Steve Forte - Spring St. Aces
Transcript
00:00 This method for producing a card from a spring was first published in Channel One magazine
00:07 by Steve Forty. Before you begin, it's very important that you can do a smooth spring
00:17 off the thumb. Once you feel confident in this, you can proceed with the production.
00:26 To produce the aces, remove them from the deck and place them on the face. You now need
00:32 to alternate them with an indifferent card, so the quickest way to do this would be to
00:36 give the cards an out faro. This places one card on top, or on the face, and an indifferent
00:43 card between each of the aces. You're now ready to begin. From here, though, you can
00:49 give the deck any number of false cuts and shuffles, as long as you retain that bottom
00:54 stock. Turn the cards face up, and as you spring the cards a few times from hand to
01:00 hand, act as though you're looking for the aces. Once you think you've found them, cut
01:06 the cards and hold a break above your stock. The best way to do this is to swing cut half
01:13 the cards into your left hand, hold the little finger break above that packet, and then you
01:19 can either place these on top, holding the break, or what I like to do is give the cards
01:24 some additional swing cuts as though you're further shuffling them. You're now going to
01:29 transfer this break to your thumb as you get into position for a card spring. Now here's
01:34 the interesting thing about this production. If you spring the cards with a break, you
01:40 will naturally stop at the uppermost ace of your stock. Notice that that top card remains
01:47 held by the thumb, and acts as a stopping point, or a breaking point, in the spring.
01:53 This is why you alternated the aces within different cards, because from here, if you
01:58 deal that ace to the table, and now continue to hold a break above your stock, you can
02:03 repeat this, and you will stop at the next ace down. Now you can either place these directly
02:10 on top, or since the order of the upper packet doesn't matter, you can continue to swing
02:15 cut them on top as long as you hold that break. Position yourself again, transferring the
02:20 break to your thumb, spring the cards, and you arrive at the third ace. And you can do
02:26 this again to arrive at the last ace. And that's it. That's the basic technique for
02:33 spring street aces.
02:39 Now a variation is to do this production with the cards face down. Give the cards a cut,
02:46 you spring them, and you arrive at the first ace. We'll do that again, we'll give the cards
02:52 a cut, and we arrive at the second ace. For the third ace, same thing, I think I got it,
02:59 the third ace. And the last ace, I think was a little lower, yeah, there it is, the final
03:08 ace. Now what's interesting about this, is that those were actually weren't aces, they
03:16 were the kings.
03:21 This variation of producing the cards face down and then switching them for different
03:25 cards was put together by Penny Wu of Shenzhen, China. He showed it to David Williamson, who
03:30 in turn showed it to us. The mechanics are the same, however instead of alternating the
03:35 aces with different cards, you're going to alternate them with whatever cards you want
03:40 to switch. So in this case, I want to switch out the aces for the kings, so those are the
03:45 cards that get weaved between the aces. Start with the king on top, or whatever card you
03:51 want to switch in on top, and you're ready to begin. Just as before, obtain a break above
03:58 your stock, and spring, arriving at the first ace. Now this card here is a king, which is
04:06 naturally held behind by the thumb. Now this leaves you in perfect position to do Jack
04:14 Merlin's tip over change. This is a very old change, published way back in the 20's. The
04:21 mechanics of the Spring Street Aces puts you in perfect position to flip over that ace
04:27 and simply drop off that king. You can see because of the break, it's very easy to turn
04:34 this over, and as it's turning over, you just drop that king on top, thus switching the
04:41 ace out for the king. Now you want to do this in sequence, and practice the timing, so it
04:48 looks like you just turn over that ace. So do this a few times to see what it looks like,
04:53 and then try to mimic that action with the change, releasing the king on top. You can
04:59 now deal that card to the table. Now the only difference mechanically between the face down
05:05 version and the face up version, is you need to obtain a break beneath this top card at
05:10 the lower stock now, which is an ace. So after you deal the king to the table, you can either
05:17 push that over and get a break, or simply buckle it and get a break. You can now cut
05:24 those cards back on top, and produce the next ace. Again you have a king here, turn it down
05:31 dropping the king, the king gets dealt to the table, they think it's the ace of course.
05:38 Do this another time, switching that ace out for the king, dealing it to the table, and
05:45 one last time, again that king gets dropped off as you turn the ace face down. The aces
05:53 are now lost in the deck, and the kings are on the table, however they think otherwise.
06:01 It's a nice little variation from Pennywoo.
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