Shouldn't a perfect shuffle just reorder the cards without adding entropy?
You would need sloppy ones to introduce randomness.
You would need sloppy ones to introduce randomness.
>The riffle shuffle has to follow a realistic but strict model where cards are randomly interleaved from the left or right pile one by one. (Each card gets dropped from either the left or the right pile with a probability that’s proportional to the number of cards remaining in that pile. This means that the cards don’t simply alternate between left and right, which would result in a predictable structure; instead, the order might go “left, right, right, left, right, left, left.”)
This talks about seven consecutive riffle shuffles ("cut the deck and interleave the piles"): Those are not a "perfect shuffle" (i.e. same probability for every permutation) by themselves, only after doing them several times consecutively (which is kinda suprising by itself).
as a magician, I'm always still impressed when I see perfect faros.
Now, all these decades later, I don't regret giving up on the Faro and a burnable 2nd. I got along just fine without either one as there's so many ways to reach the same destinations. It's weird how some moves just 'speak to you' right away and others never seem to sit right. Best advice I ever got was to not force it. If progress stalls out, just move on.
You going to Magic Live this year?
That’s a thing where when you know how hard the trick is, it makes it better.
Very cool your training.
And same on poker plots. I can do them infinite other cooler ways, so what’s the point?
The burnable 2nd I have. But it’s not the traditional 2nd. I have practiced and still practice the Richard Turner style 2nd, but I never do it in a performance. I use another path to get to the same result.
Wasn’t planning on Magic Live, but I should see where it is and when.
That's not a bug, it's a feature! Just do a "new deck order restore" with the selected card out of seq. :-)
> when you know how hard the trick is, it makes it better.
Totally! A few years ago I shared my view on "The Progression of Close-up Magic" (pardon the paste):
1. When you're 12, you're happy if a trick fools anyone.
2. Once you get older and have practiced a lot, you start to feel cocky that almost all your tricks fool almost everyone.
3. Then you keep practicing obsessively, start sessioning with good magicians and get humbled all over again. But in their work you start to realize there are levels of depth beyond just fooling people. You can finally see the path and your journey begins.
4. If you keep no-lifing it, eventually those magicians you respect, start respecting a few of your moves back. And that feels better than the loudest applause from any audience.
5. If you're a public performer, you're now probably working regularly. You fool all non-magicians all the time, and even other magicians some of the time. All your years of practice and study have finally paid off. Then you realize, most nights the valets make more than you do. :-)
6. But you keep doing it because you love it, except now the only audience you're working to impress is yourself. Non-magicians love it just as much whether you do easy tricks the easy way or hard tricks the hard way. In competent hands, they all look identical.
But you keep looking for even harder stuff, and then spend hours reworking the methods, exploring how to create the same effect in new ways. You sweat the meta stuff - structure, timing, flow. You pick up new subtleties by studying ancient VHS videos of the old masters. How Slydini's body language made his lapping transcendent. You contemplate how Goshman put that goddamn coin under a clear water glass, in the middle of an empty table, under a spotlight, with 80 year-old arthritic hands. And no one saw him do it. No trick, no move, just pure Jedi misdirection. And no audience will ever know the hours you waste obsessing on this. To everyone else, the tricks look exactly the same, but you do it your own weird, much harder way simply because you think it's neat, elegant, clever or sometimes just because it feels a little more right.
7. At that point, whether you keep working as a pro or even still perform magic at all becomes irrelevant. It's just a day job like any other. You do magic for yourself and maybe handful of others who 'get it'. The tech equivalent is kind of like the time I realized I'd spent more time (and had more fun) reading Doom's source code than I ever had playing the game.
> I can do them infinite other cooler ways, so what’s the point?
One cold deck is worth a thousand perfect Faros :-).
> Very cool your training.
I'd been obsessed with magic since I was 7 and was lucky enough to live in Los Angeles. When I was 16 I heard about the Magic Castle Junior program, then just in it's third year. When I auditioned, Vernon himself (then in his late 80s) was one of the three judges. No pressure, kid - it's just the guy that book you've had since you were 12 titled World's Greatest Magic says is "the greatest magician of the 20th century." The Castle Juniors was the hardest audition in magic because they lose money on (and have to mentor) every kid they let in. Three tricks, 10 minutes. I was so nervous, I blew two of my three tricks. Complete fail. I was so naive and stupid, all three tricks I picked were originals with insanely high difficulty. I had zero chance of nailing them under the pressure and lights of the Castle close-up gallery. :-)
I was shocked when I found out I'd gotten in on my first audition (the avg was 3). Vernon was at my first meeting, took me aside and made it very clear he'd voted against me because I "sucked." He blamed the other two other judges for being 'softies' who gave partial credit to my failed tricks because they were "mildly interesting" twists. Vernon stayed tough on me for all my years in the Juniors, but I did learn a lot from the cranky old bastard. Once when I was classic palming a coin, he slapped my hand and snorted "you palm like a girl!" Offended, I replied "At least the coin didn't fall out when you hit my hand." He rolled his eyes, and sighed "Kid, if you're doing it right, it should fall out!" Vernon passed away a few years after I turned 21 and became a regular member. It wasn't until I was invited to be a judge for regular member auditions that I learned Magic Castle auditions require that all three judges vote "Yes" to accept anyone. Vernon had lied to me! That was the moment I began to suspect maybe he didn't believe I was completely hopeless! I think he just saw how arrogant and cocky I was and knew I needed to be humbled before I could learn anything he had to teach. At best, Vernon seemed to find all the Juniors annoying, and at worst, insufferable. We used to wonder why he bothered showing up to every meeting since we were so hopeless. Only in later years did I appreciate the gift he was giving us and the legacy he was creating. That first decade of graduates from the Juniors created a shocking number of the top magical performers, creators and teachers in the world (although I don't count myself in that lofty company).
I 'dropped out' as a performer after 4 years working full-time as a pro to become a serial tech startup entrepreneur. A few years ago, Stan asked me to give the opening keynote at Magic Live to reflect on how, in my case, so much early magic potential and world-class mentoring "had gone so horribly wrong." :-) My conclusion was that learning the centuries-old craft, rigor and discipline of inventing all-new ways to make the impossible seem possible, and then the showmanship to present it well - was the best training possible for a successful career in tech.
> The burnable 2nd I have.
I'm envious. Mine's just ugly. I kept playing with it on and off over the years but when I saw Lennart Green do his (face up!) I officially gave up on it forever. :-) Of course, Vernon was one of the few humans ever to master a perfect burnable middle. But that's a god move beyond us mere mortals. (Excellent book on Vernon's years long journey to get that 'perfect middle': https://www.amazon.com/dp/0805074066).
> Wasn’t planning on Magic Live, but I should see where it is and when.
First week of August in Vegas (usually the same week as Blackhat). I go every year just to hang out with friends from the old days. Ping me if you go.
I work in tech, and was onsite somewhere for over a month with nothing to do. Remote area. I had always loved magic, and had asked magic teachers to teach me when I was a kid, and they all said no, they don't teach anyone.
I read books, but didn't really get it.
So I was in tech, in a place completely foreign to me with no rental car on weekends. I asked the bartender if he had anything I could do. He handed me a deck of cards.
From there, I just started to learn and practice things cause I was bored. Ultimately went to train with Jeff McBride and Eugene Burger. Jeff wasn't focused on the kinds of magic I liked, and Eugene Burger hated my style. I fooled both of them for the "final", intentionally leading Eugene down a garden path.
He hated not treated the cards with reverence. So I threw cards behind me, knowing it would completely shut off his brain while I did the secret move.
I did the same with Jeff. In the routine, I took his teaching on what not to do, and intentionally did it to shut off his brain.
They were both completely, ridiculously fooled. I likely may have fooled them without it, but I am too clever for my own good, and wanted to trick them in my own way.
From there, I ended up training with the guy who actually fit my style, Dani Daortiz. I flew to Spain and learned from him and Yann Frisch. I also helped Yann develop a new move. I taught them some of my original moves which they loved. I just come at things from a very different angle, so I have some interesting things.
Dani asked me to perform at the end, but I was too nervous. He is the guy I most adore. I regret that.
I even left them at one point after a full day of working with them, and just went and did magic in Spain for the night. I just do whatever, and that was what my soul needed after listening to 12 hours of magic discussion.
So I'm a software engineer, who has it as a hobby, but whenever I do it, I do it at a level that is stupid good. I don't even remember tricks, or have a set list, I just sort of vibe with whatever I remember, and rely on all the random skills I have to get there. I will do Lennart's snap deal for fun, invent a new trick on the spot because I'm bored. I do have a few original tricks that are completely mine.
One of them has a mind reading plot with cards. I have done the trick so many times in life, that I can legitimately forget the card, and it's fine, I can actually do the activity of figuring out their card without knowing it a good percentage of time.
You just get so used to understanding how people react to things, that you can figure it out in the process.
The trick just keeps evolving. Now, quite often, I have other spectators figure out the card. They also can get it with my... direction to what to look for.
So then they get to be the star. Lot of fun. It has so many variations because the whole thing is jazzed. So every time something new works, it's another thing I might remember to do.
I also am maybe the only magician then will intentionally bomb tricks. I learned early on that I do this for fun, and unfun people are not worth my time.
So even though I know the trick, and their card, I will intentionally pretend I don't and bomb the trick. I like that space. Living in that space has taught me more than any book about how to jazz around failure.
Intentionally failing is a master class in the space of failure in magic.
So I'm just a software engineer, who has had a ridiculously deep hobby for a long enough time that I can do a full show at a moment's notice. I have the tools, the understanding, and I can do prepared stuff, jazz whatever, or remember a trick i haven't done in 10 years, and decide to do that.
I do it for my fun. It's enabled me to drink for free where ever I go if I want, and have an enjoyable time.
I don't usually do the Magic Live stuff. I did that stuff for awhile, but I never felt like it really added much value to my experience.
I feel like I could surely if I cared to, book a show here locally, and do it. It would teach me a lot, but I just don't really want it. I like just being a random dude who can do ridiculously good magic when I feel like it.