All Four One - Stone Cold Magic Magazine

Effect: A production of any four of a kind named by the spectator. Sound simple? Well it is! Read on.

Moves:
You’ll need to know how to do a couple of moves that are relatively unknown.

Ed Marlo’s Sunrise Move
Bill Simon’s Prophesy Move

Sunrise:
This is a very pretty rising card. The card to rise is on top of the deck. The deck is held face up in the left hand much like the position for executing a One-Handed Charlier Cut. The deck is held at a right angle to the table. The right hand comes over biddle grip style and riffles about half the deck and jogs it forward (fig 1). The right hand then re-grips the jogged portion by the outer end with the right thumb on top (fig 2).

The jogged packet is then picked up with the right hand and fanned out in front of the left hand’s half (fig 3). The left index finger then repositions itself so that the tip of the finger holds a break between the top card of the deck and the rest of the deck. Figure 4 shows this with the right hand and right hand cards removed for clarity.

Next, slide the left index finger down the back of the deck thus pushing the top card toward your body (fig 5). If the deck is positioned against the pad of your left thumb, the top card will pivot upward at a right angle as you continue to push (fig 6). With the right hand’s fan hiding the left hand’s packet, the audience cannot see where the card is rising from (fig 7).

Prophesy Move:
This is a very clever move. The spectator places a card anywhere in the deck. When you spread the deck to see what two cards the card is between, it is found to be two selections or predicted cards. Bill Simon performed this with his business card where he had two playing cards written on his business card (one on the front and one on the back). The audience inserted the business card into the deck right between the two cards on the business card.

Here’s how to do it: Have a card placed face down, roughly in the middle of the pack protruding forward about half it’s length (fig 8). Then under the guise of merely turning the card over, you actually displace the card and put it between what was the top and bottom cards of the deck. Spread the cards above the jogged forward card to the right. Then square up the right hand cards. Turn the right hand face down and bring the right hand packet forward to grab the outer end of the protruding face down card (fig 9).

Grab the face down card against the right hand’s packet with the right thumb. Then turn the whole packet and protruding card over end-for-end and place the whole packet beneath the left hand’s packet (fig 10). The card that was placed face down in the center will now be face up, and it will be between the previous top and bottom cards of the deck (fig 11).

However, in the mind of the audience, you have merely turned over the protruding card for all to see. In Bill Simon’s business card routine, he has a playing card written on each side of his business card. Those two cards are on the top and bottom of the deck. The card is then stuck into the deck by the spectator. As he shows the card written on one side, he then would execute the move to show the name of the card on the other side. This would end up with the business card sandwiched between the cards written on his business card.

Routine:
Great. With these two moves under your belt, the rest should be a piece of cake. All you need is a little bit of acting. Have the deck shuffled if you’d like. Then ask the spectator what their favorite card is. Let’s say that it’s the 10 of Hearts. Your goal is now to get all of the Tens together anywhere in the deck. The way I accomplish this is as follows:

Spread through the deck face up
Cut the first ten you see to the back (top) of the deck
Spread through face up again
At the next Ten, openly slip it to the top as you make eye contact
Repeat for the next two tens
After the final Ten, cut the deck so that there are a few cards (15 ish) above the tens

First, note that when I make eye contact, I’ll make minor comments like “Any particular reason you chose that card?” Then, once I’ve got the four Tens together, I pretend like I couldn’t find their favorite card, and I ask again, “What was your favorite card?” They say “Ten of Hearts” as I’m spreading through to find the card. As I’m spreading, I will casually show the top few cards and the bottom few cards without drawing attention to them. This is just a subtle way to show that their card really is somewhere in the middle. Remember, they don’t know what’s coming, and aren’t thinking about the other Tens. Once I find their card, I spread (without them seeing) the four Tens and get a break behind them. So the situation is:

A face up deck in my left hand.
A few face up cards
My left pinky
The four Tens
The rest of the deck

At this point, I out jog their favorite card (Ten of Hearts) while keeping a break behind the Tens (fig 12). As I strip out their card and hand it to them, I cut at the break thus bringing the other three Tens to the top. There are a million ways to get in this position (3 cards on top, fourth card – their favorite – in their hand). I just use this because it feels and looks like I’m doing what I say… just finding their favorite card.

Revelations:
Ok… that took forever to get to just taking out their favorite card and handing it to them. However, in performance it only takes a second. Next, I say that we’re going to try to find one of the Tens mates or brothers. Then, I do the Marlo sunrise as described above.

I then hand them the second Ten. I instruct them to turn the cards face down and mix them up so that they aren’t sure which card is their favorite. While they do that, I double cut the top card to the bottom. This places one Ten on the bottom and leaves one Ten on the top. This is to get ready for… you guessed it, the Prophesy Move. I tell them to place one of the cards about half way down the deck sticking out a little bit. Then, I turn over the card they chose and execute the prophesy move.

As the card is turned over, one of two things happen… you discover that they used their favorite card or that they did not. Of course if they did, you play it up like they magically knew even after shuffling which one was their selection. Next, as I spread to show that they put their favorite card between the two other Tens, I say, “I think I know why this one’s your favorite card: because it’s the more intuitive of the cards. It was able to find the other two Tens.”

If they chose their non-favorite card, I just briefly comment that they were drawn to the “other” card. Then I say “I think I know why you were drawn to this card instead of your favorite: because it’s the more intuitive of the cards. It was able to find the other two Tens.” I’ll then move on to something like Dr. Daley’s Last Trick or some other four ace routine… Twisting the Aces, etc. Please do not be fooled by the simplicity of this effect. It plays very well.

I’ve used it many, many times, and it always gets a great reaction. Think of what they see: They named ANY card. Suddenly, it’s mate rises out of the deck magically. Then they randomly pick out their own favorite card after they’ve shuffled the two cards (many times they pick their card). Then, they magically are able to insert the card ANYWHERE in the deck and find the other two cards.

Very powerful stuff.

Please “like” this effect:

magicmind says:

July 2009 at 11:06 am

never read this move before….remember seeing something like this log ago…glad there was a link back here. GREAT move!

Jeff Stone says:

July 2009 at 3:59 am

Yeah, I love the old Marlo stuff. That’s one of my all time favorite rising card moves.

Mathias says:

July 2009 at 8:19 pm

After reading this I realized that I just overlooked Bill Simon’s great, simple move and learned it incorrectly. When I first learned the move in his book, I thought it was too suspicious (which was due to my incorrect execution of the move).

Thanks Jeff!

July 2009 at 2:43 am

Oh man! Do you know how many times I’ve done that! Think about this: My first card book was Erdnase. I wasn’t doing anything right. 🙂

July 2009 at 8:01 pm

Yeah, reading Erdnase taught me that one should really read carefully until you understand, even if it means reading it over and over again.

Jeff Stone says:

July 2009 at 1:01 am

Amen to that. It’s a lot like learning programming. When I first read my C++ text book, I committed to not looking at the next page until I fully understood the current page. We’re talking about a book that’s over a 1000 pages! It was worth it though. I aced the class. Magic is the same. Put in the time now, and reap the rewards later.

Steven Dickinson says:

July 2009 at 5:32 pm

But I don’t want to read it over and over again. I should be able to gain all the technique and knowledge on the first read.

@Jeff, I think learning one page or getting one principle down before going on to the next is the greatest lesson I have learned from you. In the end, this is more important then receiving a million free magic tricks.

Jeff Stone says:

August 2009 at 12:20 am

@Steven – Thank you! You have to have the patience of Job to do it. It ain’t easy brother, but it’s worth it.

Richard Dominguez says:

August 2011 at 5:29 pm

Hello Jeff, the other day we were talking about the beauty and simplicity of the Elmsley Count when done well (the effect was Wowee Zowee). Here it is again another simple and beautiful move when done correctly, Bill Simon’s Prophesy Move. When using playing cards, business cards or even a piece of paper that may be laying around, this move is brilliant in it’s conception and perfect in its execution. In “All Four One” it found an excellent place, this is a sweet effect. Much like your effect Triptych, I love the 1,2,3, punch effect (here’s your card, Bang, here’s the mate, POW, you found the other two). Nice work Jeff!

Jeff Stone says:

August 2011 at 12:54 am

@Richard – Thanks! I love this one because it can be done with a borrowed and shuffled deck. It’s very often the way I move into a four ace (or whatever card they name) routine. I love seeing your comments on the site . . . Keep ’em comin’