The Stack Ideas
If you are content to perform Move a Card without the pack being fully shuffled by the spectator at the outset, then your options are many. Essentially any memorised stack will allow you to perform the effect since you need only look for a card which is out of stack sequence. There are two major downsides of performing with a stack. Firstly, you need to not only know the stack but you should also be very familiar with it. The familiarity will be key, since the second issue is that you have to look at potentially a large part of the pack, one card at a time to see which card is out of position. It is not as easy to quickly spot the card. (Another upside is you will know the exact card whether you find the card itself out of sequence, or if you find the spot it’s missing from).
The following effect variation can be performed with any known stack. It can add extra dimensions to the effect and, following it, I give you a couple of methods which not only simplify the handling but also speed up the revelation considerably.
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Variation 1 - Si Stebbins Stack
Move a Card, Remove a Card
What the audience sees
The magician removes a pack of cards which he shuffles and cuts several times. He spreads them widely on the table and claims he will memorise the cards in order. The cards are spread and the magician scans his eyes across the spread, apparently memorising the cards.
The cards are turned over and re-spread face down. The magician requests a spectator to choose a card from anywhere in the pack and to remember it and move it to another position. He asks the spectator to straighten the cards so he can’t see where the cards were moved. As an afterthought, the magician turns to talk to a second spectator.
“I might get you to make things a little more interesting, and at the same time a little more tricky for me. Will you please remove a card from anywhere and place it in your pocket. Again, straighten the cards so I can’t see where you removed the card from.”
He turns around and states that he couldn’t possibly know, other than by memory, where the cards were moved from or indeed where a single card was moved to. The cards are re-spread, again face up, and the magician reaches into the spread and removes one card. Sure enough, this is the card which was moved. He places it immediately back to its correct position. Turning to the 2nd spectator, he names the missing card which the spectator removes from
his pocket.
Set Up
The Si Stebbins stack is an underused resource. Many magicians claim that the increasing and repetitive number sequence and the red/black sequence are easily spotted. I’ve used Stebbins for 30+ years and, to my knowledge, nobody ever spotted it. I have friends who use it and they report the same. The red/black sequence, as you’ll see is a really useful characteristic for this particular effect. If it bothers any of you that much that you won’t use it then there are alternatives. Docc Hilford, Richard Osterlind and several others have published “improvements” to Stebbins which makes the sequence a little less obvious. The fact I know about these (and own them) should be enough to convince you that they are unnecessary but, if you feel the need, go for it!
Briefly, to place your pack in the Si Stebbins stack, the cards will be in CHaSeD order – Clubs, Hearts, Spades, Diamonds and each card will increase by a value of 3 from the previous card. The stack is cyclic so the last card in the pack cycles back to the first which means that the cards can be cut and the cut completed many times over. They can also be mixed by means of the Charlier shuffle (or indeed any false cut or shuffle) without the order being destroyed. This is explained in the moves section at the end of this book.
The first few cards are AC, 4H, 7S, 10D, KC, 3H, 6S, 9D and so on. The last card will be the Jack of Diamonds. Adding 3 to the Jack (11) gets you back to 1 and following Diamonds is Clubs. The stack has come full circle. If this is your first experience of Stebbins, a Google search will bring up plenty of resources (unfortunately!).
Performance
Remove the cards from the box and explain that you will attempt to memorise the order of the pack. As you are saying this, false cut or shuffle cards and perform a couple of genuine single cuts. Put the cards on the table and have the spectator cut the pack and complete the cut.
Explain that you will memorise the order of the cards. (In the Move 2 Cards chapter you will find a good
presentational premise for this, together with patter. This presentation will work equally well here). Spread the cards widely on the table. Pretend to be concentrating intensely on the cards. I’ll often mumble some nonsense to myself as if partially revealing my memory system.
“Two, ten, black cat, red ball, thirty three, 2001, spade, shovel boat afloat, black, black, red head.”
When you reach the end of the spread, turn the pack face down and spread the pack wide on the table but face down. Turn to a spectator and explain what you want them to do.
“Once I’ve turned away, remove a card from anywhere in the pack, remember the card and move it to another spot. Make sure you concentrate on straightening the cards so I can’t tell where you moved the card from.”
Turn your back as they are doing this and have someone tell you once it is complete. Turning to a 2nd spectator, you
request that they remove a card.
“I might make this a little more interesting. Would you remove a card from anywhere in the spread and place it in your pocket.”
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Have a spectator square the pack and turn back around. Re-spread the cards face-up. As you look across the spread, you will observe 3 pairs of like coloured cards. In other words, the red-black sequence will be broken in 3 places. Take a look at those 3 pairs. In one of the 3, you will find a card out of place. In other words, an extra card, which does not belong in the sequence. Remove this card and place it back into the correct spot in the spread (it will go between the 2 cards in one of the other pairs). This will leave you with one odd pair of cards of a single colour. The card missing from between these 2 cards is the one in the 2nd spectator’s pocket. This is a lot easier to do than it
sounds here. Try it a couple of times and you’ll agree. If you are at all concerned at the pack laying in full view, you can fan the cards between your hands. Alternatively you can lessen the time that the cards are in view. Simply forgo the replacement of the moved card, remove it from the spread, show it, and scoop the pack up. At this point you will already know the missing card so you can go on to name that card.
Variation 2 - The Invisible Stack
This is an idea I’ve used in 2 or 3 of my effects over the years and it has served me very well. (If my Utility Pack ever sees the light of day, the basis of this idea is used to very good effect there). The Invisible Pack, or Ultra Mental Pack as it was known before Don Alan popularised the presentation, is a very common magician’s effect. Most of us have used it at one time or another and I’m a self-confessed Invisible Pack junkie. In the Invisible Pack, the cards are paired as opposite suits Hearts with Spades and Diamonds with Clubs and the pairs of cards add up to 13. It uses up the full Pack and creates a system to link the cards which you need to perform the effect. I took that basic pairing system (one I already knew very well) and added it to other tricks. The Utility Pack uses it in double faced cards, my take on the Menetekel Pack (or indeed the Multi-Effect Pack) uses it too and it allows for an advantage for me over the traditional versions of those effects. (That’s a discussion for another book……….. or 2). The ‘13’ becomes instinctive very quickly and you stop doing the mathematics as you know immediately which card you need to make the pair. I see a 9 of spades and think of a 4 of hearts immediately. This approach also offers an advantage over Si Stebbins (although forgoing another in which to do so) and, as you’ll see, it can offer advantages over a traditional memorised stack too.
To set up, pair the cards according to the invisible pack pairings so that the red and blacks are in a common pattern red, black, red, black, red, black as described above and then place them back into a full pack in any order you like. Aside from the red-black pattern, which is only obvious for anyone really staring at the pack, there is otherwise no pattern. The busy nature of the card designs, plus the intermittent picture cards, make the red-black pattern almost invisible. The kings are paired heart with spade and diamond with club.
When a card is moved from one place to another in this arrangement (as with the Si Stebbins), 2 anomalies occur. You will create a pair of red cards in one place and a pair of blacks somewhere else. This allows you to instantly spot the places the card was moved to and from. The only hiccup in this version is that 50% of the time you will not know which of the 2 cards in the pair has been moved. This is why. When a card is moved, it will either go between 2 pairs or between the 2 cards of a single pair so there are 2 outcomes. Either you will know instantly which of the 2 cards has been moved or you will need to pump for red or black. Look first at the red pair and black pair. If the stranger card is between 2 cards from a pair, then you can name it straight away. If both cards are between 2 pairs you will need to pump for red or black and then you can name the card.
If you decide to have a card removed as well as a card moved then you will have an extra pair of one colour.
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cards of a pair, continue as would have done in the Si Stebbins version. If however the strangers fall between 2 pairs, you may find it easier to work out which card is missing from the spread first.
What then is the advantage over Si Stebbins? The cards are in a sequence and not an order. If you hold the pack face up, you can cut piles of cards onto the table and either drop them onto a single pile or make several piles and re- constitute the pack in any order. The only proviso being that you have the same colour card on the face of each pile you cut. If you don’t square the Pack and then you cut the piles sloppily, cards beneath the face card can be seen and the fact that each pile may have a red card on the face is no longer an issue.
To begin experimenting with this, spread the cards out broadly on the table face down and simply take a card from one place and move it somewhere else without looking at it. Now re-spread the cards face up and take a look at the new order. Once you get used to the moved card variations, try sliding a card face down from the spread as well and work your way through the 3 pairs.