Royal Road to Card Magic The

It is a good trick, because it gives you a psychological advantage over your audience. At first those present think you are a hopeless dud with cards and they feel a little sorry for you. When you seem to be in the deepest trouble and they feel most sympathetic, you startle them by showing that you have had command of the situation from the start. The climax is amazing and causes laughter and bewilderment. The trick can be performed in about two minutes, and this is important, because the first tricks should be quick and good.
    The trick is a good one for another reason. While performing it, you prepare for the next in your routine, in this manner. While searching for the spectator's card in step 9, move the cards around and, in doing this, place any nine-spot at the ninth position from the top, with the four aces immediately following it. In this manner, while doing one trick, you prepare for the next, which is:
    Obliging Aces This is a trick which seems to call for great skill. In performing it, you convince those present that you have genuine ability. When finished, thrust the four aces into the pack and hand it for shuffling. Next, you perform:
    Do As I Do Your audience is now watching attentively for sleight of hand, hence you make a change of pace and instead perform a self-working feat which requires no skill but has a tremendous effect. You follow this with:
    Card in the Pocket
Here you change the
type
of trick, performing a pseudo-mind reading feat, which you follow with:
    Three Cards Across
This concludes the routine with a fine trick that to the audience is the most surprising feat of all those you have performed.
    A routine of card tricks that may serve one person admirably may not be nearly so effective in the hands of another, because the personality of a performer has much to do with the entertainment value which is got from the routine.
    As you perform the tricks given you in this book, you will find that you enjoy performing some of them more than others, and usually you will get a stronger audience reaction from these tricks. You should remember the ones from which you get the most effect and use these in building your routines. You should also try to remember any amusing byplay or incidents that happen, so that you can keep these in your presentation. You will find that the more you perform a trick the better your presentation will be, for a good presentation grows, like Topsy, as you incorporate these extemporaneous bits of business in your routine.
    The building of a routine is one of the most fascinating aspects of doing magic with cards. The clever performer always considers his tricks from the viewpoint of the audience and strives to make them more and more entertaining. Your talk or patter is an integral part of the routine and should be given as much thought as the mechanics of the trick. In some of the tricks in this book we have sketchily indicated a suitable patter, but if possible you should contrive your own talk, which will then be in keeping with your personality. You will find that as you perform your tricks you will make amusing or charismatic remarks extemporaneously, and you should remember the bits of byplay we have mentioned.
    In constructing your patter, which will follow the plot line of your trick, be careful not to be verbose. The student often feels that he must talk interminably, and this becomes boring. You will know quickly enough if what you are saying is effective. If it is not, rewrite your patter. If you are talking too much and your audience looks unhappy, cut your patter mercilessly. If you have attempted to be humorous and no one laughs, throw out what you thought were the jokes and find others that are really amusing or witty. It is only by self-criticism that you will perfect and smooth your talk.
    The plot line of a trick is usually indicated by the trick itself. In devising your presentation, you should apply the laws of interest. If you say 'Let me show you a card trick,' you have not necessarily succeeded in arousing interest. But you could say 'You have, no doubt, heard of the lie detector, the complicated machine that science has devised to determine if a person is lying or telling the truth. Well, this pack of cards is my lie detector, and I'd like to show you how it operates.' If you make some such introductory statement, you have aroused the curiosity of everyone present. Even so simple a statement as 'This is a trick that Paul Daniels has used for