Post
Misdeal by Michał Kociołek
Just released on Vanishing Inc, Misdeal is a unique take on the 10-card poker deal plot that brings a more magical flair. Let’s take a look at the description:
“When he’s not designing Vanishing Inc.’s stunning books, trick packaging, and more, Michal’s devious mind dreams up amazing magic tricks. His latest creation, “Misdeal”, is a wonderful packet trick that is now available exclusively at Vanishing Inc.
Ten cards are spread face-down in a row. Without the faces being seen, you and your participant play a game of 10-card poker. Each of you takes turns drawing one card from the face down spread.
Still without looking at the cards, you explain how you are confident that you’ve won. You explain how the cards are marked and you know your participant has nothing. They look and they literally have nothing because their cards are blank.
Of course, now they want to know how you won? So, you tell them that you have the four Aces and then show the cards. These cards are also blank, but you assure them the marks confirm they are Aces... they are not impressed.
That is until you slowly, deliberately and magically “print” the aces from your blank cards one at a time. With the last magical transformation, you end up with five aces, a “misdeal,” so no one wins and no one loses!”
To perform this you will need Aces and blank cards, but you will need a couple of gaffed cards as well. Both are pretty easy to find which is why this comes in two options: a download-only option and a download + gimmicks option. If you have some classic gaffed decks lying around, you can probably just go with the download option. But if you want to ensure you have what you need, I would just pay $10 more for all of the necessary cards.
The trick itself is relatively easy to do. If you can handle some block push-offs, then you’ve basically got the entire thing mastered. The selection portion is a self-working force of the 5 blank cards on your spectator. It’s clever, but I don’t think it would hold up with normal cards. The reason it works so well here is that once the spectator sees all of the cards are blank and that this is just a joke, they significantly let their guard down and won’t question the selection procedure.
My favorite moment is the very convincing show of 5 blank cards in your hand right before you begin transforming them to Aces. This display is what really sells the effect. The fact that you are then able to immediately turn ALL FIVE blank cards into Aces will certainly leave the spectators clueless. The changes themselves are easy and direct. No need to get any fancier than what Michal‚ provides, although I’m sure you could if you just really wanted to. Michal‚ also goes over a very easy clean up at the end that allows you to freely show the front and back of all the cards.
The biggest downside is that while the five blank cards the spectator holds are examinable, the five cards the performer holds are not. Four out of the five can be examined, but there is one card that can’t. If they really want to check the cards out, you can just hand out a couple of the normal cards and hope that it will appease them. In the professional setting, this isn’t too much of an issue. It only really comes up in more informal performances. There is a little bit of reset time to rearrange the cards. It takes about 15 seconds, but you can’t really do it in front of everyone.
Overall, I like that this approach brings some magic into the 10 card poker deal plot, and I think the appearance of the four Aces will be startling because the audience will be 100% convinced that they are all blank purely based on the psychology of the routine. It’s a clever combination of principles, and it’s quite simple to do. It won’t jump straight into my arsenal, but I could see it going into the arsenal of many performers.
It can be purchased here:
Never miss a post! Subscribe now!