Two TV Recommendations

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I mentioned earlier this week that today’s post was going to be a continuation on the feedback from last Friday’s post. However, after working on that for a couple days it has become a longer entry than I originally anticipated. So tomorrow I will give you a super-sized post where I respond to a half-dozen or so emails about the topic of clarifying conditions and using that to create more powerful magic.

For today’s post, I just want to give you two quick television recommendations. One of these you likely already watched a couple years ago, but if you were avoiding it like I was, it’s definitely worth checking out.

Recommendation #1

I could not be more late to the game on this, but I finally watched Magic for Humans on Netflix and enjoyed it quite a bit. Justin Wilman is legitimately funny. Not “funny for a magician” funny. And the magic is all well done.

As a magician, you’ll be annoyed because you’ll think, “Oh, come on. They’re cutting out some very important stuff. It doesn’t look like that in real life.” But once you can get past that, it’s an enjoyable watch.

One thing I realized while watching it is that cameras are reaction equalizers. You can take a below average trick and make a demo for it, and as long as there are cameras there, you’ll get some good reactions. But at the same time, if you perform a miracle for people, and there is a camera there, you will dull their reactions. Almost everything in Magic for Humans got a reaction between, like, a 7 and an 8. Stuff that would have been life-altering for people if it wasn’t being filmed for a tv show would instead just get a nice solid reaction. Now, that may be because they were seeing the full effect, and not just the edited version we see. But I think a lot of it is also because they know they’re being filmed for a show.

I regularly get much stronger reactions even though I’m performing much less “impossible” tricks. And I think the reason for that is because I’m performing in a way that is more intimate (and camera-less).

This is one of the clear benefits of performing as an amateur. When David Copperfield flies on stage, people are filled with joy and wonder. But they still just applaud at the end. If you were walking down a nature trail with a friend and flew up to the top of a tree, your friend wouldn’t clap. They would faint.

Not that your goal should be to make your friends faint. But if your goal is to provide moving, interesting, powerful experiences to people, don’t bemoan the fact that you don’t have the resources of a professional tv magician. Because along with those resources comes a layer of distance between the spectator and the effect which deadens the impact.

That being said, the show is a lot of fun. And inspired me to bring out some effects I hadn’t touched in a long.

Recommendation #2

The Rehearsal, which you can currently find streaming on HBO Max, is the most entertaining show currently on television. It has nothing directly to do with magic, although the writer and star of the show, Nathan Fielder, is an amateur magician. And, for me, it touches the same sort of nerve that a really fascinating trick does. It’s a “docu-comedy” series and it’s completely fascinating.

I don’t want to give too much away. It’s ostensibly about giving people the opportunity to “rehearse” important interactions in their life. But that’s just the start of it. Just trust me on this. I have reason to believe that if you like this site, there is a good chance you will like the show.


Reading Your Thoughts

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I’m taking it easy today and sharing some of the thoughts and ideas that readers have sent in recently. While I haven’t explored these ideas myself, I think they have some merit…

This first idea comes from Graham P. I’m particularly ill-equipped to comment on it, because I don’t play Wordle. But those that do might be able to take this idea and run with it…

My wife and I enjoy our daily wordle challenge.

I have discovered that if you download Wordle as a webpage complete (plenty of instructions on how to on internet), then change the date on the computer you can play wordle as far forward as you like.

I tried a loose presentation on my wife telling her the strangest thing happened with her niece. I was solving wordle and she pointed at it and kept saying "tomorrow Weird". Don't know what she means.

Then the next day the wordle answer was "Weird". (just an example)

She didn't know what to say.

Hopefully, if it floats your boat, you or your readers can come up with a better way of using this idea.

Couple of Caveats

  • Don't jump too far ahead with dates.

  • If you put in an earlier date to one you have already done, then the program will keep showing the answer to the later date until you catch up to that date.

  • Don't open any other app until you have reset the date to normal.

—Graham P.

Next comes an idea from David S.

I recently purchased Flip by Wes Iseli (force heads or tails on a flip of a coin) and wanted to mention that it works especially well with Stasia's Decision Making Talisman that you previously wrote about. There are certain features of Stasia's Talisman that makes it easier to do the "move" compared to a quarter or half dollar, plus the "yes"/"maybe" or "no" opens up a lot of interesting possibilities for mentalism or fortune telling type routines. —David S.

Sadly, if you didn’t pick up Stasia’s decision-making coin at the time, it’s no longer available. But I know a lot of you did get it then. So this combination is something you might be able use.

The final idea comes from Oliver M. It expands on the suggestion I had for the presentation of the Bounce trick that I wrote about in this post.

Re: Bounce - Love your idea of producing sounds from the ball. You could expand it into a routine/running gag with different objects. So 'Boing's comes out of the ball (maybe written like BIFF and POW in old Batman eps), you 'ding' a glass with a knife a few times, like the start of a speech, and little coin-sized 'ding' discs fall out. Maybe you finished with an unexpected sound, like you drop something and it leaves a 'thud' (bowling ball), or you slap your forehead at something obvious and 'slap' appears there. —Oliver M.

This is such a great idea. Not for any of the types of situations in which I perform. But someone could take this and win FISM with it.

You would want to mix it up a bit. You wouldn’t want it just to be the physical manifestation of sounds over and over. But that’s how you would start it off. Then you could vanish some of the “sounds” and now the objects that made those noises would be strangely silent. Imagine you shake the “jingles” out of a tambourine, vanish them, and the tambourine is now dead silent when shaken.

You could change the sizes of the sounds making them much louder or lower, or softer and higher depending on if you grew them or shrunk them.

You could take the physical manifestations of the sounds and combine them together to create new sounds.

You could also take the “sounds” and reinsert them into the wrong objects. So now the stapler makes a huge CRASH when you use it, and when you slam the cymbals together you get a little click.

It’s a cool idea. Someone should do it.

Biggest Takeaway Follow-Up Part 1

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Last Friday’s post on my biggest takeaway from the focus group testing got a lot of feedback. I’ll be sharing one email today and a few shorter ones on Thursday.

About "My biggest testing takeaway", I understand and feel the same way about the importance of clarifying the conditions of a trick.

But a long time ago I started to avoid some clarification statements. I feel there are phrases that raise doubt instead of clarifying. I think that if people conclude, by themselves, that something (like shuffling) is being done, suspicion over that thing is less likely to arise than if the magician directly tells them about the action.

For instance, if at some point you ask how many people shuffled the deck, or if you call attention to something related to the act of shuffling, that may be enough for people to remember that the cards were mixed. And compared to literally saying that you are shuffling the cards, I feel people are less likely to question the validity of your shuffle. —RD

Yes, I think that’s what the conventional wisdom would say—that you’d rather have the spectator come to the conclusions by themselves rather than the magician telling them what things to make note of.

I’m not saying that’s necessarily wrong. But there are two important points to consider that run counter to the conventional wisdom.

The first is this: You can’t always tell what the spectator is going to conclude.

By explicitly stating the conditions, and getting them to agree to them—even if they seem obvious—you are trapping them into a “reality” that is more difficult for them to escape later. It’s very easy for people to talk themselves into or out of something they only saw. If you’re looking for your car keys and they’re not on the coffee table, but when you look back a second time they’re there, you don’t say, “Oh my god, my keys magically appeared on the coffee table!” You just think you had a brain fart and missed them the first time. If conditions are established just in the spectator’s head, they can convince themselves (when they look back on the trick) that they weren’t paying close enough attention or they mis-read something that happened. But if the conditions are established verbally by the magician and/or the spectator, it becomes harder to deny what they thought they saw.

The second point I want to make is this: Going out of your way to establish the conditions is what you would do in any situation when you’re showing people something special or unusual. That’s the normal thing to do.

Imagine you were at a county fair, and there’s a booth set up where a guy is demonstrating his Miracle Carpet Cleaner. Which is more convincing:

  1. He takes out a stained piece of carpet, sprays his cleaner on it, and wipes it clean.

    or

  2. He takes out a piece of carpet and hands it to the people gathered around him. “When you see how clean this will get, you’ll think it wasn’t a real stain. You’ll think it was something that would wash out easily. But take a look. That’s really caked in there, would you agree? Spray this water on it and give it a scrub. Nothing happens. That stain is really set in there, yes? But watch what happens when I use my Miracle Carpet Cleaner.”

I think the latter would be considerably more convincing, whether you go in trusting the salesman or not. If you think the guy selling the stuff is a con-man, then the first demonstration would be totally unconvincing. The second demonstration would at least require you to question how the carpet actually got clean if this cleaner isn't legit. And if you do trust the salesman, you would believe him in either scenario, but the second demonstration would give you more information and clarify the strength of the cleaner.

Before someone writes me an email saying, “Oh, so when I turn over a double I’m supposed to say, ‘I’m just turning over one single card.’ Or when I have someone write down a word I’m supposed to say, “Take note that this is an ordinary business card. Examine it fully. And note that there’s nothing special about the pencil.” No. I’m not saying “justify everything” or “clarify every possible condition.” And I’m not saying you draw attention to things that won’t withstand the scrutiny.

I’m just saying to put yourself in the position of the spectator at the end of the trick. What elements would you be questioning? That the deck was really blue at the start? That the box was really empty? That there was really nothing in your hand? If they’re going to be left with those questions, then those are the things you can’t over clarify.

Of course, there is an art to this. Going back to the original email, I would never say, “I’m giving these cards a real shuffle.” That would sound suspicious. I’m not just going to tell people something. I’m going to have them confirm something.

The best way I’ve found to do this is to time-travel with them to some point after the trick has finished. “When this is over, you’re going to wonder if the cards were really shuffled.” “When you drive home, you’re going to tell yourself this must not have been an ordinary piece of rope. Maybe it pulled apart or something.” “Tonight, when you’re in bed, you’re going to think I made you take a particular card..”

Then you have them confirm that this thought is not the case:

“So can you confirm for me the cards are really getting mixed?”

“So I want you to give this rope a close look. Is there anything special about it? Take your time.”

“So just confirm that this card is the one you wanted. If you want a different one, go ahead and touch any other card you see here.”

Now, this isn’t just patter. When you say, “Later on you’re going to think XYZ.” It’s because you know that later on most people will think XYZ. That’s the purpose of putting it out there beforehand.

Of course, If there’s an idea that’s not going to occur to them, you don’t need to introduce that idea into the conversation, solely to debunk it.

You might say, “Of course you want the audience to be convinced of the conditions of an effect, but you should convince them in a clever way. Don’t just come right out and say it.”

But that goes back to the second point in bold above. If I’m trying to demonstrate or show you something fantastical. And I want to immerse you in the world where this thing is happening. Which feels more realistic? Would I cleverly imply the conditions? Or would I just state them straight out? In real life you don’t hint at conditions when they’re important. You make them as clear as possible.

Of course, I’m just speaking generally. You can find plenty of examples where you would want to be less direct when clarifying the conditions of an effect. But I would consider those to be exceptions.

“Don’t run when you’re not being chased.” Sure. That’s fine logic. But solidifying the conditions isn’t “running when you’re not being chased.” It’s being smart enough to know what the spectator is going to question at the end, and proactively getting in front of it. Which, in my experience, is mandatory if you’re hoping to create undeniably strong magic.

Jacob Blow and Graciano Lopez Have Been Kicked Out of the GLOMM

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Dull slob, Jacob Blow has been kicked out of the Global League of Magicians and Mentalists for his recent rape conviction.

This article states:

“A rapist magician has been sent to prison for sickening crimes that resulted in his victim trying to take her own life.”

As the GLOMM boot list continues to grow, “rapist magician” is becoming an all-too common description. It’s becoming it’s own sub-category. “I’m a close-up magician.” “I’m a kid’s show magician.” “I’m a rapist magician.” I’m surprised it’s not its own section on the Magic Cafe. I mean, there are more entrants on the GLOMM’s banned member list than there are posts in the “mime section” of the Cafe.

“Blow was said to have initially tried to deny any wrongdoing before breaking down and admitting to his dad and police what he had done. However, he then denied the allegations saying he lied when initially speaking to the police because he thought if he agreed with what was being claimed that would be it and he could carry on doing magic.”

So, in addition to being a rapist, he’s also a fucking moron.

His YouTube channel is still up. If you ever wanted to see the embodiment of this meme

Graciano Lopez, aka Louie Lopez, aka Jolly Bean the clown, owner of the depressing shithole known as Jolly Bean’s Magic Castle (pictured below) has been sentenced to 106 yeas to life (I think 106 years will probably be enough) for the sexual abuse of multiple victims.

From this article:

“[The Judge] said Lopez took advantage of positions of trust — as a foster parent in the case of two victims, as an employer at his lawn service company and Jolly Bean’s Magic Castle, a magic shop near a middle school — to sexually abuse vulnerable young children who looked up to him and trusted him.”

At his sentencing, Graciano thanked law enforcement ”for working tirelessly so these young men's voices could be heard," and the two boys for "bravely starting this process."

"You saved my life. And now I can get the help that I need. I didn't set out to hurt anyone, but in the end my actions hurt so many.”

Of course, it’s easy to pretend to be remorseful once your sorry ass has been busted. If you “don’t set out to hurt anyone” and then spend 15 years assaulting multiple victims, then you’re evil and an idiot. We need you to rot in prison because otherwise you might “not set out to hurt someone” and push them in front a bus, or shove a fire poker through their stomach.

Yes, you’re going to die in prison, but on the plus side, you no longer have to run that dump you called a magic store, and you don’t have to embarrass yourself in this get-up anymore. So maybe it’s a lateral move.


My Biggest Testing Takeaway

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A friend showed me a card-to-pocket routine he was working once, and I told him that he needed to draw attention to the fact that his hand is empty before he removes the card from his pocket.

“I am,” he said, “I show my palm empty like this before I reach into my pocket.” He held his hand out, palm facing me, and fingers spread wide.

“No,” I said, "you need to tell them to take note that your hand is empty.”

“I don’t have to tell them because I’m showing them. I don’t want to insult their intelligence.”

“It’s not ‘insulting their intelligence.’ It’s making sure they take note of something they need to remember for the trick to be successful.”

He sighed, like I wasn’t getting it. “Would a real magician say, ‘Note that there’s nothing in my hand’?”

I looked at him. “Yes. That’s exactly what he’d say. Because a ‘real magician’ would be showing you this thing to demonstrate something And thus he would want to make sure everything was as clear as possible.”

I probably didn’t use the word “thus” when this actually happened. But it was something along those lines.

I was asked in an email which of the testing results had the most profound impact for me personally on my magic. After thinking about it, I don’t think it was one specific thing we tested. But something that came through over and over across the time we’ve been testing.

In 1000s of performances and interviews with spectators, when a trick would fail, it was very rarely because they saw something they shouldn’t have. Like they spotted a double lift. Or a card being palmed.

The vast majority of the time, when a trick didn’t hit it was because we failed to make crystal clear one of the conditions that made the effect impossible.

In Wednesdays post I mentioned a trick we did where the method was “obviously” a false shuffle (the magician called off the cards from a shuffled deck). And, in fact, when asked what they thought the method was, 80% of the respondents suggested that the cards weren’t really mixed. But what did the other 20% say? Well, a few would just say they had no clue. Then there would be a couple people who would suggest something needlessly elaborate, like hidden cameras and secret earpieces sending information to the performer.

But a lot of the remaining 20 percent would say something like, “He probably had the order of the cards memorized.” And when we’d talk with them to get more clarity on their answer, we’d say, “But he shuffled the cards.” They might say, “Ooh, yeah…” or, “Did he?” The shuffling didn’t stick with them.

You might think someone shuffling a deck three or four times would be enough for people to remember the cards were shuffled. But I can tell you that frequently it wasn’t.

Laypeople don’t watch magic tricks the way we do. I find it much easier to perform for magicians, because I know how they watch effects and what they will pick up on. But laymen are different. They don’t always note the things that we think might be obvious. You need to focus them to create certainty. Because if they’re just pretty sure the ring was threaded on the string, you don’t have much of an effect. They need to be certain of it. Or else they’ll tell themselves, “I guess the ring wasn’t really on the string.”

I now believe that it is almost impossible to over clarify the conditions of an effect (unless you’re trying to be annoying).. Saying “notice that my hand is empty” or “there’s nothing in the card box, is there” or “all of these cards are blue” may feel kind of hokey or unnecessary. But in all the issues we’ve catalogued people having in our testing, I don’t recall a single time someone suggested they felt condescended to by the magician clarifying or highlighting the conditions. But there were countless times where a trick didn’t get as strong of a reaction as it could have because they didn’t notice or remember something we thought should have been clear.

That’s what I took away most from the testing. Whatever type of magic you’re doing, the effect comes down to something happening in defiance of the conditions you established. So don’t be coy or subtle about establishing the conditions. And if the method you’re using doesn’t allow you to firmly establish those conditions, it’s probably not a strong enough method for that effect.

Shuffle Testing Feedback

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These emails came in after yesterday’s post. If you haven’t read that one yet, these won’t make much sense.

Nice posts on the false shuffling experiments. Many thanks.

Here's my question: in social contexts (not stage or planned set pieces) are false on the table riffle shuffles more convincing that false overhand shuffles?

I ask that because at least in my circles, and in all my growing up, which included a lot of social card playing, no one did on the table "Las Vegas" type riffles. In other words, I'm wondering if the very fact that you do either a push-through or Zarrow looks suspicious as compared to a good false overhand shuffle. I don't gamble, have never been to a casino, so maybe I'm in the minority here, but the only riffle I'd seen in my life before magic videos was a common in the hands riffle shuffle. So maybe that's two things to test:

1) Overhand vs. table shuffle

2) In the hands riffle vs table riffle

—JS

Interesting. I grew up with parents who come from large families of card players and I’d never seen an in-the-hands riffle shuffle until I got into magic. Everyone just did their riffle shuffle on the table.

I’m not sure this is anything that needs to be tested though. Or, at least, I’m not sure we’d get any worthwhile data from it. I would guess the most convincing false shuffle would be the one that looks the closest to what your spectators are used to. If they normally do an overhand shuffle, do a false overhand shuffle. If they do a tabled riffle shuffle or an in-the-hands riffle shuffle, do that. I’m not suggesting you need to be proficient at all of these things. I’m just suggesting it in a general sense. Is there a “common” shuffle in your social circles in your part of the world? That’s probably the one to devote your time to if you’re a non-professional.

Regarding the false exposure thing: 

Equally, you could say, ‘Some people pretend to shuffle the cards by not pushing them completely together, and then pulling them apart again, like this.’ [Demo a bad push-through] ‘But you can see I’m really mixing these, yes?’ [Carefully square a Zarrow shuffle]

For what it’s worth, I think that Jason England Zarrow shuffle sucks balls. Not surprised people thought that was the more suspicious. I think most people do it pretty badly, and that’s somehow become the norm.—HC

Well, the issue here is you can’t really “carefully square” a Zarrow shuffle. You’ve got to square that thing pretty quickly or you’re screwed.

In regards to “sucking balls,” I’m guessing you don’t mean that as a compliment, yes? It really probably should be, e.g., “That girl sucks balls.” — “Yes, isn’t she a sweetheart?”

As far as England’s Zarrow shuffle, I‘m not such a connoisseur of false shuffles that I can really understand the finer points of them. It looks pretty good to me, relative to most of the other Zarrows I’ve seen. But you may be right that the “norm” for the Zarrow shuffle may be “pretty bad.”

Putting the “ideal” Zarrow up against the “ideal” push-through would be something that we could easily test online with 100s of respondents. And I’d be open to it. But I have a feeling whichever ones we chose as the “best” version of the Zarrow or the Push-Though, people would still take issue with them. And I’m not sure the head-to-head match-up is that meaningful. The more meaningful result was that neither false shuffle was more or less likely to be called out in the context of the tricks.

Both of those table false shuffles feel too perfect. Dani DaOrtiz once told me that “feeling” was more important than what you see. A deck that is handled haphazardly with sloppy false shuffles, cards left on the table as you pick it up etc will feel a lot more shuffled than any Zarrow or push through. The magician’s attitude towards the deck is more important than a perfected table false shuffle. The spectator will feel and remember that the deck is shuffled this way rather than seeing a technique full of finesse. If your routine revolves around a gambling demonstration, a Zarrow or push through would be more appropriate. For good magic, stick to the psychologically stronger alternatives. —DM

It’s a valid point. But look, all of these decisions are going to be trick/performer/audience/circumstance-dependent. When we test stuff we really need to narrow it down to simple A/B testing in order to try to come to some conclusion. When we were doing the shuffle testing it was being paid for, in part, by someone who wanted us to specifically test those two-shuffles because he works in a situation where those shuffles make the most sense.

Although, I will say, going back to Monday’s post, I don’t think you can always count on what the spectators will “feel and remember.” Most people aren’t watching magic tricks like we watch magic tricks. Especially if it’s something like a preliminary shuffling portion of an effect. They may not know the trick has even commenced and may not pick up on the details we think we’re “subtly” implying. Even if your mixing is “casual”—or maybe especially if it’s casual—you need to do something to cement it in people’s brains. (More on this tomorrow.)

The final email comes from DS who helped conduct the testing when it was originally done.

[One thing] that can’t be overemphasized is the strength of being able to pause the push-through shuffle in order to show the cards are “really being shuffled.” I did [his story deck trick] for years, using mainly push-through shuffles and it was mostly seen as a demonstration of false shuffling, cutting, and mixing with a story that went along with it. Then I started using the line, “After this is over you’re going to think I wasn’t really mixing the cards. So I want you to note as I do this that the cards are genuinely being shuffled together in a completely random manner.” And I would pause my next two push-through shuffles midway through to show the cards “really” being shuffled. After I included those moments the reactions got astronomically better. It was no longer even the same trick.—DS

Zarrow vs. Push-Through

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In Monday’s post, I ran a poll asking you which false-shuffle you thought was more convincing, a push-through shuffle or a Zarrow.

58% of you thought the Zarrow was more convincing.

42% of you said the the push-through was.

I asked that question in anticipation of this post which was inspired by another email regarding testing that I received last week from Turner B.

I’m thinking about perfecting a good false riffle shuffle. I’d love to have you test a Zarrow and a Push-Through shuffle to find out which one people find more convincing.—TB

Well, good news. We tested false shuffles many years ago. And these are results that I remember well enough to pass along to you.

We tested them in two different ways.

First, we showed people video of Jason England doing a push-through shuffle and a Zarrow shuffle.

We told them that one of the shuffles was a false shuffle and we asked them to pick which one they thought wasn’t a real shuffle. Nearly 80% of the respondents picked the Zarrow shuffle as being the fake one.

Now, you could say that was somewhat of an artificial test. And that’s true enough. They were focused on the shuffles and looking for a false shuffle. That certainly doesn’t suggest that a Zarrow appears false to 80% of people generally. This was just our way of putting one directly up against the other. “One of these is false. Which do you think it is?” Seemed like the most straightforward way of testing the two shuffles against each other in their purest form.

(By the way, the people who questioned the push-through shuffle almost always took issue with the “up the ladder” type of cutting people follow it up with. That was the part that seemed unusual to them. I think the shuffle is more convincing with just the strip-out and maybe one cut after that. Though I’m clearly in the minority about that.)

But, that’s not the end of the testing.

We tested a couple different tricks live with various groups of participants.

In the first trick, the magician shuffled the deck a few times. Then he turned his back and had someone turn over cards one at a time, and the magician was able to name each card even with his back turned.

That’s a trick that sort of screams false shuffle. And that’s what we wanted.

The second trick also relied on a false shuffle, but it was much more subtle than that. I don’t remember 100% what the trick was, and I asked a couple other people involved in the testing, and they weren’t sure either. But we’re all pretty certain it had something to do with finding a matching pair of cards. It doesn’t really matter what the effect was. All you need to know was that it was a trick that required a full deck stack and false shuffle, but that was a much less obvious method for lay people than in the previous trick where the cards were called off.

Four sets of people were part of this testing:

One group saw the “obvious” false shuffle trick with the Zarrow.
One group saw the “obvious” false shuffle trick with the Push-Through.
One group saw the subtle false shuffle trick with the Zarrow.
One group saw the subtle false shuffle trick with the Push-Through.

There were a few dozen people in each group. (Not at one time. We usually work in groups of 6 people at most. And this card trick would just have been one of several things we tested with them.)

As part of the testing, the participants were asked to postulate a method for the effects they saw. There was no statistical difference in the likelihood of someone suggesting a false-shuffle as part of the method regardless of if the trick they saw used the Zarrow or the Push-Through. Approximately 80% of respondents who saw the “obvious” false-shuffle trick mentioned a false-shuffle (or more generally something like, “the cards weren’t really mixed”) in their explanation. Whereas in the “subtle” trick, it was under 15%. To be clear, they weren’t saying, “I know for sure this is how it was done!” They were just suggesting a false shuffle or false mix as a possibility.

So, head-to-head, the push-through “won.” But in actual practice, either shuffle does the job. So if you’re more comfortable with one or the other there’s not a big difference.

Except…

In a future round of testing we were able to take the “obvious” false-shuffle trick and reduce the people who suggested a false-shuffle as part of the method down to about 20% (from 80%). And the way we did that is something you can only really do with one of these shuffles.

So how did remove the idea of a false-shuffle from a trick that where that should have been the “obvious” method?

Go back to Monday’s post that talks about Exposure as Convincer. In the lead-up to the calling of the cards, the performer said something along these lines: “In a moment I’m going to do something impossible with these cards. And the only explanation you’re going to have is that these cards aren’t really getting shuffled. That somehow this is a pretend shuffle. And the cards aren't actually mixing into each other. But you can see the cards are really getting shuffled, yes?” And he would pause one of his push-through shuffles after the initial riffle and pull the deck towards himself, showing both halves woven together. He’d then push the cards back and complete the push-through action. For a lot of laypeople—for whom the notion of pushing blocks of cards through each other is just way beyond their comprehension—this simple act “proved” the cards were really shuffled. And this is something that can’t be done as convincingly with a Zarrow.

I wouldn’t put this moment in every trick that uses a false shuffle. But I would include it in any trick where a false shuffle is likely to be the most obvious solution people suspect.

My Conclusion: If I was going to put my time into only one of these shuffles, I’d go with the push-through shuffle specifically because it allows for the moment I just mentioned—the moment that permits you to pause mid-shuffle to show it’s a “real shuffle.”

But in circumstances or effects where you wouldn’t want to put the focus on the legitimacy of the shuffle, I don’t think it matters much which you use.