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00:00 [Music]
00:14 No way!
00:15 [Laughter]
00:16 You are a queen!
00:17 Are you kidding me?
00:18 Oh my gosh!
00:19 Awesome!
00:20 [Music]
00:32 This is Joshua J.
00:33 We're here in New York City to show you Inferno.
00:36 You see, I wanted to create a thought-of card in Matchbox.
00:39 I wanted to create a card trick with just one card.
00:43 And the result is Inferno.
00:45 All you need to perform it is inside one Matchbox.
00:48 You put that in your pocket, you're ready to go.
00:50 It's a card that's been burned as if it's been saved from the plane.
00:54 The one card inside my Matchbox is the one card you saved.
00:59 What are you doing?
01:00 Thank you guys very much.
01:02 [Applause]
01:05 Everything you need to perform Inferno is in this Matchbox.
01:08 And you're about to see the uncut trailer.
01:10 And I want you to know, that's how it looks every time you do it, 100% of the time.
01:16 Hello? Hello?
01:18 We're going to play a game.
01:20 In this game, you guys make all the rules and all the decisions.
01:23 We're going to burn an imaginary deck of playing cards.
01:28 You seem thrilled about this.
01:30 Hold out your hand like this. Hold this until the end.
01:33 And you each get a match.
01:34 Thank you.
01:36 Now, you decide all the cards we burn.
01:38 And you're the star of this game.
01:40 Because at the end of the game, you get to reach into the flames and save one card from burning.
01:45 This is a huge responsibility.
01:46 Are you up for it?
01:47 I'm up for it.
01:48 Alright, here we go.
01:49 Your name?
01:50 Kristen.
01:51 Kristen, there are number cards and picture cards in a deck of cards.
01:54 Alright.
01:55 In a moment, you're going to say number or picture.
01:57 Whatever you say, that's what we burn.
01:59 Okay.
02:00 What do you want to burn, number or picture?
02:02 Let's do number.
02:04 All the number cards are burned.
02:06 No more 10s, no more 7s, no more 3s, no more 2s.
02:09 They're all burned.
02:10 Which leaves just Jack, Queen, and King. Men and women.
02:15 Ridiculous question.
02:16 Do you want to burn the men or burn the women?
02:19 I want to burn the men.
02:20 You're sick.
02:21 You're really sick.
02:23 No more Jacks, no more Kings.
02:26 Just four cards left.
02:27 Queen of Hearts, Queen of Diamonds, Queen of Clubs, Queen of Spades.
02:31 I light them all on fire.
02:33 Just like I told you, you reach into the flames and you save one Queen.
02:38 Which Queen will you save?
02:40 Queen of Spades.
02:41 Queen of Spades. Are you serious?
02:43 Queen of Spades.
02:45 That matchbox has been in your hand the whole time.
02:47 Would you open it up and take out the card you find inside?
02:52 Do you see what this is?
02:54 This is a burn card as if it's been rescued from the flames.
02:58 It's got a paper clip on it as to protect it.
03:01 Now, what I find so odd is that you wanted to burn all the number cards.
03:05 You wanted to burn the Jacks and the Kings.
03:07 You wanted to burn the Queens, but you wanted to save the Queen of Spades.
03:11 And what I don't understand is how the card in my matchbox is exactly the one you decided to save.
03:17 Queen of Spades. You can take a look.
03:19 Are you serious?
03:20 Oh my God!
03:22 Thanks for helping.
03:24 That's insane.
03:26 [Laughter]
03:28 [Music]
03:33 [Music]
03:42 So welcome to Inferno.
03:45 I'm really excited about this because it's been an ongoing project of mine
03:50 to come up with a card trick with just one card.
03:54 And I've been working on this for years.
03:56 I actually, a few years ago, maybe some of you even saw me perform a version
04:00 that was so much more complicated and so much more limited just for my own uses.
04:06 And I eventually came upon Inferno.
04:10 And it's been said by many magicians that the greatest tricks involve combinations of methods.
04:15 So if your whole trick relies on one thing, invisible thread, gaff deck, or a slight,
04:22 then that's just a very simple way for somebody to figure out how to get from A to B,
04:26 and you can get burned on that.
04:28 But when you use combinations of methods, it can be really potent because it becomes so much more complex.
04:34 This trick has three different kinds of methods working together to give you a thought-of card in matchbox effect.
04:42 And I just want to say at the outset, this is all you need.
04:46 This is what you get that comes with it, and this is all you need.
04:49 There's nothing to pull them in. There's no second matchbox you bring out.
04:53 There's no mathematics involved.
04:55 And the three concepts at play are this.
04:58 You have equivocate, that you can narrow the playing field down from 52 to 4.
05:04 And the second thing that you have going into play is a gaff,
05:08 and that gaff is the most recent development, and that's put out by Card Shark.
05:11 These are the double-decker thin cards.
05:14 And the third part of the concept that plays into this is sleight of hand.
05:18 We're going to be doing a classic billet switch, but with playing cards.
05:22 So, the first thing we'll do is look at the props, and then we'll look at the presentation and handling.
05:28 Let's jump in.
05:30 Okay, in this part, I'm going to explain to you what you get and how to assemble it.
05:45 The first thing you do is you pop up your matchbox.
05:48 It comes in a flat form, but you're going to make it so that it's a real matchbox.
05:53 And it has a striker.
05:55 Eventually, if you do this trick as much as I do, your striker will wear out.
05:59 That's the nature of strikers on matchboxes, but just take one then off of another matchbox,
06:04 and you can glue it over top, and you're good to go.
06:07 So, that's your matchbox.
06:09 When I do the trick, as long as I'm performing in a place that doesn't have a smoke alarm in it
06:14 or that would be really upset if I used a little bit of fire to light a match,
06:18 I like to do three matches and your gimmick.
06:22 And this is the part that we'll put together right now.
06:25 So, this is the gimmick. This is what it's going to look like.
06:27 And the big breakthrough for me, the reason this took years to put together,
06:31 was because these cards hadn't been invented, really, when I came up with the trick,
06:36 so therefore the method couldn't have come.
06:38 But you have four outs that look to the untrained eye like one card paperclipped together.
06:46 But there are four cards here, because these use those extra, extra, extra thin queens.
06:52 So, what you are going to assemble with the paperclip,
06:56 I use a blue paperclip because on red cards it contrasts the best,
06:59 and it is sort of important that they understand that that's a paperclip,
07:02 because you're going to be taking the paperclip off to do a little bit of the dirty work.
07:07 So, you are going to get cards that look like this.
07:14 And each one is pre-scored so that it folds very easily like so.
07:19 And when you fold these, just do one thing for me.
07:23 Don't fold them exactly, just sort of haphazardly.
07:26 I want you to fold them so that you get a little bit of a lip on the card.
07:31 It's not important to have more than a millimeter,
07:33 but you want to have a lip on the card so that it's very easy without fumbling to just pop a card open.
07:40 Separate reds and blacks, because you are going to make two packets, reds and blacks.
07:46 Diamonds and hearts will start with reds.
07:48 You fold those up, you put the diamond inside the heart.
07:52 Diamond goes inside the heart like so.
07:56 So that once they are in half like this, the diamond goes in front of the heart,
08:01 and then everything is folded into quarters.
08:03 The heart is the surfaces that you are looking at, the diamond is the innermost surface.
08:09 Now, a lot of detail has been applied here.
08:12 Not just that they have this beautiful ash and score marks,
08:17 because I used to have these when I made up the cards myself, but they were real soot.
08:21 So they would come off on your fingers.
08:23 Now you can handle these cards, hand them out, and nobody's fingers get dirty, which is really nice.
08:28 So, the red packet is diamonds inside of hearts like so.
08:34 And you'll notice that the way that this card is burned gives you access to the innermost card.
08:41 This is a really handy feature, because later on in the handling I'm going to be explaining
08:46 when you're down to this, you may have to sometimes show it as the queen of hearts,
08:50 sometimes show it as the queen of diamonds,
08:52 and it's really nice that you're going to have access right there to that innermost card.
08:56 But that comes later.
08:58 So, that's your red packet.
09:01 Same thing is going on here.
09:03 The black packet, you have spades and clubs inside of spades.
09:08 Now, these cards are marked.
09:11 If you look very carefully, you'll just have to examine it when you get it,
09:14 you have an S in the border of the spades, you have a C in the border of the clubs,
09:20 and so on with the other suits.
09:22 But that's not good enough for me.
09:24 So, I recommend, so that you can do this in dark lights and not even thinking about it,
09:28 that you take a black sharpie and put a dot, as I have done, right here on these two corners,
09:36 so that at a moment's glance you can tell the red packet from the black packet.
09:41 Both of those packets are lined up like this.
09:45 Paperclip goes on top.
09:48 Matches go on top of everything.
09:50 If you want to use matches, you don't have to.
09:53 Matches goes inside.
09:56 You're now ready to go.
09:57 Now, if you don't use the matches, you don't have to keep replenishing the matches after each trick,
10:02 and then the trick becomes virtually reset automatically.
10:05 But the matches serve a very important purpose, so I'm going to explain it as if we're using matches.
10:11 [music]
10:22 All right, so I told you that the method is in three parts.
10:24 The equivocate, the gaffe, so to speak, because they're not really gaffed, it's examinable at the end,
10:31 and then the sleight of hand ending.
10:35 We're going to start with the equivocate, because this is the part that, in the beginning,
10:39 may seem even like a lot to remember, but I'm telling you,
10:43 I have friends in the city who are performing this, I perform this all the time,
10:47 it's not something you'll ever forget.
10:49 Once you know it, it'll just start to flow very easily.
10:53 The big breakthrough in the equivocate is a bit old, but it's not very well known,
10:59 and not enough magicians take advantage of it.
11:01 Several magicians have claimed ownership of this, and it goes back far enough that I'm really not sure
11:08 who the true inventor of this particular type of equivocate I'm using is.
11:12 But a few select magicians and mentalists use it, and it's so much better than the average.
11:18 Now, when I say average, let me take you through the average one.
11:21 Magicians have attempted to get from 52 cards down to 1 or 2 or 4 or 6 outs,
11:28 and that usually takes approximately 7 questions,
11:32 because everybody is trying to cut the base number in half each time.
11:37 Explain what I mean.
11:39 I made a chart here.
11:40 If you start with 52 cards, and you say to somebody, "Think of one, red or black,"
11:45 and you force red, you've eliminated 26 cards.
11:49 So now you're at 26 cards.
11:51 You can do heart or diamond, and you can force, let's say, diamonds,
11:56 and you then are down to 13 cards.
11:59 You can force high or low.
12:01 Let's say you force high, for example.
12:05 You're down to 7 cards, and then you can force odd or even of the high diamonds that you just forced,
12:11 and you're down to 4 cards, and then you have 4 outs or what have you,
12:16 and that results in unhappy Jackie Chan face.
12:20 What I've done is what I call asymmetrical forcing.
12:25 So instead of eliminating half, half, half of the subset,
12:29 we're going to eliminate larger portions.
12:31 So we start with 52 cards, a deck of cards, but we force picture or number,
12:37 and we're going to force picture.
12:38 So instead of going from 52 to 26 instantly, by forcing picture cards, we go from 52 to 12.
12:46 We've already eliminated 3 questions.
12:49 From there, we have 12 cards.
12:51 I don't ask, "Now, I'm going to reach out.
12:54 I want you to take jacks, queens, and kings and hand me one of them.
12:57 Now hand me a second one."
12:58 None of this stuff.
13:00 I ask men or women, and I force women.
13:04 So here we go from 12 cards not to 6 but to 4.
13:09 So once you've done that, you're down to 4, and now you have 4 outs,
13:15 which I'm going to explain in a minute, and that yields the happy group of girls in bikinis.
13:20 Would you rather perform for hot girls in bikinis or for a sad Jackie Chan?
13:26 It's up to you, really.
13:28 All right, so let me explain now with an example of how this is going to go down.
13:34 This is where the matches come into play.
13:37 So the intro, the first thing I say is, "We're going to play a game."
13:41 Time out. Why do I say that?
13:43 I say, "We're going to play a game, and you make up all the rules, and you make all the decisions."
13:49 I say that because I want this to stand out from everything else I'm doing.
13:53 When I'm done with a trick and another trick and another trick,
13:55 I love being able to say, "Let's do something different."
13:58 Would you hold on to this for me?
14:00 "We're going to play a game. You make all the rules. You make all the decisions."
14:05 And now the interest level is high.
14:08 As I explain the rules of the game, I reach in and I take out three matches,
14:12 and I hand them out to three different spectators.
14:16 And there's a reason for this.
14:17 The matches are just presentation, but the reason is,
14:20 unlike a lot of forcing procedures that magicians use that are similar to this,
14:24 I know the three questions I'm going to ask,
14:27 they're always the same three questions, and I always ask just three.
14:31 So, each match is a question, and it lets the audience know
14:35 I'm not just doing this until I get the answers I want.
14:39 I really have a game plan here, and everybody's answer is important.
14:43 So I say, "We're going to burn an imaginary deck of cards.
14:48 You guys get to decide what cards we burn,
14:51 and at the end of this, you get to be the hero."
14:54 And here I direct my attention to the third spectator,
14:57 and I say, "Because you get to reach into the flames
15:00 and save just one card from burning."
15:05 And that's exactly right.
15:06 I say this again. I'm very clear that this person is important.
15:10 They get to save one card from burning
15:12 because that statement can be spun a couple of different ways
15:17 depending on how I need to force the card.
15:20 So, let's approach question number one.
15:24 So we'll start with you.
15:25 Cards can be divided in a lot of different ways.
15:28 I want to divide them into number cards and picture cards.
15:32 So you can decide in your head.
15:33 You can change your mind as many times as you like,
15:35 but when you finally decide on number or picture, stay with that.
15:39 I'll count to three, and then I want you to commit.
15:42 Now, I light the match, and this serves another very important purpose
15:46 because this gives us a focus, and when I blow it out,
15:49 it's like that phase is ending.
15:52 And clearly the air in the room has put the match out itself.
15:55 But you get the idea.
15:56 So, they say, "I count to three. One, two, three."
16:01 And they say, "Number cards," let's say.
16:03 And I blow it out, and I say, "Excellent decision."
16:08 No more tens, threes, sixes, nines.
16:10 The number cards are gone.
16:13 Now it's your turn to be a pyromaniac.
16:16 I light the match again, and I say, "All we have is jacks, queens, and kings.
16:22 You get to decide what we burn next."
16:25 And I say, "What we burn next."
16:27 That's an important line because I'm not saying we're done after this.
16:31 I say, "What we're burning next,"
16:33 because sometimes this is all we burn,
16:35 and sometimes we have to burn more cards after this.
16:37 So I say, "Now you get to play the part of a pyromaniac.
16:40 You decide what we burn next.
16:43 Jacks, queens, and kings. That is men and women."
16:47 Crazy question.
16:48 Should I burn the men or the women?
16:51 Always gets a little chuckle.
16:53 And it's funny. I don't know why it's funny,
16:55 but when you do it to a guy, no matter what he says,
16:58 if he says, "Burn the men, burn the women,"
16:59 it always gets snickers and comments and laughs.
17:02 And when you do it to a woman,
17:03 it always gets snickers and comments and laughs.
17:05 So it's a win-win for a little comedic value.
17:08 So let's say they say they want to burn men.
17:11 Whew.
17:13 I knew you were going to say that.
17:15 No more jacks, no more kings.
17:18 I said everything in this game would come down to you,
17:21 and it has.
17:22 All we have left now is queens.
17:25 I want you to imagine they're on fire.
17:27 Queen of hearts, queen of diamonds,
17:28 queen of clubs, queen of spades.
17:31 In a moment, I'm going to ask you to name one of these queens.
17:34 Whatever queen you name,
17:36 if that's the queen you reach in and save,
17:39 all the other ones burn away.
17:41 One, two, three.
17:45 Queen of hearts, let's say.
17:48 Blow it out, and now you're done.
17:50 Once you're at this last phase, of course,
17:52 they can name any queen they want,
17:54 which really helps reinforce the first two,
17:56 which are not as free, but seem that free.
17:59 Now, I want to back up for one second
18:00 and just explain one thing.
18:02 I don't have, like, a set script that I use with this.
18:05 I try and make it as fluid and conversational as I can.
18:08 But one thing that is, that I think the most important thing,
18:12 is that in this equivocate that I've laid out for you,
18:15 you are not changing very much.
18:18 So you can be really specific about what you're asking.
18:20 For example, I try and say, with each one,
18:23 I try and say, "Number cards or picture cards?"
18:26 And remember, whatever you say,
18:29 that's what we burn.
18:32 And then the second one, I say, "Men or women."
18:34 I say, "That's what we burn."
18:37 Now, I know what you're thinking.
18:38 How can that be?
18:39 Because if it's different answers,
18:40 it won't end up with a queen.
18:42 Here's how it works.
18:43 Let's approach the first question with both outcomes.
18:47 "Number cards or picture cards?
18:49 I'll count to three.
18:50 You name number or picture.
18:51 One, two, three.
18:53 Number."
18:54 You saw how we handled number.
18:56 I say, "Great.
18:58 All the number cards have been burned."
19:01 What if he had said picture?
19:03 Instead, I would have said,
19:05 "One, two, three.
19:06 Picture."
19:07 Perfect.
19:08 We'll burn the picture cards.
19:10 Now, this is why the matches are great.
19:12 It gives you some reason to go to the next person.
19:15 He said picture cards.
19:17 That's jack, queen, and king.
19:19 So we'll burn the picture cards.
19:21 You could call those men and women.
19:23 It's your turn to be a pyromaniac now.
19:25 I want you to say, "Men or women,"
19:27 when I count to three.
19:28 And whatever you say,
19:29 that's what we'll burn next.
19:31 One, two, three.
19:33 So do you see what I've done there?
19:35 If he names numbers, we burned it as in we eliminated it.
19:39 If he says pictures, okay, we will burn,
19:43 actively burn the picture cards.
19:46 So either way, to me, I don't have a preference.
19:49 I think they're both great.
19:51 So, either way, you're at the question of men or women.
19:56 If they say men, you say, "Great.
19:59 You want to burn the men.
20:00 Jacks and kings are burned."
20:03 When you go to the third question then, you say,
20:06 "And now it's your turn.
20:07 I told you at the end of this, it would be your decision,
20:10 and you have to act quickly."
20:11 And here I say, "All that's left to burn is the women.
20:15 Queen of hearts, queen of diamonds,
20:16 queen of clubs, queen of spades.
20:18 You get to reach into the flames
20:20 and save just one card from burning."
20:22 You see how number two and number three go fluidly together?
20:26 Let's look at how that would be different
20:27 had the answers been different.
20:29 If on the second question, he had said,
20:32 "I want to burn the women,"
20:35 he would say, "You're sick. I like that."
20:38 I know you would say that, right?
20:40 "Fine. We'll burn the women.
20:42 I told you this all comes down to your decision.
20:45 You have to act quickly here."
20:46 He wanted to burn women, so there's queen of hearts,
20:49 queen of diamonds, queen of clubs, queen of spades.
20:51 They're on fire.
20:52 I want you to imagine reaching into the flames and saving one.
20:57 I know that I'm throwing a lot at you here,
20:59 but we can't tackle these questions one, two, and three
21:02 because two and three are so fluid.
21:04 What happens in one depends how you say the third one.
21:08 This is why matches are so nice,
21:10 because matches burn, and they burn quickly,
21:12 so people feel the need to act fast.
21:16 What's really nice about this routine
21:18 that's a weakness in a lot of other equivocate situations is
21:22 in other routines, you have too much time for reflection.
21:25 So people can say, "Well, he said hand me one,
21:28 but he didn't say we were eliminating that one,"
21:30 or whatever the routine is.
21:32 But in this one, the flame helps add some focus
21:35 because what you're saying is, "Hurry up.
21:37 We have to do this quickly. We're burning cards."
21:41 So I think that that's a pretty fluid explanation
21:44 of all the different outs.
21:46 Sometimes it's, "We're burning 52 cards,"
21:49 if they had said numbers,
21:51 and then you go to the picture cards.
21:53 And sometimes the game happens to be,
21:55 "Which one do you want, picture or number?"
21:57 "Picture cards." "Great. We'll play with picture cards."
22:00 That's jack, queens, and kings.
22:02 So you never really explicitly say anything
22:04 about number cards at all.
22:06 So you make the rules of this game,
22:08 despite what you say,
22:10 and it all flows very fluently down to the last four.
22:16 [dramatic music]
22:19 All right, so you're down to the queens,
22:29 and they've just named a queen,
22:31 and you're good to go.
22:33 Now, when I perform this, I hand this to the spectator
22:36 so it's in their hands,
22:38 and I've got empty hands the whole time, and I like that.
22:40 And what's great is you can have them handle the gimmick
22:43 because it's so thin.
22:45 So let's say they say, "Queen of hearts."
22:48 You say, at the end of this game,
22:50 "You've been holding onto that matchbox the whole time.
22:53 Would you please open it up and pour out what you find inside?"
22:57 Now, I don't say, "Hand to me,"
22:58 'cause I don't want them to remember that,
23:00 but I just put out my hand and say,
23:02 "Would you pour out what you find inside?"
23:04 And they do that, or they reach in and hand you this.
23:08 I've never once had anybody try and take the paperclip off.
23:12 So you're totally safe here.
23:14 Now, I know it's queen of hearts,
23:16 which means I need the red packet,
23:18 which means I need to get rid of the black packet.
23:21 So I have to get rid of it and put it in my pocket,
23:24 and we do that using the Jay Sankey paperclipped switch,
23:28 which is one of the all-time great switches.
23:30 All that's happening here is as you take the paperclip off,
23:34 you simply take--I see 'cause of my black dot--
23:37 I simply take the black packet with it,
23:39 and it goes in the pocket.
23:41 If they would have said queen of spades
23:44 and I would have had to get rid of the red packet,
23:47 all I would do is take that packet away
23:53 as I go to the pocket.
23:55 So the worst you'd have to do is just turn this over.
23:58 Your thumb pushes up.
24:00 So in this case, we're going to push up on the black packet,
24:03 and you're just going to take the paperclip
24:06 and the packet with it and go to the pocket.
24:09 That leaves you with just what looks like one card,
24:12 the same card they were looking at,
24:14 but it's really two.
24:16 All right, so sometimes it's going to be a major suit.
24:19 That's hearts and spades.
24:20 Those are the ones on the outside,
24:22 and sometimes it's going to be a minor suit,
24:23 the one on the inside.
24:25 You never have to remember this because, as I told you,
24:27 I'm staring at H, which means I know hearts is on the outside.
24:30 If I was staring at D,
24:32 that means diamonds was placed on the outside somehow.
24:35 But I always keep it the same, so I always know where I am.
24:38 But you have these nice checkpoints along the way.
24:41 So there are two billet switches,
24:43 and I'm going to explain each one to you.
24:45 They're both very basic and very easy,
24:47 and the first one looks like this.
24:49 The first one for the outer card is to simply unfold one layer,
24:54 which is the outer layer.
24:56 This one is still folded into quarters.
24:58 And then--and this is why it's nice to have a little lip there--
25:02 and then I just place both cards in my finger palm
25:07 as I open the second one out,
25:10 and I am now with my queen of hearts,
25:12 which you can immediately hand out because it's a real card.
25:17 Let me do that one for you one more time.
25:21 So all you do is--this one is really intuitive.
25:24 It's exactly what it would look like.
25:26 You open out, turn down, open out this way, and show.
25:33 This hand falls to your side or to the table,
25:35 and you palm this piece out.
25:37 You can go to the pocket as you take these
25:40 and put them in the pocket, or you can do what I do,
25:42 which is just hold it there so that you can put it together
25:45 as you reset the trick for the next group.
25:48 But what if they name one of the cards on the inside?
25:51 Even easier.
25:53 If you remember in the setup, I told you that this little cutout
25:55 gives you access to that inner card,
25:58 and that's exactly what you're going to do now.
26:00 You're going to put your thumb on that inner card
26:03 with the left hand come in,
26:06 take the outer card away into finger palm,
26:10 which looks like that.
26:15 So thumb goes on that outer corner.
26:21 You just brush that away as you push this open,
26:25 flatten out, open the inner card out,
26:30 and again hand out to the spectator.
26:33 So that's where you are.
26:35 Let's just go over that one more time full and sort of quickly
26:40 so you see how it looks when you do it.
26:42 You've got both here. They poured out.
26:44 Let's say I'm going after Queen of Spades.
26:46 I see where my black packet is.
26:48 I take the red one out. That goes away.
26:52 Now spades is the outer one, so I will unfold the one layer,
26:57 and then the second layer as the other card stays in my palm,
27:03 and then this is handed out, and you end totally clean.
27:08 [music]
27:18 I want to talk now about an easy handling.
27:21 I don't use this handling.
27:23 You're more than welcome to,
27:24 but you lose a critical feature of the trick,
27:27 and that is it's not examinable at the end if you use this handling.
27:31 If I could give you some advice, I would say learn the switches
27:35 the way that I've shown you,
27:37 because if you learn those switches, first of all,
27:39 they're really easy to do.
27:42 With even a minimal amount of practice,
27:44 you're going to be doing these switches
27:46 and wondering why you ever even doubted yourself.
27:49 That said, everybody is different,
27:51 and some people want a particularly clean handling
27:54 in place of having something examinable.
27:57 You'll notice that the packet also came with double-ended cards,
28:01 and those look like this.
28:04 In this case, you get to eliminate some thickness,
28:07 and you get to eliminate two of the cards.
28:09 You just have to be able to hold this like this or like this.
28:13 It's going to work the same way.
28:15 You're going to have a red packet and a black packet,
28:17 and they are marked.
28:20 Here I can see I'm staring at spades,
28:22 so if they name a red card, for example,
28:24 you need to get rid of the black.
28:26 You do that and go to the pocket,
28:28 and now you really do just have one card.
28:31 You can unfold this card like so
28:34 and figure out which side you're going to show.
28:37 Let's say they say diamonds, and you can just show it like this,
28:41 and you are done.
28:43 But then you have to fold it up and put it away.
28:46 So if you were here and it was hearts, you might do that
28:50 to show the card instead.
28:52 So that just eliminates the sleight of hand from the trick,
28:55 but it does come at a cost, so you do have those options.
28:59 But again, I want to tell you,
29:01 I hope you'll stick with the sleight of hand version
29:04 because it's not very difficult.
29:06 [music]
29:15 So the reset is almost self-explanatory.
29:18 After you take the card back,
29:20 you can insert the one in your palm back inside,
29:23 and then as you retrieve the paper clip from your pocket,
29:26 just retrieve the card, stick it back together,
29:29 and stick everything back in the matchbox and close it up.
29:32 If you're using matches, you're going to have an envelope.
29:35 I just keep a little envelope in my pocket,
29:37 and I put three matches back in,
29:39 and you're ready to do the trick yet again.
29:42 [music]
29:52 All right, so just a couple names I want to mention
29:54 as predecessors in this field.
29:56 I believe that the burning idea,
29:59 which is a really smart idea for Equivocade
30:03 because burning adds immediacy to it,
30:06 and burning is a really smart way of being sort of undefined
30:09 in whether burning means eliminating or burning means focusing on.
30:13 And I believe credit for that goes to Larry Becker.
30:16 And I first came across this idea
30:18 in a trick in "Approaching Magic" by David Riegel.
30:21 He has a story in which a hotel fire happens
30:24 and cards are burned,
30:26 and he ends up going down as well to the queens.
30:29 I think he uses a couple more questions than I do,
30:31 and his is more story-based,
30:33 whereas mine is just a direct use of it.
30:35 But certainly David Riegel was thinking along those terms,
30:38 which is really great, and Larry Becker.
30:42 [music]
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30:53 [music]
31:06 [music]
31:09 [music]
31:16 [music]
31:23 (upbeat music)