Kenton Knepper's KOLOSSAL KILLER

What The Audience Sees:

'This week Jamie told us he was tired of always carrying a deck of cards around and was only going to bring a single card with him from now on. He then asked us to concentrate on what the card was, and when I named it, it was the card in his wallet!'

How It Went:

A heck of a lot better than I thought it would. To be honest, I'm not a huge fan of this effect. I do a lot of surfing here on the Café here in search of great tricks- I try my darndest to make Magic Friday as a kind of Greatest Hits of Magic- and I found a massive amount of people liked this trick, so I bought it in the summer. Once I learned it, though, I was a little unimpressed. I mean, there's not a lot to do. Someone names a card and you pull it out of your wallet. It really all comes down to presentation (as almost all magic does, really) and audience management (something I pride myself in.)

I tried to present it in as many different ways as I could throughout the morning. I would tell someone I found a single card lying in the street and I would try it with someone else by telling them I had a dream last night, etc. In the end I found the way I described it at the very top of this column as the best way for me to do it.

All that said, most people were absolutely amazed. In my head, I'm thinking, "Really? You're this surprised? Huh." People loved it. I learned something.

Best Lines:

'HOW IS THAT POSSIBLE?!'
'Outstanding. Out-standing.'
'Holy #@$$%@!'

Angry Bob Rating:

I have a co-worker (Bob) whose uncle was a magician and thereby 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 figured out how the effect is done... A high rating means he'll never figure it out.

I'd have to say 2/5. Bob saw it done twice and has a good idea of what's going on. I should mention that the effect was much stronger when it wasn't a direct hit. Although it might give a clue as to how it works, only one other person caught on. The main problem that you'll face is convincing people you don't have a lot of cards in your wallet. I recently purchased a fire wallet that looks fairly large and, as a result, I was constantly fending off comments of, 'You probably have a whole deck in there!' I was dying to say, "Nothing but (making the fire) OH MY GOSH! @#$@! Never mind" but I couldn't, as this is generally an office environment. Through proper audience management, however, I feel I was successful of convincing them otherwise.

My Rating:

I was planning on giving this a 7.5/10 simply because I don't particularly enjoy it and you should generally, I feel, stay away from performing things you don't like yourself. After the succesess of today, however, I'm going to bump it up to 8/10 and the fact that I'm going to start carrying it around also makes it higher, in my opinion, so how about 8.5/10.

The JDG Tip:

Whether you have a large wallet or not, you're main concern is the speed of pulling the card from the wallet. If there is even the slightest hesitation in bringing it out, people will think there's more than one card. No Fishing! Reach and grab only. It also helps if you don't have to actually look in your wallet.

HAVE A GREAT WEEKEND EVERYONE!

Jamie D. Grant

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