Floating Aces - Cervon

[magicfish]

Gents,
I have always loved the Elevator Card plot.
Martin Nash's Ups and Downs has been a favourite impromptu effect for many years.
I have always been intrigued by Cervon's Floating Aces. I have played with it off and on for decades.
I'm wondering if anyone here performs it, or has performed it, or perhaps saw Cervon ever do it?
Thanks guys.

[Richard Kaufman]

Where is it published?

[jason156]

"Where is it published?"

Ultra Cervon, page 9 ...

[Denis Behr]

You can see Cervon perform it on one of his videos: https://llepub.com/index.php?main_page= ... cts_id=464

[Skmayhew2]

Not Cervon and not English but ....

I’d say it gets difficult to maintain any conviction in what all those face down cards are supposed to be.

https://youtu.be/axMgdVauemA

[erdnasephile]

Not Cervon and not English but ....

I’d say it gets difficult to maintain any conviction in what all those face down cards are supposed to be.

Agreed. This is heresy: I sometimes feel the same loss of conviction even when I watch a classic ace assembly such as "Jazz Aces".

[Richard Kaufman]

Confusion is not magic.

[Pete McCabe]

This is not heresy. It's just common sense.

This is heresy: Jazz Aces is a bad plot. I've seen it done at least 10 times, always by excellent performers, and it's always confusing. Halfway through there is a pile of three cards, where the aces are gathering, and two other face down aces on the table, and some cards in your hand, and what is happening? The way the aces are laid out in t-formation is not relevant to the trick and makes everything visually confusing. It is a very convoluted version of the basic effect of aces magically gathering in a single pile.

Worst of all, it almost completely conceals the strongest feature of the routine, which is the underlying story that you are getting all the aces in your hand in a game of poker. The further any Assembly gets from that archetype, the harder it is for the audience to care.

Of course, I've seen it done by performers better than I, so there must be something to it. But I really wonder what the effect is to a layperson.

[Jonathan Townsend]

Poker hands usually have five cards. And a straight beats four aces. To expect an audience to be ignorant of such things... though i'm not sure that was Peter Kane's presentation.
Further off topic, have you seen the version of jazz aces where the other packet of four cards melts away leaving just the four aces at the end?

Yeah that's a lot of conviction and credulity to risk for the floating aces. The Frank Garcia simplified version seemed to work pretty well.

[Brad Jeffers]

a straight beats four aces

Where do you play poker at Jonathan ?

[Jonathan Townsend]

a straight beats four aces

Where do you play poker at Jonathan ?

So 2H,3H,4H,5H,6H does not beat four aces?
I'm kinda wondering what would happen if someone showed four of a kind but no fifth card in a game. What do you think?

[jason156]

"So 2H,3H,4H,5H,6H does not beat four aces?"

It does, but that's not a straight …. it's a straight flush.

[Bob Farmer]

Jazz Aces works well if you use giant cards cut into four pieces. See my routine somewhere in Pabular. A performer won a close-up contest with this routine, so it can't be all bad.

[Leo Garet]

….."though i'm not sure that was Peter Kane's presentation".

No it wasn't.

And to say that "Jazz Aces" is a bad plot is, well, what's the word...? Not sure offhand, but nonsense will do. No, I'll temper that a bit: incorrect. Unless ace assemblies in general are bad. And then like everything else, it's a matter of opinion. Which it is anyway.

I'm not as fond of assemblies as I once was, but every once in a now and then, I revive "Jazz Aces". I've never used a gambling theme with any ace assembly, let alone "Jazz Aces". There are more than enough gambling tricks around, some of which involve a royal flush and the rest of the pack.

If I ever do a less-than-a-full-pack gambling trick I opt for "The Ten Card Poker Deal". I think somebody published a book on that once.

[magicfish]

I’ve heard it is a very good book.
@Bob, Interesting. I’ll dig out my
Pabulars.
I’ve been dreaming about how this looked in Cervon’s hands for decades. I may have to look into the dvds.

[Paco Nagata]

Not Cervon and not English but ....

I’d say it gets difficult to maintain any conviction in what all those face down cards are supposed to be.

https://youtu.be/axMgdVauemA

I love "tomosanb" Youtube chanel. He's a really good performer, and also like Bruce Cervon's works in general, but I agree that this routine lack of conviction about the cards. I personally wonuldn't add this routine to my repertoire.

[Paco Nagata]

Regarding to Peter Kane's Jazz Aces, I've always like it a lot, up to the point that I conceived a metaphorical story for it that had always a good reaction among my people:
Three astronauts went to the moon (AC, AH, AD) and one of them kept in the suppy boat (AS).
When the astronauts were going to come back, noticed that the rocket was irreparably broken. So they were condemned people by the fate. However, an experimental tele-transport devise in the supply boat that used the AS was tried with the hope it works... Finally, that experimental tele-transport machine worked and they could safe their lifes.

[Thomas Van Aken]

Hi,
Regarding "Jazz Aces": Mike Skinner used two sets of identical cards (jokers and blank cards) allowing to show the first two jokers before and after travelling, increasing conviction IMO.
Br,
Th.

[Degio]

Regarding to Peter Kane's Jazz Aces, I've always like it a lot, up to the point that I conceived a metaphorical story for it that had always a good reaction among my people:
Three astronauts went to the moon (AC, AH, AD) and one of them kept in the suppy boat (AS).
When the astronauts were going to come back, noticed that the rocket was irreparably broken. So they were condemned people by the fate. However, an experimental tele-transport devise in the supply boat that used the AS was tried with the hope it works... Finally, that experimental tele-transport machine worked and they could safe their lifes.

Cool. Not far away from Jazz Fusion's plot (John Guastaferro - Brainstorm Vol.2), where four Jacks vanish into a black hole.
One of my favourite tricks...

[Paco Nagata]

Cool. Not far away from Jazz Fusion's plot (John Guastaferro - Brainstorm Vol.2), where four Jacks vanish into a black hole.
One of my favourite tricks...

Nice to know that! I didn't know about "Jazz Fusion" by John Guastaferro. Thank you for the information. I don't know much about Guastaferro's magic, but one of my favourite tricks by him is "Mr. E Takes a Stroll" from "One Degree".

By the way, regarding a black hole metaphor, I also considered that but for a different famous plot: "The Cannibal Cards."
I love stories in card magic, but I always disliked the cannibal metaphor, so I thought about consider the "cannibal cards" as a black hole that gobbles down three astronauts as well. Finally they come back through a white hole! (in the middle of the deck).
For more detail about this story by the Cannibal Cards plot feel free to have a look to "The Passion of an Amateur Card Magician" PDF, below in the link (p. 295 "The Black Hole"). Of course I don't explain the secrets, because it's not my trick, but I explain the details of the story adapted to the original plot. I consider it quite interesting for those who likes metaphorical stories, like me.