Master Card Memory by Bob Cassidy

Bob Cassidy, renowned master mindreader and decidedly the most influential mentalist of the last few decades, revisits one of his signature performance pieces: the card memory routine.  It is one of the few card routines that even mentalists who hate using playing cards will use.  It is extremely visual, highly commercial, and plays well in the largest of venues as well as the more intimate ones.

The basic effect is this: A deck of cards is shuffled by participants and then separated in two halves.  The performer then takes seconds to review the cards in one half and commit those to memory.  That half is now handed to one participant and the other half handed to a second participant.  The performer then dramatically calls out the cards that he saw, which is in a half that one participant holds, and those that he didn’t see, which is in the other participant’s half, and, as the cards are named aloud, each is dropped to the floor until the last card is revealed to a deafening applause.

Like was done with the three envelope test in his book, JOURNEY THROUGH THE FOURTH DIMENSION, Cassidy takes you on a journey through the history of this effect, explains its basic workings and his classic routine, and discusses his thirty years of experience with this effect.  He then explains several different variations that you can use for a variety of venues and situations, including some that are being published for the first time anywhere!

Cassidy’s “Original Card Memory Routine” is very easy-to-do and, though you are demonstrating an incredible memory, it requires the simplest of memory to perform.  Included in this book are variations that do include some basic sleights as well as Cassidy’s complete list of mnemonics for each of the fifty-two cards to use for your explanation or, if you wish, to really use, if you have that good of a memory.