«Complete guide to card tricks and techniques»

«Complete guide to card tricks and techniques»
Jean Hugard and Frederick Braue

This book has already quite a reputation amongst cardicians, and the reason is quite simple: it is a very good work of reference for all things related to cards. It is divided in 6 parts.

The first part deals with sleights. In it, you will start out learning about lifts (double, triple…), getting ready for the lift, the turnover. You will then graduate to false deals ( you name the type, it is in there!), side slip, the pass ( seven different versions…), palming, false shuffles, false cuts, changes, etc… This par contain 16 different chapters, and all deal with one type of sleight in particular, going into details of how to execute them, along with as many variations as space permits.

The second part deals exclusively with flourishes. It is only eleven pages long, but contains the only written version of the interlocked production that I have ever seen. It also shows various color changes, top and bottom changes, springing the cards from hand to hand, pressure fan and fan flourish.

Part 3 deals with technique. Lots of information is given on the palm, various ways of forcing cards, secret counts, etc…

Part four is quite extensive, just like part one. It contains fourteen chapters, all of them dedicated to a particular type of card trick. There are chapters for rising cards, one hand card magic, discoveries, mental discoveries, reverses, tricks using double and triple lifts, etc… . This is the only part of the book where you find actual applications of all the different sleights and techniques that were taught in earlier parts.

Part five talks about miscellaneous points of interest for cardicians, such as peeling cards, making double-faced/backed cards, different types of shuffles, false counts and deals, etc….

Part six is constituted of two chapters:
- Misdirection
- Presentation

All in all, as I have said earlier, this book is an excellent resource for anything related to card work. The only drawback that I found with it is that there are very few drawings and images to illustrate the various sleights and moves, sometimes making it rather hard to understand and execute the moves properly. Couple that with the fact that the links between theory and practice are not necessarily obvious, this makes this book a reference for the more experienced magicians. As a beginner, I remember reading this book, practicing some sleights, and not knowing why I was learning them or what use I would have for them. This certainly turned me off card magic for a while. But now that I am quite bit more experienced, it certainly has become one of my favourite books. Beginners would be better off with «Royal road to card magic», or the wonderful series «Card College» by Roberto Giobbi, but more experienced workers will appreciate the «Complete guide to card tricks and techniques» as a reference.

Have a nice day!

Louis Jutras
The Montreal magician / Le magicien de Montreal