Great Expectations

This is part of my show about magic. And it is a combination of several effects. I was trying to have a similar handling leading to better and better results.

First phase: A card is selected and the prediction matches. This is a fairly good trick. I have two cards selected and throw in a little magicians choice. Not that that matters, but it keeps a certain consistency within the "Handhabungsgestalt" of the whole routine.

Second phase: This is where it gets interesting. "Monarch's Quartet" by Larry Jennings. I substituted the Jinx Switch from something I came up with, as I never felt good about the Jinx Switch. But this certainly breaks the expectation of the spectators. And it elevates the effect from a sheer improbability to an impossibility.

Third phase: Harry Anderson's "Gang of Four" really breaks the mold here. You tear the card, which always so something that people remember. The pieces change. The element of fail brought back full circle. This certainly plays so well.

Please excuse my patter. I was not able to translate my script properly, but you can see how the tricks built on top of each other.

As said in the beginning, this is part of my show about magic. The basic theme about the show is that magic is more than just a bunch of tricks. It's about taking several principles and turning them into deceptive performance pieces. A chapter is all about how expectations can generate awareness and confusion. This card routine is demonstrating that breaking the expectation can be more rewarding than meeting the expectations.

Monarch's Quartette / Verwandlung by Roberto Giobbi

Grosse Kartenschule
Volume 2
Page 429 et seq.

Personal Comment: Monarch's Quartette by Larry Jennings. This is the version by Roberto Giobbi from the German edition of Card College. It is seemingly not part of the English version of the book. It is a nice routine that is fairly easy to do. I still have my doubts about the Jinx Switch but I tried it and it went unnoticed. "Verwandlung" is the German title and means "Change". The original version (Ultimate Secrets of Card Magic p.83 et seq.) has a slightly different handling, which a tad less practical but as bold as one could wish for.

Difficulty: 2/5