Sleight · Expert
The Pass
Secretly transpose two halves of the pack.
The purpose
Invisibly bring a selection from the middle to the top (or restore order) by secretly exchanging the positions of two packets across a break.
Handling, step by step
- 1
Hold a break above the selection.
- 2
Under cover of a slight turn of the hands, exchange the two packets.
- 3
Keep the action small, soft, and timed to a gesture.
Drills
Cover and time
Practise the pass only under the cover of a natural movement; never in still hands.
Success: An onlooker sees only a settling of the pack.
Watch for these tells
- A flash of the packets.
- A knuckle flutter or jerk.
Tricks that use The Pass
Color Divination
A spectator buries a random red card among the black cards, and you reveal it from a prediction you wrote before they even chose.
Cut in Detection
A spectator cuts, returns a card to the centre, and you reveal it, sometimes found reversed in the heart of the deck.
Peculiarities of the Pasteboards
Three spectators pick cards, and one by one each card answers its name, appears on top, then turns over by itself.
Another Thought Spelling
A spectator thinks of a card from a small packet and later spells it out, finding it automatically.
Lloyd's Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde
A card the spectator chooses and a card you choose, each lost in the other's pack, prove to be the same card.
Sympathetic Sympathy
From two shuffled packs, a spectator's freely pushed-out card matches a card you have set aside, again and again.