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Card College Light, Lighter, Lightest by Roberto Giobbi (Hardcover Books)


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"Giobbi clearly understands and conveys the difference between a mere trick and a plot with compelling presentations. Great lessons for beginners and reminders for the advanced." - Gregory Wilson

"Giobbi’s Light series is extraordinary, in the truest sense of the word. I’ve read and reread the three volumes over the years, and many of those pieces have found their way into my professional performance repertoire. I can’t recommend these enough." - Siegfried Tieber

"Such good things come in these "Light" packages! Magic that will amaze your audience and let you focus on them"Jon Armstrong

"It is frequently said that if you can find one good effect in a book, then that book is worth its price. If that is the case, the given the number of effects from these books that you will end up using, this may be the bargain of the century."Martin Kaplan

"Card College Light, Lighter, & Lightest is a three-volume set that should be in every cardician’s library. These three volumes take on a different direction and purpose than Roberto Giobbi’s five-volume Card College series. Roberto wrote this series for the beginner, but the seasoned professional will also benefit greatly by going through this material." - Allan Ackerman

"I have every book Roberto has written and his latest matches the high standards he has set for himself. He has a magic eye—an eye that sees the best tricks and ignores the others. Luckily, he then tells us about what he has seen—and better than that—adds his touch to the miracles. If I was a greedy scoundrel, wanting to keep the good stuff to myself, I’d tell people not to buy this book, but I’m not a greedy scoundrel, just a plain scoundrel."Bob Farmer

From the author of Card College, the world's most acclaimed course on sleight-of-hand card magic, comes Card College Light, Roberto Giobbi's first text focused entirely on professional caliber card tricks requiring no manipulative skill.

For whom is this book intended?

It is for beginners, of course - but by no means in total. This book is intended for everyone who has always wanted to perform card tricks, but who didn't have the time necessary to learn complex routines, or the years necessary to master difficult techniques. So, yes, this book is certainly meant for beginners.

However, it is also directed at those who are already proficient in the craft. The Card College Light Series is in a class apart from other books that focus on sleightless card tricks. When it comes to artistic considerations - interpretation, staging, communication and psychology - other books seldom even recognize such concepts. The Card College Light Series strives to remain as simple as possible, yet to identify concepts and to open doors that put sleightless tricks into the context of artistic and utterly baffling card magic. Although other books consider the same type of material, their approaches to it are quite different from Giobbi's.

Most of the tricks taught are from Mr. Giobbi's active professional repertoire, with which he baffles the public and magicians, too. Every trick can be done with any deck of cards of average quality, and many can be done under all performance conditions, with a borrowed deck and no preparation. With these sleightless tricks, you can easily acquire a reputation as a magician who can really make magic.

When It Comes to Great Card Magic There Is More to the Secret Than Just the Secret!

Countless books on card magic promise tricks that "require no skill" and are "easy to do" or "self-working". They expose the method behind the tricks, but they fail to explain how the tricks are made genuinely amazing. Card tricks that allow the fingers to remain idle require that their methods be cunningly protected through presentation and psychology, which in turn amplify the feeling of real magic. Without these things, all you are left with are mere puzzles.

Giobbi brings his widely respected talents as both teacher and full-time performer to bear on tricks he has selected from time-tested classics and little-known modern miracles by world masters, taught with a thoroughness that includes psychology, presentations, scripts and invaluable performance tips.

Giobbi has also organized these tricks into powerful routines, which teach the reader how organization and combination can be used to make good tricks even more inextricably baffling. These lessons serve not only the beginner, but also the advanced card-magician who wishes from time to time to include a trick wherein the audience can stare relentlessly at the fingers without discovering a thing.

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Good, but beware! . . . Report this review
Verified buyer Pro Privacy ON (login to see reviewer names) on March 25th, 2021
These are nice books, well written, and nicely presented, with some very good effects in them, but beware . . . if you want to know how the demonstrated trick in the trailer is done - you'll be disappointed. I bought all three of them because I was intrigued by that trick, but the way it's explained in the book is NOT the way they performed it in the video, which is of course an absolute misrepresentation. I wasn't happy about it, so I wrote to them, and was told to put my feelings into a review - hence this rant !! Not sure I'd have purchased them at all if I'd known that they were showing it differently to how it's actually done, but if you're not particularly concerned about that effect then they are nice books. I no longer trust their demonstration videos.
11 of 11 magicians found this helpful.
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A powerful choice of effects that don't involve sleight of hand Report this review
Pro Privacy ON (login to see reviewer names) on April 2nd, 2010
I really like this book, and the one that follows ("Card College Lighter"). This reminds me of the "Scarne on Card Tricks" book that got me started in card magic many years ago. Each of these effects can be performed with no sleight of hand, but they make it appear you are working miracles. I love effects like this that allow you concentrate on presentation and not worry so much about that pass or slip cut you've got to execute perfectly with everyone watching your hands.

The good thing about this book is that the effects are already grouped into threes. This gives you (if you so choose) a ready-made routine with an opener, middle, and closer. They flow seamlessly between each other. But you can also choose to take any of them as a standalone effect and create your own routine. Some will require a bit of set-up (especially if they are part of a previous routine that would have naturally done the set up for you, like revealing the four aces or something similar) but many are ready to go when you are.

Not every effect is a gem, but there are so many good ones you can't complain. The book is professionally done, and Giobbi does a great job of explaining how to create your own routines and what to look for in them. This book isn't just for beginners, though they will probably benefit the most from it.
9 of 9 magicians found this helpful.
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Card College Lightest Report this review
Pro Privacy ON (login to see reviewer names) on October 20th, 2017
The video demo of Gemini Calling with Dan Harlan is a little misleading. Otherwise, a very good book.
6 of 6 magicians found this helpful.
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Must Have Report this review
Verified buyer Pro Privacy ON (login to see reviewer names) on February 20th, 2013
I highly recommend owning the entire trilogy. I have Light and Lightest. So far Lightest is my favorite. I'd recommend these to anyone interested in learning sleight-free card magic. These are professional caliber tricks though. Though no sleights are required, some basic things like false shuffles/cuts do strengthen the effects. Roberto Giobbi is a card master. He not only explains how tricks work, but he tells you HOW they work. Get his Card College series and his Card College Light trilogy, and you'll have a card magic gold mine. If you still have the money after that, get Harry Lorayne's Classic Collection series and his latest book, Special Effects. You'll be in possession of an awesome card magic library. Enjoy!!!!
4 of 4 magicians found this helpful.
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START HERE Report this review
Verified buyer Pro Privacy ON (login to see reviewer names) on December 5th, 2015
I love self working and sleightless card magic and Roberto Giobbi delivers on all fronts. Each trick is well written, through with patter and concept and has beautiful artwork, Already an experienced card shark? No problem - this book contains powerful magic and great concepts - this is not your Dad's beginner card magic book - this is the Card College Son - you're about to get schooled! Out of the three in the series - this is my second favorite, but if you have ZERO of these - START HERE
4 of 5 magicians found this helpful.
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Another great collection of Report this review
Pro Privacy ON (login to see reviewer names) on April 2nd, 2010
Much like John Scarne's Card Trick book from years ago, Giobbi has developed an entire book of effects that require no sleight of hand. He also takes it a step further by putting this into sections of openers, mid-routines, and closers so you can put together your own routine if you'd like. So how are the effects? Up and down.

Some are pretty good. "The Card Sharp's Triumph" is one that takes a few minutes to learn but makes people think you have way more ability than you actually do as long as you build it up right. There are also a couple of poker routines and one routine that involves choosing a movie star from a list of 150 of them, counting down cards, and finding your chosen card matches the one held by the star in a photo that's been sitting in a sealed envelope the whole time. Unfortunately, making a decent photocopy of the picture or the list is next to impossible thanks to the way it's laid out in the book, so you can plan to do a little bit of doctoring on another photograph later if you have the skills (or know someone with a baby you can photograph).

Will you use every routine in this book? No. But they are all explained in detail with great illustrations so it's easy to follow along. Even if you don't use the routine as written you can probably find a few things to change here and there to make it your own.

I've been doing card work for a while, and I still found a few things in this book that I loved and added to my repetoire immediately.
3 of 3 magicians found this helpful.
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Sleightless miracles Report this review
Verified buyer Pro Privacy ON (login to see reviewer names) on January 2nd, 2019
Excellent card tricks, as expected from Roberto. Most of them I already knew and performed, but the book contains several details, subtleties and ideas that were very useful for me. I rate it four stars in comparison to the (five star) Card College 1-5 volumes.
3 of 4 magicians found this helpful.
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Card college light - amazing book! Report this review
Verified buyer Pro Privacy ON (login to see reviewer names) on September 4th, 2020
Card college Light is a book showcasing 21 card tricks that involve no sleight of hand. It is the 1st of 3 books by Roberto Giobbi, an amazing card magician. Each chapter is made up of 3 card tricks put together as one routine, so you get 7 routines (of 3 tricks each) in all. While I haven't studied all the routines I have read through the book and each routine looks like they will be much fun. I am only on the 1st set of tricks but they should serve well for this review. I bought the book because I have very small hands & so sleight with cards is difficult for me. Each set of tricks has great line drawings showing important portions of the tricks so even a visual learner like me should have no trouble. WARNING - these tricks do take some careful manipulation to achieve & a good deal of practice to perfect. But then, all really good magic does, doesn't it. My one (very minor) complaint is that in each "tips" section at the end of the routines description, there are a number of "moves" that are named but aren't detailed so you will have to do some online research to find, then practice these moves in order to perform the trick as described. Wish he'd included details workings for these too. Highly recommended. Well worth the price!
2 of 2 magicians found this helpful.
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Card Light Report this review
Verified buyer Pro Privacy ON (login to see reviewer names) on April 23rd, 2022
Terrific!
1 of 1 magicians found this helpful.
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It's Great Report this review
Verified buyer Pro Privacy ON (login to see reviewer names) on June 28th, 2013
The first trick is worth for the cost of the book. And others are bonus.
1 of 1 magicians found this helpful.
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