Nick Trost's THE OBSERVATION TEST from his book The Card Magic Of Nick Trost

The Effect:

The performer shows a deck of blue backed cards. He lays a single card from a seperate red pack onto the table. When the red card is put into the pack it is now shown to have a blue back and the whole pack is now red.

How It Went:

Fantastic. This is the very first effect in his book. Not the 39th or 102nd, this was numero uno and the Magic Friday crowd loved it! I think I performed it around 30 times today without a single bad reaction. This was my presentation:

"The reason I'm a magician is because I'm a terrible spectator. It's true. I never know when to give the magician the $100 bill or when to tell him he's incredible. I also can never remember my card. That's why today I pulled this card, the seven of spades, from a different colored deck, a red one. I could have chosen any card, they're all different, except the backs, of course, which are all the same blue. Okay, now when I put this card into the deck and give it a cut...see it happened...I forget my card. What was it again? Oh, the seven of spades, of course. With a blue back. What? A red back? No, it was blue, you're trying to trick me. Red? Really? Did I mention I was a magician..."

Pandemonium.

Best Line:

"That s#@t freaks me out!"

The Angry Bob Rating:

I have a co-worker (Bob) whose uncle was a magician and has a good working knowledge of how magic works. He's pretty grumpy but likes Magic Friday's because he can tell me how he figuered out how it was done...

About 3/5. He actually took the deck from me and was apparently quite angry when someone asked if we had seen all of the backs of the cards as blue. I could see him thinking for a moment and then he gave the deck back and seemed quite pleased with himself. That said, everything is examineable. Angry Bob might have figured it out, I'm not positive though, but the average person won't. And if performed well, they won't care. It's quite shocking.

My Rating:

4/5. This is a great card effect and Nick's book is a 5/5 for sure. The only reason I docked it a point is I haven't found a brilliant segue into a possible effect where everyone knows the identity of a different colored card to begin with.

The JDG Tip:

Instead of fanning the cards face down and showing the cards as red with one blue backed card, fan them face up-while looking for your seven of spades-and show that as a different color first. Invariably someone will scoff and say "let's see the deck change color then..." at which point you do turn the deck over and slay them.

Closing Thoughts:

To give you a little insight into who I am: I took up magic seriously about five or six years ago and have been training like a magic ninja. I did my first performance at an art show about two or three years ago and perform almost exclusively as a walkaround magician. I like to think of myself as the best magician you've never hear d of...

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