Say you're going to go for card to wallet, you're going to do card under glass or whatever,
17:33 but this whole action, don't be frightened of palming.
17:36 You're just coming in, letting that card spring as you're chatting to them.
17:43 You don't want to be saying, "Oh, look at my hands here. I'm going to do something."
17:47 You're asking them, "Do you remember your card?"
17:49 And by the time they've remembered it and said it, you have it palmed.
17:53 So that's a magician's palm.
17:55 Of course, there is other kinds of ways to palm cards.
17:59 For example, the flat palm, where you're palming off a card from the top of a deck,
18:05 perhaps in the action of cutting the deck maybe.
18:08 You palm off the card.
18:11 This is a completely different palm to a magician's palm.
18:15 It's actually done between the little finger and the thumb.
18:20 So the card is actually gripped here.
18:24 So as your hand comes over the deck, your thumb goes to one side,
18:29 your little finger goes to the other side,
18:32 and that's going to allow you with just a bit of practice to lift just one card from the deck.
18:39 So in the process, for example, of cutting a deck, you can steal a card.
18:46 There's also a lot of tricks that use this.
18:48 Edward Marlow loved this palm and popularized it tremendously with some great work.
18:54 And I'm going to give my old buddy Randy Wakeman another little mention here
18:58 because his work on this with the Randy revelation of four aces is quite stunning.
19:03 And I suggest you immediately phone up Magic Makers and cheer them up by ordering his DVDs
19:08 and looking at just a beautiful piece of magic that uses a flat palm.
19:15 Another palm commonly used by magicians is the gambler's cop.
19:21 They call it a cop. It's actually not a gambler's cop, but hey, that's what it's called in the trade.
19:26 It's a way of copping off cards from the bottom of the deck.
19:30 So how do you do this little guy?
19:32 You want to break on the cards you're going to steal.
19:35 As you square the deck in your fingers, you simply allow those cards to stay behind.
19:41 Now there's a little bit of an angle here because you've got the cards sticking out the back of your hand.
19:46 So you can come to the edge of the table, and now you're clean.
19:49 The edge of the table action is quite interesting.
19:52 Let me see if I can show you this clean.
19:54 As I come to the edge of the table, I'm gripping the cards between my thumb and my finger
20:00 and allowing those cards to go over the edge of the table.
20:04 This is allowing me to have a very clean, nice little empty hand here.
20:08 But when I want to add those cards back on, let's say I'm cutting the deck to add them on,
20:13 I cut, and as I come back, they go back into the cop position, onto the deck, and I complete the cut.
20:25 [music]
20:33 Now sometimes you don't want to palm off the top of the deck, as we just saw with the, of course,
20:37 just the little bottom palm there.
20:39 Let's squeeze the deck in our hands, and let's palm a card off the bottom of the deck into Magician's Palm.
20:47 This is kind of like the little Erdnase palm, if you will.
20:50 It's not a palm I use a lot, so I just hope people don't squeal and say I'm not doing it justice,
20:55 but here's how we've done.
20:58 We've pushed the card over just a little.
21:01 This is as I'm holding the deck.
21:03 As the deck comes into the left hand, my right little finger is going to twist this card around just a little bit like this.
21:12 So it's pushed, now it's going to twist as the deck goes into my hand.
21:18 So push, it's now starting to twist.
21:21 As the left hand comes in, it's going directly into palm position.
21:26 As I square the deck in my hand, I have the card bottom palm.
21:32 See if I can do this with my elbows in a really mad position here for your toolbox.
21:37 So as the left hand comes in, it spins in to the bottom palm right there.
21:55 Another little way to bottom palm a card is the Jennings bottom palm.
22:00 This is a lovely little bottom palm.
22:02 Oh, and it's there by the way, right in the palm of the hand.
22:06 This bottom palm is kind of weird, to be honest, but I love it.
22:11 I take a little break on the bottom card here.
22:15 Now the left little finger is going to do all of the work to rotate that card into your palm.
22:21 So as you come to take the deck, the hand doesn't go around the deck.
22:25 The left little finger locks against that bottom card.
22:29 And the right third finger, let me take the deck away, grips the card.
22:35 Now what's going to happen between those two fingers is they're going to rotate it round into the palm of your hand.
22:43 So as you come in, little finger, third finger, card rotates directly into a bottom palm.
22:51 The important thing about this move is the left thumb.
22:54 It has to come directly against the edge of the deck.
22:57 You don't want to be doing that, because everyone's going to see what's going on.
23:01 So the deck needs to keep coming to the left to hit against the thumb as that card rotates.
23:09 And as the card rotates, it rotates directly into a delightful Jennings bottom palm.
23:17 [Music]
23:25 A very cute way to use cards, you know, if you've got a drink or something in your hand and you want to be able to palm a card,
23:32 is to have the ability to do a one-hand top palm.
23:36 Now a one-hand top palm is quite tremulous to some people, but actually not that hard to do.
23:44 So for example, you could be going into, say, a cutting action of the deck,
23:49 and have your card palmed using a one-hand top palm.
23:53 So here's the technique for a one-hand top palm.
23:57 The deck is held with the thumb at the back, near to the outer corner, the corner here.
24:04 Your fingers are over the front of the deck.
24:06 Your little finger is kind of free, because that's going to do most of the work.
24:11 Your little finger is going to push forwards on that top card, just angling it forward slightly.
24:18 The little finger is now going to press on that card, allowing the card to drop into the palm position, just as so.
24:28 If you put the deck this way up, the card actually springs into place.
24:34 The card this way up, the card goes squeezed down.
24:39 It's more of a squeezing action than a springy action.
24:43 If you try and do it too fast, you're going to get this happen.
24:46 Squeak! It's going to squidge out the side of your hand.
24:49 So it's much more of just a gentle squeeze to put the card into the palm position.
24:56 I'll do it for you one more time.
24:58 So it's empty hand, and it's just a squeeze to put the card into palm position.
25:08 And that's the one-hand top palm.
25:10 And if you want to see a trick using the one-hand top palm, I'm going to be very redundant here and mention my madness behind the Methods DVDs,
25:18 where you'll see a trick called "Imagination" that uses exactly that palm to devastating effect.
25:25 Though I say so myself.
25:27 Oh, blimey!
25:29 [Music]
25:37 A few of the Gambler's moves are very applicable to Magic, one of which is the ability to mark cards during a game.
25:44 Now a Gambler will mark cards for high and low to give himself an advantage.
25:48 You can mark cards to give yourself a huge advantage of knowing a chosen card.
25:53 One of the techniques of the Gambler is called "Nail-Nicking".
25:58 This is where they're going to nick a card.
26:00 Now here's how a Gambler would do it.
26:02 They would have their little hand of cards, and behind the hand, they would take a good card, say the Queen of Spades, a high card,
26:10 and he would use his fingernail to put a nick into the card, just as so.
26:17 If you look very, very carefully, you'll see that there's actually a little dent right in the edge of the card.
26:24 Now I've put the work in light there. Let's put it in real hard for you.
26:28 So it would be something like that.
26:31 That's really exaggerated, by the way.
26:34 But that's just to give you a true idea of what a nail-nick would look like from behind the hand.
26:40 So how is this applicable to Magic?
26:44 Well, one of the guys who used nail-nicking that first came to my mind was Eddie Fields.
26:50 Eddie Fields used to do a wonderful effect where you would allow them to shuffle a deck of cards.
26:57 You'd ask them to cut it into three piles, and now you'd ask them to point to one of the piles.
27:03 Let's say they pointed to the center one.
27:05 Here's how you would use a nail-nick in a magical situation.
27:09 They point to the center one. You're going to apparently just push the pile towards them.
27:13 But what's actually going to happen--let me use my other hand here so you can see it very clearly--
27:19 is you would pull back on the top card.
27:22 The thumb would nick that top card as you push the pile towards them.
27:28 You'd then ask them to look at the card, shuffle it back into the deck.
27:33 It doesn't matter where they shuffle.
27:36 Do you see? Right there, there's a great big nail-nick upon it.
27:43 Right there.
27:47 You see it? I think you can.
27:50 There's the nick in the card.
27:53 So you can always find a freely chosen card that's been shuffled back into the deck with the use of a nail-nick.
28:02 And thank you, Eddie Fields, for that.
28:04 Great little book, by the way, "The Artful Dodges of Eddie Fields."
28:08 That's a book that very few people read, I think, and should be read by everybody.
28:13 Phenomenal magic in there.
28:15 And that's the use of a nail-nick.
28:17 Another way gamblers will mark cards in a game is waving cards.
28:21 Now, to wave a card in a game, you would have your hand, and you're going to put a little bend into the card.
28:29 So, a little exaggeration there. You see how I've put a little wave into the card there?
28:34 That card can now be found in the deck because the wave's going to put a natural break onto it.
28:41 Right there.
28:43 This is almost like a crimp, if you will, that the card is waved.
28:47 It's actually come very close into the game of Texas Hold 'Em now because people are allowed to look at their cards like this.
28:54 Let me take away this hand and show you what you would do with a card you want to know.
28:59 As you're looking at your cards, you would push down more on this card, putting a noticeable bend into it.
29:06 Exaggerated, I may add.
29:09 So, next time those cards come out on the table, I'll know which card they've got.
29:15 At least I'll know if it's a high or a low card they've got.
29:18 That was very exaggerated, just so you'd know what a professional one would look like.
29:22 I would come here and have the cards like this.
29:26 All I'm going to be seeing is a little shadow under the card.
29:29 It's not going to be bent an awful lot, but it's going to give a bigger shadow than this one.
29:35 Useful for magic? Maybe if you're doing a little gambling demonstration, you want to take a chosen card and say to them,
29:42 "Maybe have a look at your card," and you've put a natural bend into the card.
29:47 You see again, the shadow is up again on the card.
29:50 Maybe useful for magic, maybe not, but it's certainly useful for gambling demonstrations
29:56 if you're working with people who know the game of Texas Hold'em.
29:59 You see, just knowing the gambling moves isn't enough.
30:02 You have to know the parlance, you have to know the correct cheating techniques,
30:06 and that's important to do gambling demonstrations with.
30:10 So, add this to your toolbox.
30:12 You may not use it much, but the day a guy comes up to you and says,
30:15 "Hey, what do you know about cheating at cards?" you'll be able to show him a real cheating method.
30:21 Gambling demonstrations are often reliant on very difficult moves.
30:35 However, in the world of the real gambler, many of the moves are actually quite easy.
30:39 Here's one you can show your friends with very little practice.
30:43 Let's deal out five hands of poker for draw poker.
30:47 Not the most popular game in the world these days, but, well, let's just use the game as an example.
30:55 Five cards, of course, to each hand.
31:03 Not much going on there, so let's gather up these hands, just as so.
31:13 Drop them on top of the deck.
31:16 Now you say to your friends you're going to cheat.
31:19 I'm going to give you some additions right after this, but let's just say you want to do it the very, very easy way.
31:24 I'm now going to cheat. I'm going to try and deal myself a pat hand.
31:28 That'll be one, two, three, four, five.
31:32 One, two, three, four, five.
31:34 One, two, three, four, five.
31:36 One, two, three, four, five.
31:38 Last time around.
31:39 One, two, three, four, five.
31:42 It doesn't look as though you did any work at all, but you did enough work to give yourself four aces.
31:50 This is called the pick-up stack and can be done dead from a shuffled deck.
31:56 You don't always get four aces, of course, but you can always get a really good poker hand.
32:01 Let's look at how it works.
32:03 You see, it's all to do with how you pick up the hands.
32:07 Let's give these a genuine shuffle.
32:11 I was just, I really lucked out there, by the way.
32:13 It was from a shuffled deck. I just happened to have four aces.
32:16 So you deal out five hands of poker.
32:21 Now, as you're dealing out these hands, you're actually looking for a hand of poker amongst the hands.
32:33 So let's see what we've got here.
32:35 Well, we have an ace in this hand.
32:37 We have an ace in this hand.
32:39 We have an ace in this hand.
32:41 Three aces. That's pretty good.
32:43 Let's look at the other two hands quickly.
32:45 We have a five here and a five here.
32:48 Three aces and two fives, of course, is a really nice little hand called a full house or a boat.
32:55 So all we're going to do is pick up the hands and put them into order.
32:59 So I would first of all pick up four cards.
33:02 Scoop up the ace.
33:04 The ace is now stacked.
33:06 At this point, I'm going to pick up two cards.
33:08 Scoop up this hand.
33:10 The hands are going to be face down, of course.
33:12 Put the next ace into position.
33:14 Now I want the five, so I pick up three cards.
33:17 Scoop underneath to pick these up to put the five into position.
33:22 Pick up two cards.
33:23 Scoop underneath to put the five into position.
33:27 The ace is already in position here, so I just drop those cards on top.
33:31 It looks as though I've dealt out a poker hand for a demonstration to show what happens when the cards are dealt normally with no cheating.
33:39 And in the course of picking up the hands, I've actually stacked myself a boat, a full house.
33:46 So when I deal out one, two, three, four, five and keep dealing around, I'm going to end up with two fives and three aces.
34:01 And that's the kind of hand you'd ransom your children for.
34:05 Now when you've actually done the stack, the pick up stack, if you've been learning from your toolbox, you want to make it look even better.
34:14 It's really nice to say, "We'll shuffle the cards, do a push through shuffle, we'll cut the cards, do your little table cut."
34:23 Then when you deal out your pat hand, now you're cooking with gas, as I would say.
34:39 Elsewhere in your toolbox, you'll have learned about glimpsing some cards.
34:44 You remember these little guys, where we did the little turnover glimpses?
34:48 In the gambling world, there's also a number of glimpses that can be very useful for your magic.
34:53 Let's look first of all at the bubble peak.
34:55 I would say to somebody, "Put your hand out right there."
34:59 At that point, I've glimpsed the top card of the deck.
35:01 Now I can use this as a key card or maybe a force card, but it's the ace of clubs.
35:06 So how do you do the bubble peak?
35:09 Here's the deal. Your left fingers are against the deck.
35:13 Your right thumb is going to push on the top card.
35:16 Now normally, if those fingers were out of the way, of course, the card would just push over.
35:20 But because the fingers are in the way, it's going to cause that card to bend, to bubble, if you will.
35:27 So now, as I reach out to say, "Put something here," maybe put your hand there or put a coin there,
35:33 my hand turns inward, I bubble that card, and you see, I can see exactly the value of the card off the bubble.
35:46 Boom. See it straight away.
35:49 All I have to do is look down as I point with my finger, and I can see that card off the bubble.
35:56 In fact, just to give you a little educational amusement here,
35:59 it's normally used in a game of either blackjack or stud poker.
36:03 So as a player checks his whole card, he'll also be bubble peaking the top card.
36:10 It's a very natural action, and how cool for him this is, he knows the ace of spades is on top.
36:16 So if he has to play with somebody else, he'll deal them a second and keep that ace for himself.
36:21 Nice.
36:24 [Music]
36:32 Another very simple way to glimpse the top card is as you're riffle shuffling.
36:37 Just riffle shuffle, and you know the top card.
36:40 In this case, the ace of clubs.
36:42 How do you know it? You glimpse it on the shuffle.
36:46 You see, what's going to happen here, I'm going to lift my hands real high, show it to our camera there.
36:51 As I'm shuffling, I'm lifting the left hand a little higher and running down the cards
36:58 so I can see that top card literally mid-shuffle.
37:05 It's very deceptive and very little known.
37:08 It's a great way to put a key card on top of a deck.
37:12 [Music]
37:22 You know, sometimes when you need a key card, for example, at the bottom of the deck,
37:27 it's kind of useful not to just look at the bottom of the deck.
37:30 So let's play a little gambler's move here called the back peek.
37:34 By the way, that was it.
37:36 The bottom card of the deck is the four of spades, my key card.
37:41 It's much nicer than actually just looking at that bottom card to get a key card.
37:46 So how do I get the glimpse?
37:49 It's all as I square up the deck.
37:52 You see, let's pull the old hand into the now famous
37:56 "I'm going to get arthritis in my elbow any day soon now" position.
38:01 As I square up the deck, my first finger of the left hand is going to apply pressure against the bottom of the deck.
38:09 And as I square the deck, that card is going to bubble back,
38:14 allowing me to glimpse it so that as I go forwards with the deck,
38:19 I've now got my glimpse on the bottom card.
38:22 It looks a little like that in practice.
38:25 And that's how you can get a glimpse on a key card without apparently doing so.
38:39 Here's another little glimpse for you, which is kind of fun.
38:42 And it's the way blackjack is often dealt in bars, oddly enough, in England and in private games.
38:48 You see, the dealer will look at the card before he deals it.
38:52 So he'll look at the card before he deals it.
38:55 This allows you to do an interesting little glimpse of the second card down.
39:00 I now know that this card is the Queen of Diamonds, just as so.
39:05 If you're doing a demonstration for your friends about how to cheat at cards,
39:09 this is a great one to show them because it's very easy to learn,
39:13 very easy to show, but it's also very applicable to real life.
39:18 You see, here's what's happening.
39:21 I'm looking at a card. I'm dealing it.
39:24 When I want to do the glimpse, I actually lift up two cards.
39:28 I glimpse the top card, just as I'm doing before, but now I know the second card down.
39:35 It looks exactly the same as looking at the card before I'm dealing it.
39:41 Now I know this card.
39:43 And that's a little one to add to your toolbox to show your friends who want to learn about gambling cheating.
39:51 [Music]
39:59 It's amazing how much of the American language has come from the game of poker.
40:04 To hold something close to your chest means to keep it secret.
40:07 It actually comes from holding your cards close to your chest.
40:11 The term foreflusher is going to be applied here as well.
40:15 Foreflusher comes directly from the game of poker.
40:18 A guy who's not quite as honest as you would think.
40:22 In the old days, these guys would do stuff like this.
40:25 They would have four cards to a flush and one odd card.
40:30 So there's a little gambling history here for you.
40:32 And they would spread just the four cards, drop them down onto the table,
40:39 claim they've got a flush, collect the money, and then immediately throw the cards away.
40:45 Very dangerous.
40:48 Especially when you consider the phrase "passing the buck,"
40:51 which is, in other words, passing something on to somebody else,
40:54 which also comes from the game of poker.
40:56 And it comes directly from the dealer was derived by putting a bowie knife on the table
41:01 to designate who was the dealer, and the knife was passed.
41:05 So you would pass the buck knife along to the next dealer.
41:09 Of course, if you were caught doing this, the buck knife wouldn't be passed to the dealer.
41:13 It would be passed directly into your chest.
41:17 The four flush, however, when you want to do a little gambling demonstration,
41:20 also grew up just a little bit.
41:24 Let's show you how it would work in the old days.
41:29 You would signal to your partner that you have four spades and an odd card.
41:33 Your partner, meanwhile, has the other spade to the flush.
41:37 How cool is that?
41:40 Your partner is going to drop out of the game,
41:43 but not before he's palmed off that extra little spade.
41:49 He now drops out.
41:51 All he's doing is holding out that extra spade.
41:55 Meanwhile, you, the little cheaty person that you are, would skin the hand,
42:00 which you'll find somewhere else on this DVD.
42:03 You would skin the hand of the jack of hearts and lose it.
42:07 Boom, it's gone. It's dropped. It's kicked under the table.
42:11 Now you're literally playing with a four flush.
42:15 Your only other little thing is you've got to put a little bow into these cards.
42:19 Let's exaggerate that for you.
42:21 So that when you throw your hand down at the end and claim it's a flush,
42:24 you just throw it down as so, as a little pile.
42:27 Your partner, pretending to be suspicious of you,
42:30 and trust me, enemies at the table aren't always enemies.
42:34 Sometimes they're friends just pretending to be enemies.
42:37 He's going to add this card to your hand.
42:39 He's not, however, going to come straight over the top and spread the cards.
42:43 Ooh, we've got a little magic trick here, the appearing ten.
42:47 Great for a magic trick, maybe. Not very good at the card table.
42:52 Instead, he's going to add it underneath the hand.
42:55 So as he comes over to spread the cards,
42:58 he allows the cards to drop off his finger
43:01 so it can slide directly under the cards and spread so the ten appears at the bottom.
43:07 At a working speed, the guy would go, "God, man, let's check it.
43:11 Oh, he has got a flush. Jeez."
43:15 Lovely little bit of four flush in there.
43:27 As I may have said to redundancy on your toolbox so far,
43:31 gambling demonstrations are very, very popular with people.
43:35 Often they'll say, "I don't want to see a magic trick.
43:37 If you could show me how to cheat at cards, that would be better."
43:40 So it's always wise to have some gambling stuff in your toolbox repertoire.
43:45 This is one very few magicians do. It's called the brush.
43:49 And it's really a show and tell for your audience.
43:52 You would say to your buddies, "I'd be working with a partner."
43:56 And we'd signal to each other what cards we have.
43:59 You know, if we're sitting next to each other, I could even just show my friend what I have.
44:03 It's actually one of the most common forms of cheating in the world today, by the way.
44:06 But let's not go down that tremulous path.
44:10 I've learned that he has three tens in his hand.
44:14 I have two kings. That's a great hand.
44:18 That's tens over kings, a boat, and that's the kind of hand that's going to take real money.
44:24 Here's what's going to happen.
44:26 My little partner is going to bow down just the tens.
44:32 He's going to hold a break on them and bow those cards down just a little.
44:37 Let's exaggerate that for you.
44:39 So there's a bend in the cards. That's what he's going to do.
44:43 Meanwhile, in my hand, what I'm going to do is move the kings to the back.
44:48 And in preparation for a move called the brush, I'm going to move those three odd cards down into the palm of my hand, just as so.
45:01 At the point of the change, we're playing, let's say we're playing five-card draw poker.
45:07 My little buddy would normally, of course, if he was playing on the square, would change the seven and the three.
45:13 What he does, right as I'm about to do my change, to irritate me, he throws down his cards that he's going to change.
45:20 Right in front of me, apparently annoying me, he's actually thrown down the three bowed tens.
45:27 Let's lose those cards and go back to my hand.
45:31 Remember, I had those cards bent down into my palm.
45:37 So he's blocked those cards there. I've got these here.
45:41 I say to him, "Keep your bloody cards to yourself, mate."
45:46 And that's the exact point of the brush.
45:49 See, that's the point where I switched out those three cards for the tens, leaving me with the boat.
45:57 So how did the switch happen?
46:00 Remember those tens are slightly bowed up.
46:04 I have the kings high in my hand, the other cards low.
46:08 I take my other hand right out of the way here.
46:11 As I'm going to sweep in, these three cards are going to go directly under the tens.
46:18 So I'm going to open my fingers here, see if you can see it.
46:20 So they're going to go right underneath.
46:23 As they're going to slide underneath, momentum is going to put these three cards into my left hand.
46:29 And I'm going to push these three cards, the odd cards I don't want, towards him.
46:34 So, like that, is going to be the action.
46:37 See if we can catch--actually, let's turn the cards face up.
46:39 That would be a smart call, Sammy.
46:43 Now, this is one move you can't do slow, so you're just going to have to trust the cards.
46:47 There are some moves where the cards do half the work, and in this case, they do a lot of the work.
46:51 So these cards are going to slide under the tens.
46:54 You're going to use your thumb to push them over.
46:57 So there's the brush.
47:00 You've literally switched in the cards you require for your boat.
47:05 And it's given your partner the rubbish, and you don't mind about that because, after all, you're going to split the money afterwards anyway.
47:12 See if he can catch me.
47:13 Oops, did I say that?
47:15 [music]
47:24 The drop switch is very much a misdirectional move.
47:27 You explain to your friends it's done as you're throwing a poker check into the table.
47:32 So, let's--well, I'll just do it with four cards for now.
47:35 Let's say these are my cards.
47:38 Now I'm going to put a poker check into the table.
47:41 And at that point, I've switched in the four aces.
47:44 So the drop switch is as follows.
47:46 You have the four cards, in this case, that I'm going to switch in broken off the back of the deck with the left thumb.
47:55 The four cards I'm going to switch out are slightly bowed up.
48:01 And now what's going to happen is, as the deck comes across to place it to one side, we're going to switch those hands.
48:06 But I'm going to use this hand for shade as I come in to throw in a chip or a check.
48:13 So the action is simply this.
48:15 I come over, I drop a hand, and I lift the other hand up as I move the deck to one side.
48:23 So as I come over, I drop this hand, move the deck, and pick this hand up.
48:33 It would seem to be glaringly apparent what's going on.
48:36 But when you add in the shade, or the cover, if you will, what happens is the deck starts to come over.
48:45 The moment you're going to drop it, that's when you throw in the check and move the deck across.
48:51 Now you do this at speed, and you'll be alarmed how deceptive this little puppy is.
48:57 It's really a beautiful thing.
48:59 So I'm going to throw in a check, and the hand's been switched.
49:04 Here's another little gambler's switch which is actually very useful for magic.
49:16 I'll tell you why after we do the switch.
49:18 You see I've got this little hand of cards.
49:21 Let's put the deck to one side, and let's just use my hand for the trick.
49:25 Hey, I've switched it for the four aces.
49:28 This is a beautiful little switch.
49:31 Very deceptive, very disarming, especially if you do it on the cover of just chatting away to them.
49:37 So I have the four aces in this case on the bottom of the deck with a break over them.
49:46 I take the hand I'm going to switch out, square it up on the deck.
49:51 Now, you know, it's awkward to square cards one-handed.
49:53 We can all do it, but it looks more natural if you use both hands to square the cards.
49:59 So we have the cards.
50:01 We square them.
50:02 We immediately drop them on top of the deck, and now just lift everything away from the break.
50:09 It's a lovely little switch.
50:12 So we square, move the deck away, and the switch is done.
50:18 Now, this is great if you want to switch in gaffed cards or faked cards or some packet trick cards.
50:24 Let's assume these are maybe McDonald aces cards, and you've got one face-down card on top of the double faces.
50:31 Oops, was that exposure?
50:33 So we show our normal four aces.
50:36 Let's pretend these are four aces.
50:38 We can show them back and front.
50:40 We square them on the deck, and now we're all set to go into McDonald's aces because we've switched in the double faces for McDonald's aces.
50:47 You could switch in a little packet trick, a little odd-back trick.
50:51 This is a great little switch to have in your toolbox.
50:55 [Music]
51:04 Your friends are always going to ask you about poker and how you switch cards and stuff like that.
51:08 So let them shuffle the deck.
51:11 Let them deal two hands of cards.
51:16 So they've dealt two hands of cards.
51:18 You grab your cards back towards yourself.
51:20 You say, "I just want to check you dealt correctly."
51:22 That's one, two, three, four, five.
51:25 Marvelous.
51:26 You dealt me just five cards.
51:28 Lucky me.
51:29 You dealt me the five of hearts.
51:31 And that's not the lucky one.
51:33 That's actually the four aces that are lucky.
51:38 Okay, this is a great little poker switch actually based upon a genuine gambling switch.
51:44 And you're switching out four cards.
51:48 Kind of awkward to do by myself there, but you'll see what I mean.
51:52 So the four aces are going to be held out from the deck, and I'm going to have them over the back of the table right here.
51:59 Remember that grip between the thumb and the finger.
52:02 Looking from the front, you've got a nice empty hand, but you're holding out the aces.
52:07 Now, they're going to deal the two hands.
52:11 So they're going to deal five cards to you.
52:15 As you go to take your cards, you add the aces onto the bottom.
52:22 Now you're going to casually count the cards, and if you want you can be a bit naughty with them and say,
52:27 "I'm going to check you've actually dealt me five."
52:29 And you count one, two, three, four cards from the top, holding the five-card block as one.
52:38 And as you come up, you now kick these cards back into a cop position as you move the other cards forwards.
52:46 So now you have these cards in a cop, and this is going to be your hand.
52:51 As you come back to the edge of the table, you release those four cards, and now you're as clean as a whistle.
52:59 You have the nine of diamonds, not much of a card, but the other four are certainly going to make up for it.
53:08 It's a beautiful little poker switch, and one that I highly recommend you show your friends.
53:13 Well,