Magic Tricks

OVERVIEW: This set of two DVDs contains a variety of magical card effects that are taught by Sal Piacente. Sal began working as a blackjack dealer in Atlantic City before moving through a variety of jobs at casinos. He is currently the president of UniverSal Game Protection Development, Inc, where he works as a game protection specialist, meaning that he helps teach how to find and prevent cheaters at casinos. He's been on several TV shows, and is active in giving lectures to the casino industry on how to expose card cheats. In this collection of two videos, Mr Piacente draws on his wealth of experience and his creativity to share some of his very best card effects. Altogether there's a dozen different routines, with some top notch material.

PRAISE: But first, let me persuade you that it's worth hwile checking out these videos, considering that these were first produced in 2004. While there was considerable noise about them at the time they were first released, over time stellar works like this tend to be overlooked or forgotten. Many young magicians are so busy trying to keep up with the latest releases, that they probably haven't even heard of this video set. Fortunately it's still widely available, and is still as excellent as it was when it first appeared. The fact is that a number of experienced magicians would include this in their top 10 DVDs/videos of all time! You will find high praise from many magicians about it, and it's a highly regarded collection of routines.

WHAT YOU GET: This product is a set of two DVDs, each of which comes in its own DVD case. Volume One has a running time of 1hr 25 minutes, and covers five routines: Sal's Memory Opener, The Marlo Opener, Sal's Ace Cutting Routine, Sal's Ace Cutting Routine II, and The Vernon Poker Deal Revisited. Volume Two has a running time of 1 hr, and covers eight routines: The McDougal Stack Outdone, Paint Poker, Rollover Aces, Stop!!, The Riffle Stack, The Faro Stack, 4,5,6-Packet Trick, plus a bonus effect, The Encore Card Trick. Each DVD has a contents menu that allows you to navigate to a demonstration of the effect, or go straight to its explanation.

FORMAT: The one-on-one format for the video has Sal perform and explain all the tricks to Rob Stiff, and this creates an intimate setting that really suits close-up card magic. The conversational approach is very natural and smooth, and together with Rob Stiff you really get the feel of being an insider who is welcomed into the private sanctuary of a professional magician and skilled teacher. For each routine, first there's a brief introduction to the effect from Sal, then a performance of the effect with Rob Stiff. Sal then teaches the tricks in an easy to follow manner, making it simple to learn the effects. The one-on-one interaction with Rob Stiff is excellent, and the question and answer style as they discuss each trick works really well, and will be something that magicians will appreciate and find very helpful. Sal definitely offers a fresh take on things, and his unique style, patter, and presentation feels genuinely fresh and novel. He's a good teacher too, which is of course essential for an instructional video like this. The video production is also very solid, and different camera angles are used where necessary.

CONTENT: All the tricks taught here are solid, but the consensus is pretty clear that the best ones are Sal's Memory Opener and his 4,5,6 Packet Trick. Sal himself says that the 4,5,6-packet trick is his favourite trick. But even though these two routines are probably the top ones, the reality is that there's a terrific amount of top quality material here. This isn't just a collection of mediocre material with one or two hot tricks - it's all strong, but these ones alone will easily make it worth getting!

DIFFICULTY: The effects taught here are mostly simple to learn, and you won't find them too difficult to learn whether you are an intermediate magician or more advanced in magic. Many of these routines give the impression of being demonstrations of great skill and feats with cards (e.g. feats of memory, or amazing demonstrations of gambling). In reality, however, they rely not so much on sleight-of-hand, but are just cleverly thought out tricks. That means that most of the tricks taught here are well within the reach of the average magician, although some will require some practice. When you see them, they look like very advanced card work, but that's just the beauty of the magic therein - they're actually quite simple! In some cases an ability with card handling is necessary (e.g. a couple require an ability to do a faro-shuffle), but for the most part the intermediate magician will find them relatively easy to learn, and be surprised how few sleights are used. It's well worth the effort required to learn the patter and master the routine, because these these effects are great to perform and will amaze your spectators. Since they are relatively straight-forward, they are great for nearly all magicians to learn, and yet even experienced magicians will find some great effects to add to their performances.

RECOMMENDATION: With these videos, Sal Piacente offers a genuinely fresh approach to card magic, and some absolutely terrific material. It's relatively easy to learn and within the reach of the average magician, and the teaching is terrific. All-round, this is easily a top-notch collection, that deserves to find its way into the hands of card magicians old and young today who haven't yet come across it. Highly recommended! - BoardGameGeek reviewer EndersGame