umph
It’s been a weird year for all of us and I hope we can all have a better one in 2021. I didn’t grow up celebrating holidays or birthdays or whatever, so it was never really a big deal in my family. But this year was so drastically different that it feels like a new year is very much needed, symbolically or otherwise. So, I’ve been working on some notes and it’s finally getting some momentum. I’m so indecisive that I’ve lost count how many times I’ve tried to put this thing together. I’m hoping that I can finish it this time around now that I have a direction I’m pretty happy with. So, here’s a trick from the notes. It’s my take on triumph (ugh, I know, not another triumph) but it’s a simple one that happens in the spectator’s hands. I originally published it in Magic Magazine some time ago. So if you’ve read that one and liked it, you’ll probably like this slightly updated handling. It’s by far my favorite triumph in a casual setting.
Happy holidays and happy new year!
This is a familiar in-the-hands triumph except it’s in their hands.
No prep. Have a card chosen, returned, and culled to 2nd from bottom. All done face down. Then execute the slop shuffle. The slop shuffle variation I do looks like this:
At the end you switch the last two cards so the selection ends up on top. So, here's it is slowed down to emphasis on what happens with just the last two cards:
Checkpoint: now the selection is face down on the top, followed by half the deck facing up, natural break, and the remaining facing down cards.
Next you’ll ask them to hold out their hand (palm up) and you cut half of the cards above the natural break into their hand. You’re about to move on when your inner monologue convinces you to give them more cards. So you cut the remainder of the face up cards above the natural break onto what they’re holding thus secretly burying the selection in the middle.
This is kinda interesting because you accomplish a couple things at once. You’re able to show face up and face down without repeating and over-proving “and the cards are face up and face down and some are back to back..” with the sequence of placing half the cards into their hands. It’s taking the same idea, but instead it’s put into a context that moves the plot forward.
The method is now over. You shake your half and show that they’re all facing the same way and you ask them to do the same. But they will find that they missed one card. That card indeed be theirs.
Name drop: Chris Mayhew incorporated this method into this multi-phased triumph routine because it’s so dope.
*Edit 5/18/23: I’ve come back to update this post since Substack can now include videos. There’s also an update to this handling I will be sharing soon.