The Twose Cut
By Dominic Twose - Wednesday, March 18, 2020
The Twose Cut
This month I thought I’d describe a card move. It is simple and practical.
Vernon developed the double undercut in the 1930s – there are references to it in the Daley Notebooks Volume 1. It is hugely practical way of cutting one or more cards from the top of the deck to the bottom. Most magicians make use of it, even if not all know its originator.
However, cutting a card from the bottom of the deck to the top is another matter.
The most usual approach I’ve seen is to get a break above the bottom card, do a swing cut of the top half of the deck, and put the cards underneath, then do a double cut to the break. I guess since this approach is so common it gets by; but – well, it looks odd.
Vernon had a few ingenious solutions, recorded in The Lost Inner Secrets Volume 1 (‘Subway Transfer for Two’, ‘Hindu Transportation’, and ‘The Hindu Double Undercut’). Dick Koester had a beautiful approach in Allan Ackerman’s Las Vegas Kardma (‘A Reverse Double Undercut’). Marlo developed a Natural Reverse Double Undercut (Card Finesse), although this seems to be a reinvention of a Daley move in the Daley Notebooks. Perhaps the closest to what I am about to describe was recorded in ‘The Aces Again’ in Jordan’s pamphlet ‘The Four Full Hands’.
However, I’ve never seen any of these approaches mentioned or used.
And so, into this cornucopia of indifference, I offer what I laughingly call The Twose Cut, confident that someone will shortly let me know who came up with it first.
For reasons best known to yourself, you want to bring a card from the bottom of the deck to the top*.
Apparently you are going to do two swings cuts. Hold the deck in the right hand with your first finger poised to pick up the top half of the deck. As in the regular swing cut action, begin to put the deck into the left hand, but as you do so, the left fingers push the bottom card quarter of an inch to the right. This will be hidden beneath the right hand. In a continuing action swing cut the top half into the left hand. Take it between the thumb and base of the first finger. Return the packet to beneath the right-hand cards - but align the packet with the sidejogged card.
Immediately as part of a second swing cut take the left-jogged cards between the left thumb and base of the first finger. Take them and put them beneath the right-hand cards.
The bottom card is now on top.
To move multiple cards, the following technique can be used. Get a break above the cards to be shifted. Hold the break with the left little finger. Curl the left first finger under the deck. The right hand comes to take the deck. The left first finger below and the left second finger above grip the packet below the break and shift it to the right. Proceed as above.
Hopefully it goes without saying that these actions take place with absolutely no attention placed on them.
I accept Paypal, for those wishing to express gratitude.
*Please don’t write to tell me why you want to do this.
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