Dead of Night Pool

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Imagine

It’s late in the evening Friday night. Coming on around 4am. I’m in the finished basement of the rental property that I’m staying at with friends. Most everyone is asleep, or at least in their bedroom, because they are normal people who live normal lives and 4am is the middle of the night for them.

I, on the other hand, stay up this late a couple times a week watching some bullshit on youtube, so it’s not that big a deal for me.

I’m hanging out with my friend Josh, shooting the shit.

“Can I try something strange with you?” I ask.

For other people at 4am, this would be the introduction to some weird sexual thing, but Josh knows me well enough to know that’s not where this is going. (Perhaps I’ll surprise him some time by taking it in that direction.)

Pause

So this is a description of a trick I did this weekend. It’s based on a profoundly average trick that friend-of-the-site, Joe M. had informed me about when I asked for pool table tricks.

I didn’t really have a cohesive presentation for it. I’d only really known about the trick for a couple days, and it can take months for a good presentation to develop.

So instead I just reverted to the presentation: “this is something odd.” Because what I was about to show him was so hands off, I could get away with that presentation, even though it’s not ideal. When you’re the one doing all the manipulating of the objects, it’s hard to get away with a presentation that is just like, “I don’t understand this strange phenomenon.” But if it seems like you’re not involved too much, then you can use that type of presentation and let their imagination fill in the blanks.

Unpause

I had Josh line the pool balls up on the table in numerical order against one of the rails.

I had him place a pool stick on the other side of the balls, creating a sort of channel along the side of the table that kept the balls in line.

“Here’s what you’re going to do. You’re going to think of any number between 1 and 15. Then you are going to move that many balls from the left side of the row to the right side. With each ball, pick it up, hold it to your chest, and think of someone who has passed on. This could be someone you know or a dead celebrity or historical person.

“So if I was thinking of the number four, I’d pick up one ball, hold it to my chest, and think of my grandma, and set it down here at the other end, counting #1. Then I’d pick up the next and think of, whoever… Elvis, hold it to my chest, and put it down at the other end. Two.”

I demonstrate two more times what he is to do. Then I demonstrate how when he’s done (or as he goes) he should slide the row of balls back so it ends up in the same relative position on the table.

So because I demonstrated with four balls, it now looks like this.

I tell him I’m going to go upstairs while he does this because it’s something you’re supposed to do alone.

To be clear:

  • Think of any number

  • Move that number of balls from one end of the row to the other, one at a time

  • Think of someone who has passed for each ball you move

  • Make sure the line of balls is in the same general area when you’re done.

I tell him to text me when he’s done and then to shut off the lights, so I can’t see anything when I come back down.

I go upstairs. A minute or so later he texts me to return.

It’s essentially pitch black in the basement.

I carefully make my way over to him.

“Okay… so we have the balls lined up here and is the stick still on the table?” I ask, as I feel for the table in the dark.

I tell him I’m going to step to the other side of the room and I want him to push all the balls into the middle of the table and mix them around. He does this.

From the other side of the room I tell him to start pocketing the balls in different pockets around the table. I tell him to count the balls as he goes to make sure he gets all 15. When he’s done, I inch my way back over into the dark and make sure there’s nothing on the table.

We walk together to the other side of the room.

“Okay,” I say, “here’s where it gets weird. There’s only one person—at least only one person alive—who knows for certain what number you’re thinking of. That’s you. And there’s nobody—not even you—who knows where the ball is with that number on it. Because you mixed up the balls in the dark, and you pocketed them randomly. So only you know the number, but there’s not a living soul who knows where that number ball is. Now listen…,” I say, “I want to see if we can hear something.”

We sit there quietly. Maybe 15 feet from the pool table. It’s dead silent. We wait there for a minute or so.

“Hmmm…,” I say, “I thought we would hear something. So maybe this didn’t work.”

I pull a lighter from my pocket and light it.

“You remember the number you were thinking of? Don’t tell me what it was.”

By the light of the small flame we walk back to the pool table. Gradually it’s revealed there is one ball sitting in the middle of the table. The 6 ball. The number Josh was thinking of.

Method

Okay, the method is fairly simple. Whatever number the spectator is thinking, the corresponding pool ball will be in the 5th position from the right end of the row of balls after they go through the ritual.

So, after I demonstrate what to do, the row looks like this.

Now if, for example, your friend is thinking of the number 6, they will move 6 balls and this will be the end result.

The 6 ball, as you see, is the 5th ball in from the right side.

No matter what number they’re thinking of, if they follow the instructions correctly, the 5th ball will match their number.

In the original description of the effect, as described by Brick Tilley in the book Little Cheats, that’s essentially what you do. You close your eyes while the participant moves the balls, then you go to the table with your eyes closed and knock out the 5th ball and say, “That’s how many balls you moved.” There’s not much to the trick. And it’s fairly awkward to do. He had the people moving the balls in one chunk. It’s not very easy to move nine pool balls from one side of a row to another without things getting messed up. I added the idea of using a pool cue to create a channel for the balls to pass down, and the idea of moving one ball at a time, in order to keep things more manageable.

And then I added all the other elements of the trick after that point.

So what I did was I grabbed the cue ball and had it in my pocket before I went upstairs. When I came downstairs again, the room was pitch black. In the dark I counted five balls from the right end and swapped that ball for the cue ball in my pocket. I did this as I was verifying everything was as it should be. It’s okay if the spectator hears something at this point. I’m just (apparently) reaching out in the dark to feel if everything is where I expect it to be.

Now he moves all the balls to the center of the table, mixes them around, and places them one by one into the pockets. He counts them (silently or aloud) to make sure he gets all the balls. As he does this I’m a fair bit away.

When he’s done I walk over to the pool table and as I act as if I’m checking to make sure all the balls are gone, I silently leave the ball I took out in the center of the table.

Now, at this point, I still don’t know what that ball is, or what number the person was thinking of, but it doesn’t matter. From their perspective there is a number in their head that only they could know (True). And the corresponding ball is somewhere nobody knows (Not true. But hard for them to imagine given the last statement was true.)

I verify this with them while across the room. Then I act like I’m listening for something (something messing with the pool balls). Then I light the lighter and as we slowly move back to the table, the number they’re thinking of is gradually revealed as the ball on the table becomes illuminated.

It’s a fun trick to perform. The primary negative is that you need to be in a room with a pool table and you have to be able to turn off all the lights. Pool tables on the east coast of the U.S. are frequently in basements. So that set-up isn’t completely uncommon for me. If you’re ever in a similar situation, I definitely recommend trying it out. It has a feeling that isn’t quite like any other trick I’ve performed.