One can like or dislike this trick according to one’s own tastes. The problem is, the trailer for the trick gives a misleading view of what the trick is, and so it is not possible for a potential buyer to get a true sense of the “personality” of the trick — what happens in actual performance. As for me, upon discovering this “personality,” I was deeply disappointed.

The trailer promises: “What if I told you that right now, you could name any card, and I would have that one card here, in my wallet?”

Assuming that the clunky and all-but-impossible solution of having 52 cards hidden in the wallet (and a way of getting to each one) is NOT the method (or somewhat less clunky, having several wallets), this is a very powerful statement, promising a very powerful piece of mentalism.

The problem is, the statement is not true in a majority of instances. In fact, two out of every three times the trick is performed, the performer WON’T have that card in his wallet. While it’s true that in all cases there will be some sort of happy reaction at the end, the trailer misleadingly shows only those reactions that occur either when there’s a direct hit (the minority of instances), or when the “wrong” card is turned into (relative) success. In the latter circumstance — again, the majority of the time — the subdued and somewhat confused and deflated reaction of the spectator in not seeing his chosen card revealed in the wallet is not shown.

Some may argue that the “magician-getting-out-of-trouble” gambit, to bring the effect to a successful conclusion, is more satisfying. This of course can be true in many situations. But not in this case, where two-thirds of the time an essentially powerful and serious effect must be saved by what many would consider a cheesy joke.

Penguin, to its credit, allows readers to ask questions before purchasing a trick. The problem is, while we don’t expect the advertising for a trick to be revealing, we at least expect it to be truthful. This guides us to the right questions to ask.

Buyer beware.

I have to say I am not as angry as I would be had I purchased this at full price. But the ad straight up lies to you. nick says "what if I told you you could name any card and I would have that card in my wallet" that is most definitely not the case. The trick uses a well know out that I personally dislike. I thought this would not be the case because of the performance they show in the trailer and the aforementioned quote by nick. Don't get me wrong the trick technically works, even they way they show in the trailer, but it's not as ground breaking as the trailer seems to be. There are so any other prediction effects that do not need outs that I will never use this. If you like it that's cool but all it would have taken is showing one of the other performances for me to save my money.

I have bought numerous things from penguin and have been practicing magic for 18 years. This trick is extremely disappointing and not at all what is depicted in the trailer. As a top magic site penguin should not allow this type of false advertising.

Once again I feel conned by the edited video if I had seen the complete trick with the alternative ending I would not have bought this I'm glad i didn't pay the full price. Yes if it worked every time as the demo video it's a great trick but be aware this isn't going to be the case every time you perform and I feel the alternative ending which isn't shown on the demo and it will happen if they don't pick the correct card is very week and no where near the wow factor as on the demo.

So I don't think I ever gave a bad review but this trick is just worth it because the way the video presented it.
I will give an example - let's say I show a video of me guessing the exact animal people are thinking about - I ask them think about ANY animal - and I guess it... with 3 different people I meet in the street.
Would that be impressive ? you'd buy it... right ?
Now , the truth is I just guessed 100 people and I luckily hit 3 people so those are in my video.. the other 97 I guessed wrong... but I didn't show it in the video.

Wouldn't that be a SCAM ? EXACTLY what I felt here...
Because in the learning video you see other people he did that and there he did not guess their card ... exactly... but once I saw that I immediately knew how the trick is done....YET - they purposely did NOT show those clips to us. They only showed the ones he was right.

And I always say - if you're selling a trick online - you MUST show the entire video - from all types of results you can get , or else you are SCAMMING people.

For example- if I invent a trick that creates a balloon out of thin air... but sometimes it's RED balloon and sometimes it's BLUE - for the sake of fairness I must show BOTH in my video.
This is NOT the case here.
IF I saw the entire video - like it should be - I would have NEVER bought this trick... that's the honest truth. I feel scammed.
I do NOT recommend any tricks that showing us only the "good" aspect of their trick... show BOTH - or don't show at all !!

Be prepared for hecklers with this one...

No you don't have 52 cards hidden away somewhere. The method is actually pretty clever, but the trailer is deceiving. Like most of the things here on Penguin, you have to ask yourselves, why are there always cut away shots or shots that begin half way into the effect?? In this case, they only show you the best case scenarios in the trailer. They show you the full uncut trailer after you purchase it and I was confused at first because I thought it was a different effect. Until I saw the explanation. In fact, they say in the description 'After having them name their card, you can easily prove that you have correctly read their mind..' Not true, in most cases you do not read their mind. The chances of hitting the exact predicted card is 33%. Otherwise, you have to use one of the outs which they do not show you in the trailer. My guess is because you may be able to backtrack the method and also it simply just doesn't look as strong as a 100% hit.

I can't address the elephant in the room on this effect because it will give the method away. But, I will say that in most scenarios you do not end clean leaving you with audience management issues and hecklers that want to examine things they just can't examine. So audience management will be a key skill with this effect.

All in all, I think I would return this if penguin allowed returns. Don't get me wrong.. It's an amazing effect! It just disappoints me when I see deceiving trailers and deceptively worded descriptions. This is just something I won't perform in it's current form. However, I have came up with my own method for a 100% hit while finishing clean. So if I perform ever end up performing this, I will be doing that instead.

This is an OK trick. However, the trailer is misleading, to say the least. Nick says in the demo, "What would you say if I told you that you could name any card and that I would have THAT ONE CARD in my wallet." NOT TRUE. I don't want to give anything away, but the trailer shows only the hits. Another "tricky" trailer. But, as I said, it's an OK trick

I don't believe this trick was accurately depicted in your advertisement of this trick.

In other words, it was not a good as advertised.

The video is deceptive and doesn't show accurately how the trick unfolds. Dont bother with this one.

Very disappointed, It was a waste of money. I am being honest, I paid $9 to learn how to shove/organize cards in my wallet? prepping takes so much time. friends can very easily dig into your wallet and find the other cards. using the "off by one" in my opinion is lame. you start by not guessing their card, and then you pull a card that again doesn't match and then you have to flip it to finish? a little boring.

I watched the 12 free tricks video and had way more fun, the tricks were so much easier and way more impressive.