Michael Close

A demonstration of Braue's Impromptu Poker Deal, and a few thoughts on the second deal.

Today, at 4 pm Eastern time, I'll talk a little bit about Fred Braue's Impromptu Poker Deal. I can assure you that dazzling technique will not be on display, but I have a couple of angles on this that may be of interest. I hope you can join me right here.

Impromptu Coin Magic I often lurk on the Genii forum, but I rarely post. Recently, a thread interested me, but rather than posting there, I’ll share the information here, with you. Under the topic Impromptu Coin Magic, this question was posed:... You are in a restaurant, or at a party, or at a friend or family member’s house, or you have friends or family visiting you wherever. You don’t have your Morgan Silver Dollars, or your Kennedy or Walking Liberty halves; you left home (damn it!) without your Scotch and Soda, or Hopping Half, or Silver/Copper/Brass Transposition, or any of the other innumerable gaffed coins out there. God forbid, you don’t have a single shell on you. But you do have, or at least have access to, a bunch of quarters or other coins (e.g. pennies), or whatever the common coins of the realm in your country might be. "What would be your favorite trick (or tricks) to perform impromptu for someone with an ordinary coin or coins? There were not many suggestions, because the coin tricks we know and love use half dollars, silver dollars, English pennies, and other coinage not in general circulation. To my chagrin, no one posted what I immodestly think is one of the best, purely impromptu coin tricks out there: Twenty-six Cents Worth of Change, which I published in Workers 2 (1991). I came up with this trick in the late 1970s while playing with some spare change. It was first published in Rick Johnsson’s column in The Linking Ring in 1980. In all the years it has been available in print, I know of few people who ever used this routine. I think that’s a shame, because it is not difficult to do (the main move is the Tenkai/Goshman pinch, which is easier when using small coins), it has an effect not seen previously in coin magic, and it is a practical impromptu trick. You need only have a nickel and a penny on you; you can borrow the two dimes needed. Unfortunately, the trick has become obsolete in Canada because pennies are no longer in circulation. I gathered the required coins a couple of days ago and started playing with this again. I hit on an added phase that requires little extra work. I’ll publish that addition in my February newsletter. If you haven’t tried already, please give Twenty-six Cents Worth of Change a try; it is a useful routine to have in your repertoire of impromptu tricks.

No Facebook live broadcast today. Maybe I'll think of something to talk about tomorrow.

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Back to "Magic School" sale.... https://tinyurl.com/workersdeal

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