Magic Tricks

This is a cool effect by a young magician, presented in Dan Harlan's typically thorough manner. Everything begins and ends clean, although Dan explains why it's better to avoid lengthy examination. Dan's plot is slightly contrived to fit the method, but it works and the effect is visual enough that spectators won't care too much about the plot.

The only reason I'm giving 4 stars is because the ad copy states "NO TEARS," and "the card may be borrowed," but this may be misleading. You're 100% tearing the center out of a card, and then tearing the center out of the middle again. I think the ad meant that you don't tear the cards to link them, which is true. But I'm not sure if "borrowed" is the right word here, since you're definitely destroying the card either way. If you "borrow" your neighbor's lawn mower and return it with the pieces rearranged into an interesting work of modern art, your neighbor might appreciate the aesthetics but may not consider the lawn mower "borrowed."

You can definitely use a borrowed deck for the selection and divination, using your favorite methods or the ones Dan explains. But unless the borrowed deck has jokers or ad cards the spectator doesn't mind donating to the cause, you should probably use your own card to rip up. That card is completely clean to start and can be examined at length if the idea you brought it with you is suspicious. I always keep a couple of jokers in my wallet for autographs, which is a reasonable explanation as to why I carry them.

You can save the jokers from your new decks, or to get 52 of them in a hurry you can buy a one way forcing deck of jokers here: http://www.penguinmagic.com/p/646

Bottom line is that this a cool impromptu effect, and well worth purchasing to support a young magician. My other comments are only to clarify the ad copy, which I assume the creator did not write.