Obc Magazines 1-6 by Mark Elsdon

What Happens?

The performer states that he has learnt the technique for memorising a randomlyshuffled deck of cards. He opens a brand new deck, (genuinely) shuffles it andproceeds to memorise it. Then as proof, whilst his back is turned, a spectatorremoves one card that no one else sees and replaces it into a different part of thedeck. The performer retrieves the deck and locates the selection, stating that it wasthe “only one out of place.” The difficulty is now increased as the performer hastwo spectators remove cards. These cards are not replaced but pocketed by thespectators. Nevertheless, the performer identifies the two missing cards from thememorised’deck. A final test memory test is proposed. This time, however, theperformer claims that he will memorize a spectator's responses. A spectator saysaloud the thirteen values from ace through king, as well as the four suits. He thenremoves a card from the deck (again whilst the performer's back is turned) andpockets it. The deck is cased and placed in the spectator's other pocket. Thespectator now calls aloud once again the thirteen values and four suits. Theperformer claims to have detected subtle differences in the way that the spectatorspoke the second time, compared to the speech patterns that he had memorized.This is borne out by the fact that he now names the card in the spectator's pocket!