I just recieved Expert Card Technique today and it has a section all about passes, but no classic pass, and haven't learned the classic pass yet. Would it affect me much if I practice these passes in Expert Card Technique without knowing how to do the classic pass? By the way, I am not a beginner in card magic. I would say I'm intermediate.

The classic pass is not necessary in magic. There are ways around it. Now I'm not saying that it isn't a great slieght to know, because it can be used to make effects seem even more impossible.

Any pass though, if done properly, will give you the same result as the classic pass. Granted, some are more convincing, some are easier to do, some are more angle proof, and some are just ridiculous. Each pass has it's own advantages, and disadvantages.

Personally though, I would recommending getting Pass with Care by Peter Cassford. In my opinion, it's one of the best sources on the classic pass. He shows that you don't have to perform it very quickly (he actually shows a 10 second pass). He teaches everything you need to know on the classic pass. It's a great source, and I believe it would be beneficial.

Yes, I have heard many good things about Pass With Care, but I don't really want a source that is all on the pass. If there was a book or DVD that taught the classic pass really good, along with other sleights or effects, I would probably get it.

It is not, like fallingblood said there are many other ways to accomplish what the pass can do. But there are things that only the classic pass can do, and it can be very useful when you perfect it, which i myself havent.

It is definantly not neccessary but it is a great addition to any routines.

It isn't necessary, and b/c it is such a hard sleight to learn, I'm still trying to perfect it, then I usually do the backstage pass and backstage pass variation by Greg Wilson which has so much misdirection in it, you don't have to hunker down to do the move, it's just such a natural move. But I would definately say practice and learn the move properly and one day it will become one of your greatest tools.

That would be Card College Volume 2.

http://www.penguinmagic.com/product.php?ID=496

Get Volume 1 first.

http://www.penguinmagic.com/product.php?ID=497

Expert Card Technique is a followup to Royal Road to Card Magic. You aren't taught the classic pass there because it was taught in Royal Road. The dvd set R. Paul Wilson on The Royal Road to Card Magic is a great resource that teaches the classic pass along with many other fundamentals and a number of good effects. The book is actually a little deficient in this area, unfortunately. But at only $10, it's not a bad investment. You can learn the classic pass from the book just fine, but it fails to teach you why you would ever want to use it. R. Paul Wilson's dvd set fixes some of those problems.

Actually, considering the many hours of practicing that you will need with the classic pass, I think it's a horrible investment to learn the class pass from. Its description of the classic pass is more than just "a little deficient." It's absolutely atrocious in my opinion.

It's very important to start out with an excellent description of the classic pass from the very beginning, or you will have dozens of hours of practicing (or more) to re-train the bad habits that you picked up from practicing it poorly. So yes, by all means, Card College 2 or Pass With Care are great investments.

In card magic, as in most other things, you often get what you pay for. Royal Road is an excellent resource for easy-to-perform effects, but not for gaining your fundamental technique, if you are serious about card magic that is.

The pass for me was quite difficult to learn but you just have to take a day to get it if you work hard on it........i do it right infront of my audences and under some patter or just a little downward motion they will never see it.......its great if your big on the abiguious card routine because then you dont do the dl 400 times......the audence will start to see whats happening......but mixing it up like that with the pass throws them off completly

I heard Royal Road to Card Magic teaches the classic pass, but not to make the classic pass invisible. Is this true?

I honestly dont think so, to be able to do it invisibly, will take much more than just one day.

I have to agree with oztheozzie. It does take quite a long time to do the pass invisibly. It takes people months or even years to perfect the pass. It not a sleight that is mastered in a couple of days. It's a sleight that takes a lot of practice, and a lot of work to perfect.

The fact remains that most of today's top magicians learned the basics from Royal Road and highly recommend it. If you want to learn from the book that people like Daryl and R. Paul Wilson learned the basics from, that's Royal Road to Card Magic. Most magicians consider it a must have in any card magician's library.

Yes, Card College is far superior. But it may or may not be a better investment, depending on what your needs and goals are. A nail gun is far superior to a hammer, but for most of us, a hammer is a much better investment.

In any case, I didn't add that to the list to start a debate on the topic. I added it to the list to provide another alternative. Besides, my primary addition to the list was the dvd set, not the book.

As do I. But you forget that "most of today's top magicians" learned their basics long before Card College was published. So why then continue to recommend an outdated resource, just because that's what the oldtimers learned from? And for the record, most younger cardicians prefer Card College, by a substantial margin.

I too didn't want to start a debate, only to clarify that if your aim is to learn the classic pass, the Royal Road book is one of the last places you should look. It will likely set you back more than it will help you. (the same goes for Born to Perform)

And as for whether or not Card College is an appropriate recommendation, I would say that if somebody is serious enough to be working through Expert Card Technique, taking the time to post on a card magic forum, and considering himself to be an intermediate skill level, it seems self-evident to me that such a person is serious enough to invest in Card College (both the $$ for the volumes and the time practicing) as opposed to something cheaper and out of date.