Bob Farmer - Tsunami

TSUNAMI by Bob Farmer This can use a borrowed, shuffled deck. Tell spec to shuffle up the cards. Your back can be turned to the spec during the whole selection process. After he has shuffled to his heart’s content, instruct him to cut the deck into 5 (facedown) piles. He is to then take the top card off of each pile and hold them in his hands fanned so only he can see the faces and to remember the highest value card among those five cards. He is to then replace those five cards anywhere into the deck and then shuffle the deck one last time. You now turn around and state that there is no possible way for you to know what card he is thinking of…in fact, all that you know is that it is somewhere among these cards (you spread the pack faceup in your hands and as you spread through the cards, look to see if two cards of opposite color are at the rear of deck (which would be top of pack when it is facedown). If there are two cards of opposite color there, close spread but remember those two cards (suits only). If you don’t see two cards of opposite color, find any two cards of opposite color together as you spread thru pack and cut pack there so they end up at rear (of faceup deck). Turn pack facedown and do a couple of false cuts and/or false shuffles (you can do a couple table riffles, shuffling normally but letting original top two cards fall last in each shuffle). Anyway, you now table the pack facedown and squared. (Let’s pretend that the top card is a CLUB and the second card down is a HEART, for explanation purposes). You now lift off the top card of pack and let only spec see its face and ask him if his card is the same color as that card. If he says ‘yes’, you then ask him if his card is the same suit as that card. Whatever he answers, you now know the suit of his card. (If he says ‘yes’, you know it’s a club, if he says ‘no’, it is a spade) However, if he says ‘no’ to the first question (color), you insert that card into the deck and lift up the top card of pack (which you know to be a heart) and show only him the face of that second card and now inquire if his card is the same suit as that card (if he says ‘yes’, you know it is a heart. If he says ‘no’, then he’s thinking of a diamond). Bob Farmer has figured out his odds that if you cut a deck into five piles and take the top card off each pile, that the odds are almost 98% that one of those five cards will be a 10 or higher! Try it yourself, almost everytime, you will find a 10, Jack, Queen, King or Ace among those five cards. At least one. This is the crux of the whole trick. But please realize that it can fail. If it does, just tell them that mindreading is not an exact science and that you were definitely having trouble receiving his thoughts and leave it at that. At any rate, you now know the exact suit of the card that the spectator is thinking of. You then make sure that the one or two cards you showed spec are inserted and lost in the deck (you might ask spec to shuffle cards one more time so there can be no way for you to learn the identity of that card(s) you just showed them. Now you pick up deck and start spreading through it so only you can see the faces and say, “I’m getting a jumble of thoughts…and not quite sure what card you are thinking of….maybe this one…or this one…” and you upjog and remove the five cards of his suit that make up a royal flush. So if he’s thinking of a club, you would remove the 10, Jack, Queen, King and Ace of clubs but do not let him see the faces of any of those five cards. You repeat again how you really are having trouble getting his card. Finally, you shrug and ask him to name his card. The odds are, again, almost 98% that he will name one of those five cards. If it isn’t, then move on to another effect that is 100% and explain that it

was just an experiment in mindreading (which, obviously, is not an exact science!). But, let’s say that he names the Jack of Clubs. You remove the Jack of Clubs from the fan of five cards that you are holding and say, “I thought this might be it…you took the one card needed to make this a royal flush!!” You now lay down the other four cards in order showing a royal flush in a faceup row on the table. END.