Mark Leveridge Magic

A Wrinkle On - ESP Match Up

ALI BONGO

Ali was talking to me about the handling for Ending No.1 as described in the instructions, and suggested an alternative way to 'correct' the pile.

We will assume you have reached the point where both piles have been collected up and you are about to reveal the first card in your pile. Instead of double lifting the top two, hold the pile in the left hand, with the left hand itself palm down in the position to do a Glide.

The right hand comes over to the pile and secretly pushes back the bottom card of the pile a little in order to smoothly slide out the second to bottom one. This card is turned face up and placed on the table as you comment,"Here is the last card in my pile, which as you can see is the Square. And if we turn over your pile, you can see that your last card is also the Square."

So saying you turn the spectator's pile face up to reveal the Square on the face of the pile. The right hand lifts off the Square from the spectator's pile and positions it face up on the table next to your Square.

Now turn your pile face up to show the new bottom card. Place it on top of your Square card. This card will match the card on the face of the spectator's pile. Lift off the spectator's card and place that onto his first card. Continue for the rest of the pile and all the card pairs will match. Simply keep the last two cards of your pile squared together as one and drop them onto your pile as if they were a single card.

Those performers who wear glasses or whose eyesight is perhaps not quite up to the 'reading' of the cards in ESP MATCH UP, will welcome this handling alteration by John.

He suggests that after the spectator has shuffled his set of cards, he should be requested to lay them out in a face up row. After you have tabled your first card, invite him to choose one of his cards and place it face down opposite your selection. Continue in this manner until you both have one card left and then finish the effect in the normal way.

Although this in some ways reduces the strength of the trick in that the spectator’s selections are seen each time by the performer, many matching type effects are done in this way, and it is likely that a lay person would not readily notice the difference! And for the performer who might otherwise have trouble reading the backs of the cards, it takes all the worry out of presenting the trick.