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What's your favorite way to use a JOKER GAFF Card Reveal?

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What's your favorite way to use a JOKER GAFF Card Reveal?
« on: March 22, 2015, 08:25:16 PM »
 

Magic_Orthodoxy

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What's your favorite way to use a JOKER GAFF Card Reveal?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V1xyphhaOIE
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Re: What's your favorite way to use a JOKER GAFF Card Reveal?
« Reply #1 on: March 23, 2015, 01:43:38 AM »
 

Don Boyer

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The idea you presented on the video is a bit flawed.  In fact, there's a nearly 2% chance of actually having the "regular joker" - which it isn't, with the red card in its hand - appear as the top card.  Now, you can say that 2% is a tiny chance - and it is - but with each new performance of the trick, statistically speaking, you're bound to eventually reach that 2% chance and you won't know it until it's too late.  That, plus the double lift idea seems a bit suspect, at least the way you handled it.  AND EVEN MORE IMPORTANTLY, you fail to explain how you managed to force the right card on the spectator in the first place (and that card, too, has a 2% chance of winding up on the top of the deck, bringing the odds of a card-related screwup to almost 1 in 25 performances).  Sure, you don't have to reveal the card force, but you do have to recognize the increased risk odds.

Think it will NEVER happen?  I tried doing an "insurance policy" trick on a young girl once - I forced the correct card on her, I shuffled up the deck, pulled out a card, and it turned out to be the forced card!  The trick ended rather abruptly.  "Look, is this your card?"  Bleah.  It's easier to use a marked deck so you can insure that you aren't exposing the tricked-out card.

Better to keep it simple.  The method used will in part depend on the method in which the reveal is presented.

If a reveal is of the type you just showed - joker holds a card in one hand, other joker reveals the card - there's a few ways to do it.  One of the most popular would probably be using Shapeshifter.  It's a stylized flip of two cards as one done to appear as if the card changed before your eyes.

Another method, believe it or not, would be to ditch the red-back-card joker for a real standard one.  I've done it where I placed the "clean" joker on the table above the reveal joker, hiding the reveal.  I then do a bit where I tell the spectator that I'm going to make their card appear between the jokers.  Hocus pocus, and the don't see any new cards - until I tell them to spread the cards apart for me for a "closer look."

If a reveal is subtle enough, like the "3hearts" reveal in the Arcane decks from Ellusionist, I can simply leave the card face up in plain sight!  They won't see a think until I ask them to look harder.

The thing of it is, though, is that reveals like this get tired fast.  No one in their right mind thinks the card changed right in front of them - they assume it was always that way and you either switched it or misdirected their attention to keep you from noticing it.  My personally-favorite way of using gaff cards is in a way that doesn't reveal the fact that you ever used a gaff card!  You can't really get away with that using a reveal card.  A personal favorite is using a double-backer with two different backs to make a "prediction card" not only the same suit and value as a signed card, but with the signature on it intact and the card back not matching the deck the spectator chose from.

I think I might have seen it first on the "Army of 52" DVD - which is unfortunately a little dated now that some of the included cards are no longer included in the gaff decks the video is designed to teach you to use.  USPC's Legal Dep't. really created a hassle for magicians when they insisted there will be no more alterations to the Rider Back.
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Re: What's your favorite way to use a JOKER GAFF Card Reveal?
« Reply #2 on: March 26, 2015, 01:00:38 PM »
 

chas0039

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The probability doesn't change because you continue to perform the trick.  It remains at 2% each individual time.
 

Re: What's your favorite way to use a JOKER GAFF Card Reveal?
« Reply #3 on: March 27, 2015, 09:34:55 AM »
 

Don Boyer

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The probability doesn't change because you continue to perform the trick.  It remains at 2% each individual time.

That is indeed true.  But just like firing a gun in Russian Roulette, given enough times pulling the trigger, your overall chances of eventually hitting that teeny failure percentage range increase.  Not by a lot, especially when the percentage overall is small, but it does increase with each chance taken.  For example, the man who buys one single lottery ticket for one single drawing has a far smaller chance of winning any given prize than the person who plays the same lottery, using a different-but-fixed set of numbers, but participates in every single drawing for the indefinite future.  On the initial draw, the odds are identical.  On subsequent draws, the one-ticket guy has 0.0% chance while the every-draw guy has that same percentage chance he had on the first draw, draw after draw.

It's not about winning or losing - it's about how many times you keep playing.  It's not a matter of the 2% odds you have of hitting that card in a single performance, because as you stated, that won't change.  It's really about the odds of you hitting that 2% chance over multiple performances over a lifetime of performing, each time taking that 2% chance.  Perform the same trick hundreds and hundreds of times and, statistically speaking, it becomes inevitable that you will hit that 2% chance at least once if not a few times.

People love to say that it's statistically impossible to win the lottery.  But it happens all the time, to a small percentage of the population - some even hit twice!
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Re: What's your favorite way to use a JOKER GAFF Card Reveal?
« Reply #4 on: March 27, 2015, 07:29:31 PM »
 

chas0039

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The probability doesn't change because you continue to perform the trick.  It remains at 2% each individual time.

...People love to say that it's statistically impossible to win the lottery.  But it happens all the time, to a small percentage of the population - some even hit twice!

Agreed! 

My favorite statistical oddity:  Statisticians love to say that, essentially your chances of winning are the sames whether you buy a ticket or not.  While at the same time, when the payout gets above a certain amount, commonly around $140B, the expected outcome for your $1 is better than $1.  So then they say you should buy a ticket.

 

Re: What's your favorite way to use a JOKER GAFF Card Reveal?
« Reply #5 on: March 28, 2015, 02:51:21 AM »
 

Don Boyer

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The probability doesn't change because you continue to perform the trick.  It remains at 2% each individual time.

...People love to say that it's statistically impossible to win the lottery.  But it happens all the time, to a small percentage of the population - some even hit twice!

Agreed! 

My favorite statistical oddity:  Statisticians love to say that, essentially your chances of winning are the sames whether you buy a ticket or not.  While at the same time, when the payout gets above a certain amount, commonly around $140B, the expected outcome for your $1 is better than $1.  So then they say you should buy a ticket.

Not to stray too much further off topic, but if those accumulative percent chances didn't apply, casino gambling would be a dead industry.  They pay out a good deal of money to their winners - but most of those winners don't stop when they're ahead, and the odds will eventually catch up to them, leaving the house with the lion's share of the cash.
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Re: What's your favorite way to use a JOKER GAFF Card Reveal?
« Reply #6 on: March 28, 2015, 02:51:53 PM »
 

chas0039

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Accumulated percentages only apply when you look at the probability of a continuous string of wins, not a discrete outcome.  Casinos win because each discrete outcome is to their advantage.  After thousands of plays, they will be ahead because a 2% advantage shows up the more often gamblers play.

Each individual play has the same odds as the one before.  Sports is a great example of how we miss this when assuming a player with a string of baskets has a better chance of sinking the next throw, when in fact, the next throw has the same chance as the first.

Sorry to digress.  Maybe this falls under the "and more" category of topics. :)
« Last Edit: March 28, 2015, 02:56:37 PM by chas0039 »
 

Re: What's your favorite way to use a JOKER GAFF Card Reveal?
« Reply #7 on: March 29, 2015, 01:00:43 AM »
 

Don Boyer

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Accumulated percentages only apply when you look at the probability of a continuous string of wins, not a discrete outcome.  Casinos win because each discrete outcome is to their advantage.  After thousands of plays, they will be ahead because a 2% advantage shows up the more often gamblers play.

Each individual play has the same odds as the one before.  Sports is a great example of how we miss this when assuming a player with a string of baskets has a better chance of sinking the next throw, when in fact, the next throw has the same chance as the first.

Sorry to digress.  Maybe this falls under the "and more" category of topics. :)

I get the feeling that we're actually talking about the same thing but taking it from different angles - that in essence, we actually agree.

Back to the topic.

There's a lot of good ways to use joker reveals.  It's just that I question the effectiveness of the reveal if it's just "presented", even if the spectator is allowed to find the reveal for themselves.  They must be figuring that "Oh, this card was pre-printed that way and he somehow made me choose that card" or words to that effect.

I think the MOST effective way to do a joker reveal, though, is as part of a transformation.  You present just the plain joker, perform the "transformation" (an unnoticed swap of the plain joker for the reveal joker), and then NEVER REVEAL the existence of the plain joker - the deck only had the one joker, and it's been "magically altered!"  That's likely to have the greatest impact of any of the possible ways I can think of for using a joker to make a reveal.  Some good transformation effects can be used to amplify the effect and make it that much more hard-hitting - something like Pyro or Pure Smoke.  I did some awesome transformations with Pure Smoke before and it totally blew people away seeing it.  (I just wish my PS gimmick didn't conk out on me...)
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Re: What's your favorite way to use a JOKER GAFF Card Reveal?
« Reply #8 on: March 29, 2015, 05:13:46 AM »
 

HankMan

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Some good transformation effects can be used to amplify the effect and make it that much more hard-hitting - something like Pyro or Pure Smoke.  I did some awesome transformations with Pure Smoke before and it totally blew people away seeing it.  (I just wish my PS gimmick didn't conk out on me...)

I did that once with the God of Gambler moves that I saw when I was really young.. basically taking the plain joker claimed that he will reveal the card that was chosen. Then palm the other joker, and then do the move where you rub the card in between both of your palm then use the PS to add the smoke effect.
when the reveal joker appeared, the reaction was pretty crazy  :D

I'm on the same boat with you Don, I only had it for 1 year and thats it.. unusable now..   :(
« Last Edit: March 29, 2015, 05:14:15 AM by 52JokesAndCounting »
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Re: What's your favorite way to use a JOKER GAFF Card Reveal?
« Reply #9 on: March 29, 2015, 06:47:02 AM »
 

Don Boyer

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Some good transformation effects can be used to amplify the effect and make it that much more hard-hitting - something like Pyro or Pure Smoke.  I did some awesome transformations with Pure Smoke before and it totally blew people away seeing it.  (I just wish my PS gimmick didn't conk out on me...)

I did that once with the God of Gambler moves that I saw when I was really young.. basically taking the plain joker claimed that he will reveal the card that was chosen. Then palm the other joker, and then do the move where you rub the card in between both of your palm then use the PS to add the smoke effect.
when the reveal joker appeared, the reaction was pretty crazy  :D

I'm on the same boat with you Don, I only had it for 1 year and thats it.. unusable now..   :(

Mine didn't even last that long.  But I've heard the version 2 models are more reliable and better made.

Pyro is tempting to use, but I had a similar, more primitive gimmick when I was in my early twenties.  It turns out that in some places - say, for example, a medium-busy bar - the establishment doesn't take kindly to someone shooting fireballs off their fingertips...  I'm itching to play with that static-charge gadget that E sells (I think the creator was Yigal Mesika).  I got one second-hand but have been so busy I haven't even had time to test it.  Again, though - it's probably not as practical for me.  I do most of my performing in a hospital setting.  "Smoke" I can get away with, but fire and static charges aren't highly advisable in my working environment!
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