Jonathan
Asi Wind's Trumph and Triumph again is sort of a doubled Bannon 'Play It Straight Triumph'--kind a a Bannon squared.
Wind has two versions of the trick: either two spectators pick cards of different suits--say one spades and the other hearts. As in the Bannon triumph, the first card is found when the magician shuffles the deck upside up to upside down, fairly, and, miraculously, all cards are face down, except for the one of the first selections suit and those cards are in order. The only spade missing in the sequence is the spectators card. After collecting the cards and reshuffling in an upside down to upside up fashion, the second spectator's card is found in the same way. Impossibly, now all the cards are face down except for the hearts which are now in sequence, the only card missing is the second spectator's card. In the second version, the spectator chooses a card, say a spade. When spread, all the cards in hearts are face up in sequence, except for the value of the missing card. After the miscall, the magician shuffles once and corrects--now when spread, the cards magically 'correct' themselves and now the sequence is in spades with the spectator's exact card missing.
Wind's Triumph, is well, a true Triumph. It is a knock-the-ball-out-of-the-park fooler and represents an order of magnitude augmentation of Bannon's effect. Wind's instruction is crystal clear and he takes the time to explain everything thoroughly.
The upside to this trick is that it layers a more impossible effect on top of and already impossible effect, using almost zero sleight of hand and really only in the second effect. The key is in the set up and some very devious structure and thinking. In the trailer, he presents the effect at the Magic Castle for John Lovick and Jason Alexander (among others) and you can see in their faces that they are completely blown away.
The downside to this trick is that you will have to double the set up of the Bannon trick. I could see how you could set up Bannon's version pretty easily from a shuffled deck. It would be very difficult to do that with this version, and Wind even suggests setting up the deck before you start. So you are either looking at a great opener or doing a deck switch. There will also be those that feel that the 'too perfect' principle applies here--the Bannon triumph is already an amazingly implausible trick--does it really need a second phase? Doing it twice with the same deck may just be way too good.... (Actually, if there is a criticism for a trick, 'too good' would probably be a complement.)
Then again, I bought this because I just had to know how he did it. And not only is the result elegant it relies on some incredibly devious, out-of-the-box thinking. You can know the Bannon triumph and still be totally blown away by the second phase. I mean, how does he do that? That in and of itself is worth the price of admission, I think. (The fact that it stymied Lovick and Alexander made me feel at least a little better!)
I haven't gotten to the point where I would perform this except for my family. Not only because of the set up but because you really need to get the procedure down cold so it looks as casual as it is magical. This will clearly come with practice.
I have to say, though, Wind is simply the man. Recommended.
