The O.D.D. Technique
/For the past twelve months or so I’ve been playing around with a technique that has proven to be very strong (but surprisingly weak in one area).
Let’s call it the O.D.D. technique. The Obscure Duplicate Deck technique.
What I would do is, whenever I would visit someone’s home who I knew I’d be seeing again in the future, I’d make note of what deck of cards I could borrow from them. And then, whether it was some “fun” christmas deck from the 80s, or a deck they got for turning in “Marlboro miles,” or an ugly floral bridge deck from the 70s—I would track down a copy of that deck online and buy it.
It’s surprisingly easy to find matching copies of most of these old decks. If your friend already has this in their junk drawer, it’s probably not some incredibly obscure deck that you can’t find anywhere or that would cost you a fortune to get a copy of. It’s most likely something they made 1000s of at one point in time, and you can find on eBay for a few dollars.
You might be able to get a peek at the name of the cards and who made them if your friend still has the case. If not—if they’re just wrapped in a rubber band or something—just search vintage [floral] playing cards on eBay. (Substituting in the theme of the deck for floral.)
I did this with 16 “obscure” decks over the last year and was able to track down all but one of them.
Now, your first idea is probably the same as my first idea. I’ve got this obscure deck that matches a deck in my friend’s house. I can do a totally impossible torn and restored card (or otherwise destroyed and restored card).
Well, I tried a trick along those lines three times when I started testing ideas with this technique. Each time they were blown away. Magic trailer demo responses. And then, two minutes later or twenty minutes later, they’d say, “You must have found another deck that looked like that and had the extra card with you.”
The problem is, a destroyed/restored item is such an impossibility that the deck being obscure just isn’t enough to make the card seem like a unique object. Had I combined it with some other deceptions—a faux signature, or a torn corner—I think that would have maintained the impossibility. But the idea was to do something that didn’t destroy this deck they’ve had for 50 years.
Here are some ideas that do work incredibly well with the O.D.D. Technique.
Stacking and switching the deck
This is so strong. There is zero heat on the deck switch. You can have them shuffle the deck in the living room and then say, “Actually, let’s do this on the dining room table.” And just put the deck they shuffled in your pocket and remove the partially or fully stacked one from your other pocket as you walk behind them to the other room. You can then do a full poker deal demonstration, or a story deck, or a deck matching routine, or a card memorization stunt, or anything at all that requires a stacked deck, and it just doesn’t seem to occur to people that you could have a duplicate deck. Nobody ever even hinted at that as a method it when I tested these ideas.
Teleportations
Cards moving from one packet to another. Or into the card box. Or into your pocket. Or whatever.
This was one I was most wary of after my failure with the torn and restored testing. But this ending up working brilliantly each time I tried it. The “impossibility” of the transposition wasn’t quite enough to get people to think, “Well, I guess the only way to do that is if he had a duplicate of that card from grandma’s old deck.”
The Rep Trick
When I introduced the concept of Reps, I described this trick. You have someone pick a card and return it to the deck. Say the Ace of Hearts. “I will find your card,” you say. And cut the deck to one card. The 4 of Clubs. “That’s not your card? Okay. Shoot. No, that’s okay. I can make this work. What was your card? The Ace of Hearts? Okay.” You then do whatever color change you want to turn the Four of Clubs into the Ace of Hearts. (The duplicate of the card you forced, which you’ve had on you the whole time.)
It’s a cool trick. You get your applause or whatever and things die down.
Here’s where it gets trippy.
“Do you have a marker?” you ask. Why? “Uhm, just so I can note that this is actually the Four of Clubs. So if you play cards with this deck in the future. I just need a marker or something.”
It’s then that they go through the deck and find another Ace of Hearts. What they had assumed had happened (that you cleverly switched the 4 for the Ace via sleight-of-hand) is now completely upended. They have two Ace of Hearts in the deck and no 4 of Clubs.
This is a weird situation where the trick itself is decent, but it’s the repercussion of the trick itself that really sticks with people.
You can get a lot out of this technique even if the deck isn’t obscure. Even if it’s a common deck. Most (non-magicians) are unlikely to think you brought a deck that matched the one in their home. So this can work well even if you’re just bringing along a red Bicycle deck.
But when you’re able to track down something that feels unique and personal to them (because it’s been in their family for decades) it’s obviously considerably stronger.
