Hidden Agenda | Laughing Trojan Horse

By Roberto Giobbi - Friday, June 21, 2019

From Hidden Agenda, February 4th

Here is a practical way of adding one or several cards to a deck in use.

Anytime you are ready to add the card(s), dribble or spring the deck from one hand into the other, using the old gag of apparently counting the cards: “A deck of fifty-two cards. 1, 2…26…51…wait a minute.… 1, 2…26…51…one card is missing. Oh, that’s where it is!” Look into the card case, find the card and then simply add it to the deck.

This has a very innocent air to it and looks as if you had accidentally left a card in the box when you initially took out the deck.

To leave one or several cards back in the card case as you take out the deck, simply place the flap of the card case between the cards to be added and the balance of the deck. When you later take out the deck, place the tip of your right forefinger on the upper end of the broken card(s) and pull upward, as the left thumb opens the flap (photo 1). The right forefinger keeps pulling onto the separated card(s), as the left hand extracts the deck proper (photo 2).

Instead of in the card case, you can have the cards to be added in the breast pocket of your jacket or shirt.

Or you could ask, “Do you believe that I can produce the four Aces even though you shuffled the deck?” Take back the shuffled deck, hold it in dealing position and then extract the four Aces face up from the card case or from your pocket. Put them face up on top of the deck and immediately deal them onto the table. Being a Trojan Horse, the Aces hid one or several intruders underneath…

All entries from this series come from Roberto Giobbi's Hidden Agenda book.

Reader comments:

Lewis

Friday, 21 June 2019 18:53 PM - Reply to this comment

Sometimes the simplest ideas are the best. This is a perfect example. I think that many prestidigitators seek concluded concepts to obtain a result ... which really might not be necessary. I include myself in this group. I often have to remind myself that a layman's perspective is much different than a fellow performer's. Even as spectators we might overlook a basic action, such as is shown in "Hidden Agenda," or clearly understand what was done. But we fail to realize that most laymen don't consider the concept that cards "accidentally" left in a box is anything more than just that ... cards left in a box.

Bryan

Sunday, 21 July 2019 00:25 AM - Reply to this comment

Years ago I was in a play called "The Front Page", where in the opening scene I was a reporter playing poker with other reporters. Throughout the whole scene we're shuffling and dealing various hands yet somehow, at the end of that scene, my character was suppose to come out with the winning hand. The director and props department was trying to figure out how to make that happen. At the time I was 19, after having magic as a hobby for ten years, I suggested a way of doing it. I had a folded pocket hanky in my shirt pocket with the "winning hand" tucked behind the hanky. I had one of the other poker players try to take a peek at the hand I was dealt...I put the dealt cards into my shirt pocket as if to keep that player from peeking at my cards. When that actor gave up trying to look at my hand, I pulled out the "winning hand" from my shirt pocket, switching the cards, and then presented the "winning hand" in the game. The audience didn't have a clue. As Lewis stated, "Sometimes the simplest ideas are the best."

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