Spex Mix: Anchoring Deck Switches
/Spex Mix is a series devoted to the most disarming thing you can do with a deck of cards: have the spectator shuffle them. Search the sidebar for “Spex” for the other posts in this series.
This is one of the most powerful techniques I’ve ever stumbled upon. I first used this while creating my story deck trick, which ended up in The Jerx, Volume 1. As far as I know, I haven’t seen this idea mentioned before—certainly not as a general concept with broad applications—but those of you who are more well-read than I am might be able to direct me to a precedent.
Anchoring Deck Switches
This technique reduces the suspicion that maybe you switched decks during a trick to almost zero, in my experience. That’s with laypeople, of course. But I’ve even fooled knowledgeable magicians with tricks that should have obviously screamed deck switch to them.
Here’s an example of the technique in action…
Anchored Out Of This World
I give you a deck of cards to shuffle in any way you like. When you’re done, I have you remove the Aces and mix them face down, and then try and separate them into reds and blacks.
If you don’t separate them properly, that just proves how hard it is with four cards.
If you do, I point out that could just be luck.
The aces are tossed back into the deck, and I ask you to try it now with the full deck. And somehow you impossibly are able to separate the deck into red cards and black cards.
How?
A deck switch.
When?
The deck was switched after you removed the aces, for a deck that already had the aces removed.
As the spectator, you, of course, remember shuffling the deck and then spreading through it to remove the aces. Those aces then got put back into the deck later on.
This is the idea behind “anchored” deck switches.
A card (or cards) are removed from a genuinely shuffled deck. The deck is then switched for a stacked deck that is missing those cards. Usually (although it’s not necessary) those cards are placed back into your stacked deck, and you go on with the trick. These few cards, which never leave their sight, help “anchor” the mixed-state of the deck, even though the deck has been switched.
This becomes even more deceptive if the cards that are removed seem random.
For example—keeping with the OOTW theme…
Have two decks. Remove the 4 of Hearts, 6 of Hearts, and Ace of Clubs from each.
Separate one deck into red/black and have it in a position to be switched in.
In performance, the other deck is shuffled while you hold out the three cards. They are palmed in and the deck is cut into three piles using a variation on a Spectator Cuts the Aces procedure. The top card of each pile is slid off.
“We’ll look at the cards you cut to and see if there is a preponderance of red cards or black cards in order to see which color you’re more naturally attuned to find.”
As the focus is on those three cards, the deck is switched.
In this case, where random cards have been removed, I often find it better to keep them out of the deck. That way, if the spectator does suspect a switch, they have this visual reminder of the deck they shuffled and cut three random cards out of. And those three “random” cards are not duplicated in this remaining 49 card deck, so how could a switch have occurred? There are too many interconnected layers of deception here for people to unravel.
That’s why I think this is so powerful. A deck switch, by itself, is a pretty “dumb” method. It’s a method a non-magician could easily conceive. Anchoring the switch adds some more layers to it. Especially when your “anchoring” procedure involves things like palming out and a seemingly fair cutting sequence which forces “random” cards. The non-magician doesn’t stand a chance at untangling that.
Not only that, but the anchoring procedure provides the necessary misdirection for the deck switch. At the point in time of the switch, the locus of their suspicion and interest is on the cards which are never switched.
Here’s another example. Let’s say you wanted to perform Sam the Bellhop (because you like shit). The deck would be shuffled by the spectator and spread toward them to see if they were satisfied it was well mixed. Meanwhile, you cull a known force card (missing from your stacked deck) into position to be forced. The card is forced and while the spectator takes a look at it, you do the switch for your stacked deck. You try to read their mind of the card. Maybe you even get it wrong. “What was it? The 4 of Spades? Damn.” You take the card back and casually toss it into the middle of the deck. (Made possible because the card below the 4’s position in the stack is a corner short card, which you can cut to easily.)
“My mindreading abilities have taken such a hit recently. I’ve been spending a stupid amount of time working on this thing called StoryShuffling where you try and make a story from a shuffled deck.”
That’s bound to get a “Huh?” From which you can transition into Sam the Bellhop.
You don’t have to get that first card wrong. I just think the acknowledgement of your failure could make a good transitional moment into Sam the Bellhop, as you admit you’ve been working on this other stupid skill.
Okay, to wrap it up…from my experience, when it comes to anchoring deck switches:
The more cards that cross over from one deck to the other, the stronger the anchoring is.
If you named the cards to be removed, e.g. “Give me the four aces,” then you’ll want to place them back into the other deck before moving on. The physical action of those cards coming out of a deck and then going back in one, suggest it’s the same deck.
If the cards involved appear to be random selections, then they can either go back in the deck before the “real” trick starts, or they can be pushed off to the side where they will serve as a subconscious reminder of the “random cards removed from this deck after it was mixed.”