116 pages
2024
John Bannon, the undisputed master of trick design, proves it once again... and again!
In John Bannon’s brand-new book, Outnumbered, you will discover incredibly deceptive card tricks that will unsettle you even as you perform them. It’s like learning magical formulas: you follow the process and achieve astonishing and unimaginable results. If it seems magical to you, it will be just as much for your audience.
These effects follow John Bannon’s unique construction: they lead the audience down a false trail, making them believe the trick is heading in one direction, only to reveal a completely unexpected outcome.
Thanks to clever methods, your audience will be utterly caught off guard and unable to guess the secret.
Number tricks are often seen as mathematical tricks. Some of these rely on basic mathematical principles but require no calculation or “mathematics” from the performer. Everything lies in the design, not the execution.
Yet, this kind of label often scares magicians away, even though they can be very effective, as you will discover in Outnumbered.
Rest assured, these are not the mathematical tricks your uncle used to do. These are genuine stage pieces that give the impression of true magic. These are tricks you will add to your repertoire and perform for years.
Game, Set, Match! – Pairs of cards freely formed by your spectator match the total of a small coin placed on the table from the start. A strange blend between Will the Cards Match and Jack London’s Almost True Prediction... but not quite.
Blindsided Plus – What if you could truly predict the future… or at least part of it, without understanding its meaning? Is that a good thing or a bad one? In this incredible trick, you will find out. It’s automatic (or extremely simple, depending on your definition). The deck is ordinary. No one will see the ending coming. And no one will discover the secret, even if they know the underlying principle.
Counter Intuitive – An impossible location makes the discovery of the chosen card unimaginable, under absolutely fair conditions (or at least, that’s what everyone thinks). If you don’t know this method, it might well become your new favourite toy.
Psychic Encounter – The same incredibly clear discovery as in Counter Intuitive, but with a completely different method.
Cosmic Conspiracy – Under impossible conditions, the card predicted by the magician appears at a number freely chosen by a participant. Even better: the card mentally selected by the participant appears at a number predicted by the magician!
The Sum of All Fours – If you want to perform, in close-up, an impressive, automatic, and pressure-free magic square, here is the ideal way to do it. It is an effective way to present to your audience the incredible properties of the magic square.
All these effects are like toys you will use to surprise yourself and your audience. You will bring this sense of wonder to your spectators, because even you will not fully understand how the magic works. In this book, you will learn the formulas that allow you to achieve what seems to be true magic.