Azlan is a completely hands off “Card at Any
Number” effect utilizing a standard deck that can
even be borrowed by the performer.
The performer hands the spectator a deck of cards.
The spectator shuffles the deck.
Then, holding the deck towards themselves so that
the performer cannot see anything, the spectator
checks through the faces of the cards to ensure each
and every one in the deck is different, taking out any
Jokers that may be left in the deck in the process.
They immediately place the deck face down on to the
table in front of them. The deck remains untouched
by the performer from this point onwards.
Now that everything appears to be fair and above
board, the performer proposes to show the spectator
the difference between them trusting their intuition
and just guessing. Accordingly, the spectator makes a guess on which
card they think is at a random position in the deck.
Then, they use their intuition to somehow know at
what number (position) a card, currently unknown to
them, resides at within the deck. Now comes the
proof.
First, they deal to the random number and are shown
that the card they named via guess work does not
reside at that position, proving that when they
simply guess, they’re likely to be wrong.
Then they pick up all of the cards, being careful not
to change their order, and deal to the number they
intuitively called out before.
Amazingly, the card dealt to – using nothing but
their own intuition – matches your prediction
perfectly!
This prediction can be written down ahead of time
and even before the deck is handed to the spectator to shuffle. Alternatively, the prediction can be a
duplicate card with a different colour back, placed
inside a single envelope that is handed to your
spectator before you begin the effect.
It really is this clean and impossible looking.
NO gimmicks
NO stacks or difficult sleight of hand
NO language re-frames or dual reality
NO short cards or cutting of the deck!
Easy to learn and easy to perform!
I am pleased to say this effect has fooled a few of
my close friends in magic.
In fact, it even fooled me when I went back and
watched an older performance video of this that I
had recorded as a note to myself. Quotes:
“This is great! It’s so clean” – Peter Turner
