Mark Elsdon The Trick That CAN Be Explained!The Trick That CAN Be Explained! Effect: The performer introduces a small envelope and shows that there is a playing card inside. He places it on the table and never touches it again. A participant takes the deck and shuffles it. Then they cut the deck and the top card is immediately turned over. It is, for example, the Seven of Spades. The deck is turned face-up and clearly spread to show that there are no duplicates. The participant opens the envelope and removes the card inside. It is a perfect match. There are NO other outs — the card in the envelope is always the card they choose. Alternatively you can have a photo of the card posted on your Twitter feed or other social media, or you can message them at the beginning and they check the message at the end. Method: You have been supplied with the prediction card in an envelope and three pairs of roughed cards. Each pair is made up of a force card roughed on the face and an indifferent cover card roughed on the back. The three force cards match the prediction card, For the purposes of the explanation we will assume that the force card is the Seven of Spades. The upper card of each pair also has a Breather Crimp in it so that it will cut to the top of the deck. It also has the small white dot in the center of the card coloured in with red ink so that you can recognise it easily.To set-up your deck, remove the duplicates of the 7S and the three roughed cover cards and place them to one side. They will not be used. Put one roughed pair about 10 cards from the top of the deck, one pair about 25 cards down and the final pair about 40 cards down. Performance: Open the envelope to show the blue-backed card and then close it again and place it on the table, explaining that you won’t touch it again. Tell them that the card will be VERY important in about one minute so you want them to be sure that it was in the envelope from the start. Hand the deck to someone and ask them to remove it and give it a quick shuffle. As you say the words “Give them a quick shuffle” you mime an overhand shuffle. The wording and your example ensure they do indeed give it just an overhand shuffle and don’t start getting adventurous with riffles or faros. Thanks to the roughing, the cards will stay in pairs. Next have them set the deck down on the table and give it a cut. 99% of the time they will cut to one of the Breather Crimped force cards. You will know immediately because you will see the mark in the center of the card. If they don’t, simply have them cut once more. This time they will hit. Very cleanly and openly turn over the top card of the deck and name it — the Seven of Spades. Explain that ina moment their mind will start searching for a rational explanation for what they are about to see and that one possibility that will likely occur to them is that there is more than one Seven of Spades in the deck. Turn the deck face-up and spread it widely, giving them plenty time to see every card. Thanks to the roughing they won't see either of the two duplicates. Square the deck, turn it face-down and place it off to one side. Teil them that the next possible explanation is that somehow you switched the card inside the envelope, so you won’t even touch the envelope. Tell them that they might think that it is some kind of ‘tricky’ envelope that could 2hide more than one card somehow. Direct them to examine the envelope without opening it. They will confirm that it is just a regular envelope. Finally, tell them to open the envelope and remove the card. They will see that it is a perfect match. The Breather Crimp In case you need to strengthen the breather crimp in one of your force cards here’s how: hold the card face-up with the left fingertips. Place the tip of your right thumb in the centre of the face of the card and your right first and second fingers underneath the card, pressing up against the centre of the back. Push down fairly hard with your right thumb, so that you can feel the fingers through the card. Maintaining the pressure, pull the thumb and fingers out to a corner of the card. This will make a slight indentation in the face of the card running from the middle out to one corner. Repeat for the other 3 corners. If you now place this card near the middle of the deck, when the deck is cut the crimped card will be on top of the deck. Credits: Firstly, for the concept, mindset, styling and approach to this effect (and much of my repertoire), thanks to Chan Canasta. If you don’t already own them, please seek out the wonderful books that David Britland wrote on Canasta: ‘A Remarkable Man’ Volumes 1 & 2. Martin Breese, who published the two Britland books also released a DVD of Canasta performing {also called ‘A Remarkable Man’) and there is some underground live footage that circulates amongst Canasta fans too. All of it is worth finding, reading, watching and studying. The Trick That Cannot Be Explained is described in Dai Vernon’s ‘More Inner Secrets of Card Magic’. The author, Lewis Ganson, was keen to get Vernon to explain the method in the book, but Vernon was reluctant because the method depends on a series of outs, meaning that the effect never plays the same way twice. | have performed the Vernon trick (and variations) for a long time and my experience with that effect led to this one. | have many, many 3methods and variations for this and similar plots (see 21% Century Canasta that | released through Ellusionist for one example) and many of them rely ‘on my old friend the Breather Crimp. Having three BCs in the deck provides a level of safety and security. Having just one BC card in the deck and chancing that they will hit it is just far too risky. In that respect it is far worse than the Vernon original: a miracle when it hits, but clunky and horrible when it doesn’t. “Please cut the deck for the seventh time...” is not a path | wish to go down. If you are felting adventurous, you can allow the participant to handle the deck throughout. If you do this, make certain that he spreads the deck on the table, not in his hands. This not only makes the entire thing completely hands-off it also offers a level of seeming fairness that cannot be matched even if the performer is tooled up with multiple physical outs or has to engage in some of the sometimes necessary contrivances of the original TTTCBE method. It provides an experience of card magic for the participant that is very hard to beat.