Last night, I saw Illusionists 2.0 and one trick has me stumped.

The guy threw three different toys into the crowd and when the music stopped, whoever was holding each toy went on stage and took a seat at random. Underneath the seat was a picture of the toy occupying that seat (pause for applause).

Then he gave each person a deck of cards and asked their names. They shuffled the cards and threw them over their shoulders until each person was holding just one card. The magician then loaded his website onto the screen, which had an embedded YouTube clip on it (uploaded 2 months ago). When the clip played, it showed him pulling those same three cards out of a deck. This is the part I’m stumped on. How the hell was that done?

Finally, he pulled his wallet out of his back pocket and showed a photo of those same three cards plus three stickers with the toys and the people’s names printed on them. Cute, but easily explained. The video bit has got me baffled.

(As an aside, the show overall was lame compared to last year’s one but I did like the guy with the dancing jacket)

There are several assumptions being made here.

1. The people were selected at random
2. The video actually is on youtube and not hosted locally.
3. The decks of cards were unmodified.

Carmen_Sandiego said:

There are several assumptions being made here.

1. The people were selected at random
2. The video actually is on youtube and not hosted locally.
3. The decks of cards were unmodified.

What was that show.. try and fool us?

Carmen_Sandiego said:

There are several assumptions being made here.

1. The people were selected at random
2. The video actually is on youtube and not hosted locally.
3. The decks of cards were unmodified.

Indeed. I have considered all three. There are loads of his vids on youtube, I don’t have the commitment to go through them all to find it. My sister and I ended up agreeing all three ladies were plants.

Divine Angel said:

Carmen_Sandiego said:

There are several assumptions being made here.

1. The people were selected at random
2. The video actually is on youtube and not hosted locally.
3. The decks of cards were unmodified.

Indeed. I have considered all three. There are loads of his vids on youtube, I don’t have the commitment to go through them all to find it. My sister and I ended up agreeing all three ladies were plants.

Daisy, Rose and Ivy.

Daisy, Rose and Ivy.

Or Daisy, Rose and Hyacinth

The Bouquet residence! Lady of the house, speaking.

The Bouquet residence! Lady of the house, speaking.

Hello, can you do me three orders of dim sims, 1 Peking Duck, a prawn chop suey and a large fried rice ? Do you deliver ?

When I see a magic trick these days I look for three things:
1) Forced choice
2) Hypnosis
3) Preparation

Darren Brown gave a good introduction to all three.

> The guy threw three different toys into the crowd and when the music stopped, whoever was holding each toy went on stage and took a seat at random. Underneath the seat was a picture of the toy occupying that seat (pause for applause).

This is a good example of “forced choice”. By the distance the toy was thrown into the crowd he controls the order in which the people approach the seats. When three people who don’t know one another take seats the last will always end up with the center seat, that already gives him once chance in two. By ensuring that the catcher of the first toy is right-handed he can pre-specify where all three people will sit.

> They shuffled the cards and threw them over their shoulders until each person was holding just one card.

I didn’t see the show, but one possibility immediately occurs to me. If three of the cards were slightly larger than the others then they would have much more chance of being picked in that way. Perhaps sufficient for the trick to work.

mollwollfumble said:

When I see a magic trick these days I look for three things:
1) Forced choice
2) Hypnosis
3) Preparation

4) Lipreading subvocalisations

(useful when the magician asks someone nearby to choose a number or name).