Law Of Communicating Vessels by Renzo Grosso

Ask the spectator to take any deck of cards, and to shuffle it well (it is useless, but it is very "magician"). Get a few cards, as many as the spectator wants, and then make another packet of the same size next to this one. You will ask the spectator to move, as desired, cards from one pile to the other, to divide one pile into two unequal packets, to look at a card of a certain number down the middle pack, and then collect the packets one on top of the other. Before concluding, remind the spectator that he made all the choices independently, he chose the number of cards to move from one pile to another, but ... you know exactly what his card is and you will reveal it in the most theatrical way possible.

In the last 2 years, like many colleagues, I have been looking for automatic effects that could be presented remotely to people who are often connected only with the audio of the phone, without video conferencing. I collected the notes I had collected - from a young age, from my first meetings in a magic club - and I found (and re-learned) principles that, in some cases, were a few centuries old; others, more recent, often conceived by famous and illustrious names. In the notes, I have usually always tried to "extract" the basic principle, to be able, subsequently, to "reinvent" the effect by varying some instructions from time to time (number of cards used, spelling words for the final revelation ...).

Looking back at them, I divided these notes into homogeneous chapters and I decided to share them; in this publication (and in some of the next ones) I will initially propose the basic principle, with the consequent possible variations, followed by some of the most effective realizations known to me, devising, for each one, a suitable comment, which was unique and original, of fantasy, and that it was consistent with the operations that performer and spectator were going to perform, to create a strong final climax, truly magical.

In this publication, I will talk about the Principle of Communicating Vessels. I am sincere. I do not know the name of this principle; I call it that, because I learned it many years ago, not at the club, but from an uncle in Venice who, when I was a child, taught me games to knot and untie ropes and rubber bands, and to play mathematical games with the cards: with these, he always amazed the whole family gathered together. He had taught me this effect, explaining that the cards, although solid, behave almost like a liquid and therefore respect the principles of "communicating vessels"; well, that's how I remember it, and that's how I propose it.

You use any deck of cards, take a part of it at random, and then, always pretending that the choices are dictated by chance, you force some situations that allow you to arrive at the final revelation.

1st edition 2022, PDF 11 pages.
word count: 1988 which is equivalent to 7 standard pages of text