My Favorite Card Tricks: Daniel Prado

We asked some of magic's greatest minds to share with us their favorite card tricks. This week is the turn of Danial Prado. You may know him from his hit effect, Burn. Over to Daniel:

It is so difficult to choose favorites because of the context. Sometimes, there are effects that I love, but rarely do because of preparations or a specific mood I need my audience to be. Also, I love to create magic, and most of the time I'm performing my own material. So I selected two original ideas and one that I just can't resist performing!

Memorization skills and Finger Flicker

What I love about it is that I can say some truth to my audience and it finishes with them doing the climax of the effect. I shuffle the cards, ask for a few seconds to memorize it and I proceed by asking them for cards or numbers, that I reveal by counting or cutting exactly on the position. At the end, they pick up a random card, return it and then I explain how I memorized everything (I don't tell the whole truth) and I ask them to try and memorize the positions of the cards. Because they cannot do it, I ask them to flick the cards with their finger (Finger Flicker by Pit Hartling) they do it and boom! Their card turns it face up and they go nuts!

Out Of My Mind

This is an effect that is part of my Insight project (Available here at Vanishing Inc.). I absolutely love Vernon's Out of Sight Out Of Mind plot, and the idea of performing "think of a card" effects are always fascinating to me. Cards are washed face up on the table, random cards are picked by me and I only show a few of them to the spectator who selects one using only his/her mind. Cards are returned, shuffled and then I proceed by dealing cards on the table until the spectator says "stop". I name the card, and then reveal that the spectator stopped exactly on the position of the selection.

Cosmos 2 - By Greg Rostami

This is one of the best pieces of card magic I've ever learned. It is unbelievably good!! I've always loved the Out of This World plot. But I rarely did, because I never met a method that looked fair enough for my standards. Until I learned Cosmos 2 by Rostami. I perform the impromptu version, so my spectator shuffles the cards, I show them how the cards are arranged and I ask them to try and memorize the position of the colors. They pick up the deck and start dividing in two piles, red and black and at the end, they are split! Absolutely ingenious. Rostami made it so neat, that when the split is not perfect, the results are even better!