The Slip Cut

[Guest]

Hi everybody!

I have a question. Is it possible to minimise the sound of the actual slip when you perform this sleight. I perform the sleight as explained in Card College, with the deck in dealing position.

/Chris

[Guest]

Just try using a lighter touch.

Euan

[Guest]

Technique comes first, but ambient noise could also help to cover this sort of thing. Alternative sources of sound can cover a multitude of sins.

You could create your own cover by talking over top when the move is done. I would think a nice "sh" or "tch" ("let me SHow you something" or "waTCH me closely") sound done at the same time as the move would help.

[Mike Tyler]

Try setting off a flashpot about 2 feet away. Helps with the misdirection too. Seriously, a well placed direction or patter line covers the move for me. It's hard to keep it completely silent. I've tired saying, "You're about to hear a loud noise from the deck of cards in my hands - pay no attention...I'm just trying to fool you." Avoid this for obvious reasons. Good luck!

[Guest]

Also, if you hold the cards in your hands and do a slip cut as you cut them to the table with a slap of the cards onto the table it seems to make a difference to the sound too.

PSIncerely Yours,
Paul Alberstat
AB StageCraft
http://www.mindguy.com/store
Got your copy of "The Mentalist" yet?

[Guest]

Just as an aside, I find that my slipcut looks better when done not in dealing position, but from the table with the cards in position to begin a shuffle. This also more closely resembles standard dealing procedures.

[Guest]

Say "I'm going to riffle these cards, and at any time you choose, say 'Stop! and STICK YOUR FINGERS IN YOUR EARS!"

You can honest-to-God hear a bad slip cut across a room. But if you just use a light touch, that doesn't happen.

[Guest]

Are you talking about the slip cut force, or just a slip cut? To me, a slip cut can talk all it wants -- you're cutting the cards, it's supposed to make a sound. But the slip cut force, there isn't really a cut, and the slip comes a time when you're handling the cards carefully -- since there's a selection in progress -- and any unexplained sound will be noticed.

So I would recommend: do a slip cut, to center the card, and keep a break. Then do a riffle force to the break, without the slip. This moves the sound of the slip away from the moment of the force.

[Guest]

But Pete, that's not a slip force, that's a riffle force.

In the slip force you really stop where they asked you to. Something you can feature...

[Guest]

Bill,

In the riffle force you stop where they ask you to. You just don't separate the deck at that point.

I'm not saying the riffle force is perfect. I do think it's better than the slip cut force, at least the way I see both moves done. I think the secret action of separating the deck at some point other than the genuine stopping point is much less suspicious than the secret action(s) required to do a slip cut, which I think is important since both actions come at a time of heightened attention to the deck.

(And yes, it's a riffle force. Wasn't that clear? I'm recommending the riffle force over the slip cut force.)

[Guest]

Without a doubt, the riffle force is superior to the slip force in my opinion. However, my comments about the slip cut still stand.

[David Acer]

Gary Ouellet published a nice handling for the Slip Force called "The Rotating Slip Force" in his 1980 one-trick booklet, Finger on the Card. The approach was designed to allow a spectator to actually insert his or her finger into the outer end of the deck as the magician riffles through it, but a side-benefit of the handling is that it is virtually silent.

See http://www.camirandmagic.com/mm01_1.html for more information.

[Guest]

While the post was on the slip cut, because someone mentioned the slip force, if you hold the deck in your hand and flip through the edges until someone calls stop, rather than just pulling the top portion away as you slip the force card to their portion, instead, rotate your hands palm/face up as you do the slip, pointing out that if they had stopped you a second earlier they would have stopped you at the <name the card showing> then slide the force card to the table or to the participant and then show a second later they would have stopped you at <name the next face donw card on the deck>. You have now concealed the "move" and justified it and the force by showing the different cards.

PSIncerely Yours,
Paul Alberstat
AB StageCraft
http://www.mindguy.com/store
Supplying unique mentalism and magic world-wide

[Guest]

Originally posted by Pete McCabe:
In the riffle force you stop where they ask you to. You just don't separate the deck at that point.

A fact which, to be sure, many spectators will remind you of on the spot. No thanks.

Any 'say stop' selection is implicitly and subconsciously more prone to manipulation than a selection from a spread where the spectator can handle the cards themselves. For this reason, with a riffle force you'll get the spectators that try to stop you towards the top or bottom of the deck, and they will pay particular attention to where you cut the cards. With a slip cut force you can oblige them and call attention to the fairness of the selection, instead of having to misdirect them or bevel the deck in hopes that they won't notice the difference between a half of a deck and a quarter of a deck.

All else being equal (and assuming that the ambient noise and/or you patter can adequately cover the sound of the slip), a slip cut is better if it is possible. Of course, in some effects like Hollingworth's Voodoo Card, you'll need to do the riffle force. But barring some contextual justification to the contrary, the slip cut force is inherently superior to the riffle force.

[Guest]

Pete,
All things being equal, if I'm going to fake the point at which the pack is opened to force a card I'll use a dribble force.

Any devation in the stopping point is subliminally explained by the apparent randomness of the falling cards.

[Guest]

One thing I've noticed is that when anyone other than a magician cuts the cards, the cut-to card is the bottom card of the cut-off half. If two guys are cutting high card, each picks up a packet of cards and turns it face up. The "card cut to" is the bottom card of the top half. With the slip cut, riffle, and dribble (and other) forces, the "card cut to" is the top card of the bottom half. I've seen a lot of times where the force didn't fail, or get busted, exactly, but that moment of confusion when the card on the bottom of the top cut-off half doesn't turn out to be the selected card. This is a problem easily dealt with, but it is one which many magicians don't seem to recognize.

Back to the original question, though, of how to minimize the sound of the actual slip when doing the slip cut (not force). My solution is not to minimize the sound of the slip, but to maximize the sound of the cut. Scrape the top half of the deck across the bottom half, and slap it back on top. It looks like you're just giving the cut a little extra emphasis, which is not a bad impression to give. More importantly, it looks as though it's supposed to be noisy.