Magic Tricks

I'm pretty sure this video was made before Covid-19 became such a big part of our lives, but it is worth mentioning that this technique is applicable to online, virtual shows as long as you have at least TWO participants who can hear your voice, and are in the same room together with a deck of cards.

In fact, I'm pretty sure you could do this over the phone if you're good at giving instructions.

I am always looking for virtual magic that doesn't just boil down to, "Look, I found your card...AGAIN." It's nice to be able to perform different kinds of effects online or at a distance. In this case, we're talking about a transposition effect that you can do without even being in the same room as your audience. Not bad!

The only thing that weakens the effect is that there is some procedure involved that wouldn't be there if this were "real magic" — but, I mean, OF COURSE! I gave this four stars, because giving it five stars would be like saying it's as good as a floating table or an invisible deck, which I think of as "gold standard" tricks. I wouldn't want to exaggerate.

Kranzo does a good job of explaining how you can rationalize the procedure. There is an explanation he gives to make the moves seem as though they cannot possibly accomplish anything — though, oddly, he does not give that explanation to the audience during the live performance. He only highlights that explanation during the tutorial.

In any case, that rationalization of the moves (i.e. persuading the audience that the moves don't do anything, when in fact they do everything) is, to my mind, essential to getting the most out of this performance.

There is one move at the end that obviously and undeniably changes the position of only ONE card, but it is consistent with any "follow the leader" theme you may choose. The audience will be aware that they took one card out of order, but I think they will be quite surprised to discover that the other ones followed suit and "separated themselves."

This has the potential to really fry brains (depending on the brains), and the steps involved are minimized and rationalized to the point that a good performer can probably make the audience feel as though this is real magic — even from thousands of miles away.