Keep Your Eye On The Joker

Effect

The Joker visually and instantly becomes the four Aces. – View Video Performance

Performance

Place the Joker face up on the table.  Place all four Aces face up in the left hand in dealer’s grip, but hold a pinky break beneath the top two cards.  Ask the spectator to cut the deck into two piles.  You are going to apparently place all four Aces face down on top of the deck and complete the cut.

But you’re actually going to perform a little move I call The Rolling Reversal: with your left little finger and ring finger on the right edge of the top two Aces, push slightly upward and inward which should result in the top two cards being pushed against the base of the thumb (see fig. 1).

The top two cards will bend like the shape of a “U.”  Note: In figure one, my finger tips are actually on the back of the two black Aces.  Looking at figure two will show you how the card should be bending in figure one.

Now bring your left thumb over, and allow the first crease of your thumb to rest on top of the right edge of the top two cards (see fig. 2).

Bend your thumb slightly down and bring it in toward the left in a rolling sort of motion (see fig. 3).

When done correctly, it results in the black Aces turning over to be face to face with the red Aces. This entire move should only take less than a second, and it’s done as your left hand turns palm down and reaches over to place the Aces “face down on top of the deck.”  (The audience should be completely unaware of this sequence of events).

What you’re really doing is placing the four Aces on top, but two are face up (unknown to the audience).  After you have placed the Aces on the top of one of the halvesf, leave your left hand on the deck.

Your right hand comes over and both hands do a table square (see fig. 4).

Pick up this half and place it in the left hand dealer’s grip.  With the right hand, pick up the remainder of the deck, and place it on top of the half in your left hand.  Hold a little finger break between the two halves.  Here you can either “pass” the Aces to the top or just double under cut.  Somehow, get the Aces back to the top.

Retain the deck in the left hand dealer’s grip, and get a break beneath the top four cards, which is pretty easy because the third and forth cards are significantly bowed. Pick up the tabled Joker with the right hand, and place it face up on top of the deck (so far, all the audience should think is that you cut the Aces into the center of the deck and placed a Joker face up on top of the deck).

You are now going to perform a utility move that I developed called The Atomic Split:  Using the right hand, pinch the right edge of the five cards with your thumb on top and the index and middle fingers on the bottom (see fig. 5).

With the right fingers, pull gently toward the right.  This slides the bottom cards to the right.  At the same time, the right thumb pushes to the left.  This slides the top card to the left.  This should result in spreading the five cards.  Once the cards are spread, move your right hand slightly down and to the right.

Turn your left hand slightly to the right, resulting in the following:  The deck is at a right angle to the floor, and the five spread cards are parallel to the floor and at a right angle to the deck (see fig. 6).

Push up and to the left with the right hand.  This will buckle the five cards making an arch (see fig. 7).

Now push down with the right thumb and allow the Joker and the two face down Aces to riffle off of your right thumb and onto the deck (see fig. 8).

Immediately turn both hands palm up, and move your right hand to the right.  Your right hand should now be holding two face up Aces, and the left hand should be holding the deck, face down, with two face up Aces on top.  As your right hand is moving away to the right, spread the two Aces by pulling the top Ace to the right with your thumb.

At the same time, push the left hand’s top Ace to the right with the left thumb (see fig. 9).

This whole process should literally take less than a one second.  It appears as if you split the Joker into four Aces.  When doing this move, the audience should not see you spread the cards.  It should be a quick and instantaneous change that happens so fast that all they see is a joker turning into four Aces. After displaying the Aces for a few seconds, thumb off all four cards onto the table, one at a time.

Notes

When David and I came up with this effect, we were talking about the way to get the four Aces in position and what to do with them once they were there.  The details are kind of fuzzy now, because this conversation happened 16 years ago.

But basically, I developed The Rolling Reversal (the one that puts the Aces face to face under the guise of putting them on top of the deck) and The Atomic Split (see below for more crediting on The Atomic Split) as an answer to the challenge of this effect’s ending.

This can be done as an effect by itself, but it’s better as a follow up to “The WTC Move.”

More Notes

After David read my final notes, he had this to say:

I think I mentioned this to you when I first received the book but I still do not truly remember much about this effect.  This was probably an idea for an effect I had 10 years ago that I mentioned to you at one of our shop sessions.  You obviously pressed onward and came up with a working solution.  All the credit should go to you on this one!  Maybe I suggested the basic effect or a few possible suggestions or avenues to check out, I don’t remember, but as far as I’m concerned this one’s yours!!!

Atomic Split

The move I refer to as The Atomic Split, happens to be a move that was independently created by Ben Harris. I found this out years later while watching a David Acer video called Extreme Close-up. In the effect Changes David uses the move and credits it as “A Ben Harris Move.”

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