MAYHEW: What Women Want

M AY H E W M What Women Want written by

JOHN LOVICK

photographed by

RICK ANDERSON

Hermetic Press, Inc. Seattle, Washington

Contents Where We’re Coming From—Where We’re Going.... ix

Chapter 1: How D’Ya Like Your Aces? 1 Mayhew’s Opener 3 Mayhew’s Aces 17 Attitude 24 Burn Out Your Blind Eyes 32 Howlin’ Wolf Aces (Jack Carpenter) 35 Flash Ace Production 38 Double-0 Soul Ace Production (with Jay Jayaraman) 43 Full-Frontal Conus 47

Chapter 2: Gambling and Games of Chance 59 Labyrinth Blackjack 61 Blackjack Bluff 68 Mayhew Monte Explosion 71 Cuts Like a Mayhew 78 Lazy Man’s Ten-Card Poker Deal 83 Uber Ultimate Gardner-Marlo (with Jack Carpenter) 90 Take It or Sleeve It (Jason England and Tomas Blomberg) 96

Chapter 3: Not Dealer Demos—Dealing Demos! 101 Freedom 103 Mayhew Poker Again (Allan Ackerman and Simon Aronson) 109

Mayhew’s Mistake 111 Journey to the Center of the Deck 114 The Way of All Flesh (with Antonio M. Cabral) 117 The Bugs Bunny Deal 123

Chapter 4: Ceci N’est Pas un Tour de Cartes 127 On the Dribble Pass 129 Check Your Deck 142

Old Lazy Fat Guy Cull 143 Old Lazy Fat Guy Deck Switch 146

Chapter 5: Nerd Alert—Tricks for Magicians 149 Tacoma Opener 151 Keep Your Hands in Your Pockets 154 Utopia 160 Sloppy Seconds 163 Stuck in the Middle with Mayhew 167

Chapter 6: Cream of the Crap 171 Let’s Get Physical 173 If 177 A Balloon, a Cartwheel, and a Pony Ride 184 Mayhew’s World 193 The Grippo Transpo (with Jack Carpenter and Steve Ehlers) 199 Regressive Triumph (with Stephen Hobbs and Karen Beriss) 202 The Vanishing Poker Deal 213 The Vanishing Topsy-Turvy Poker Deal 215 The Vanishing Fix (with Stephen Hobbs) 217 Hungry Now? 223 Crack Ho Monte 228 Snozbury Delusion 231 The Standing Demonstration 236 Look at Me, Look at Me 240 Dolores in a Meadow 249 Bring in da Noise, Bring in da Ruckus 254 Wet or Black? 257

Chapter 7: One for the Money.... 269 Das Kapital 271

Burn Out Your Blind Eyes Give to Oedipus! Give...to Oedipus!

THIS IS A FUN ROUTINE in which you prove you have the

ability to—without looking—cut to four completely random cards!

SETUP : Start with the four Aces on top of the deck. (Oh, we

forgot to mention that the four random cards change into Aces. In that regard this is similar to the previous routine.

Mayhew developed the two routines at around the same time. It took him twenty years to realize they are just different handlings of the same effect. Genius is its own reward.)

Give the deck a false shuffle. “This one is dedicated to my mother, who has always been supportive of my card trick pursuits, but I often think she would have been happier if I’d become a ninja—mainly because I look good in black. Anyway, for mom, I’ll perform this trick ninja style—without looking.

Please, don’t tell me what’s happening in the trick. I want it to be a surprise.”

Use a favorite card revelation to produce and display any indifferent card from the middle of the deck, then place it face up on top of the deck. As far as this revelation goes, you have a great deal of freedom. Mayhew usually just digs his left thumb into the deck and flips the card that happens to be above it out and face up on top.

Flip this indifferent card face down. Apparently deal it to the table, but in reality, execute a second deal, sending an Ace to the table. Using a second deal to switch the cards allows for an extremely free-looking handling—no breaks, no get-­readies, no studied motions. The only questionable action is placing the card face down on the deck prior to dealing it to the table. Saying, “I’m not looking,” as you deal PERFORMANCE :

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Labyrinthh Blackjack This will serve you the rest of your life, as long as they don’t ban steroids in casino gambling.

THE DECK is shuffled and a spectator deals out five hands of

blackjack for himself and you. These hands are played out; the spectator hits or stands however he wants—you even allow him to cheat! You stand pat every time, never hitting, yet you win every hand, each with a blackjack or a count of twenty.

This is an extremely strong and clean blackjack routine.

Its strength lies in the fact that the spectator does all the dealing, and he gets to play the hands any way he wants.

He is not limited to any sort of basic strategy. He can play a conservative style, or “balls to the wall”, or even cheat. It makes no difference; you still win every hand. (In reality, the spectator may win—or more likely tie—some hands, but it doesn’t matter. In fact, given the “card counting” presentation Mayhew uses, it can even become a strength.)

SETUP :

Remove all the Aces, Kings, Queens, Jacks, and Tens from the deck. Set the Aces aside for a moment and thoroughly shuffle the remaining Ten-spots and court cards (all of which will henceforth be referred to as “Tens”). Spread the packet and position the Aces in the seventh, ninth, eleventh, and thirteenth positions from the top. Place the entire packet on top of the deck.

If you want to perform this routine completely impromptu, simply cull the Aces and “Tens” to the top of the deck and proceed as described below. Presetting the Aces as described above, however, helps ensure that you will receive at least several “blackjack” hands (a Ten and an Ace), which makes the routine play a little stronger.

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Mayhew uts Like a Mayhew Cuts Wherein Mayhew puts the “harm” in “harmony”.

A SPECTATOR shuffles the deck. He and you then go head

to head, cutting for high card. This can go on for several rounds, and you have complete control. You can win or lose as desired. (Mayhew recommends winning.)

This utilizes a very old and very simple full-deck stack, but in an underexplored manner. To demonstrate how this stack will be exploited, do this: Arrange the cards from top to bottom in numerical order, starting with the Twos and ending with the Aces; that is, the four Twos are on top, followed by the four Threes, four Fours, etc., all the way down to the four Aces. We will refer to this as the basic setup.

With your right hand, cut off about a third of the facedown tabled deck. Now, with your left hand, cut off another third of the deck. Compare the two cards cut to. Your left hand wins. Yay, left hand! With this setup, if the second person cuts at least four cards, he will win. We will call this the Yolanda principle.* There are three basic procedural options for head-tohead high-card cutting: Preferred Option: The first person cuts less than half of the deck and continues to hold the packet while the second person cuts. This is the option that will be used in the following routine. The spectator will cut first and be instructed to cut about one-fourth of the deck.

Less Preferable Option: The first person cuts and returns the cards to the deck. The second person then cuts. ­Mayhew * This principle is named after the woman Mayhew and I both married— at different times, of course. His marriage was eventually annulled, and mine just never took.

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M AYHEW doesn’t often use this option because the drunks he customarily performs for have a tendency to forget the cards they cut to.

Refined Option: The first person cuts the cards and completes the cut. The top card is turned over and displayed as the card cut to. If you begin with the basic stack described above, and the spectator makes the first cut about midway in the deck, after completing the cut, you will find that cutting anywhere in the top half of the deck will beat the first card, but cutting into the bottom half will lose. So the second cutter is still in complete control. A variant handling of this idea will be used in the final phase of the routine.

You may recall that the effect description mentioned the deck is shuffled. Obvious options for including this feature are a false shuffle or a deck switch. You may further recall that the effect description mentioned a spectator-shuffled deck.

Don’t worry, we will explain how to make that possible.

SETUP :

Split the deck into two packets of twenty-six cards, with each packet arranged in the same order: two Twos on top, then two Threes, etc., all the way down to two Aces on the bottom. Place one of these packets on top of the other.

“There’s nothing more fun than cheating at cards and conning people out of their money. There’s no denying it, it is fun cheating people! Especially old people, children, and immigrants. And old, childish, immigrants? Don’t get me started!

But I want you to know that there’s more to it than just learning the moves. You have to be able to get cleverly into the con, and then get out of the con, so people don’t even realize they’ve been cheated. Here, I’ll show you. Go ahead and give the cards a good riffle shuffle.” Cut the deck at about the midpoint and place the two halves in front of a spectator, in position for him to shuffle them together. Provided you choose a spectator who PERFORMANCE :

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M AYHEW grip the top portion of the deck between the little finger, below, and the middle and ring fingers, above.

With the left fingers, pull the top packet to the right, as your right hand simultaneously pulls the cards below the break straight up. As you pull up with the right hand, the right side of the bottom packet will clear the left side of the top packet and force that packet to an almost vertical position for a fraction of a second; but as soon as the packets clear each other, this packet will fall onto the left palm.

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the left hand, and is caught, pinched and upright, between the halves.

The left hand immediately moves back over the right hand’s half, and the ­selection, trapped between the halves, is rotated around the right-hand half and flipped face up, ending sandwiched between the halves. Within this 179

M AYHEW “Here we go....� Rapidly move your hands toward each other, but instead of clapping, the right hand passes below the left. As the hands pass each other, just drop the card off the top of the deck and catch it in your right hand.

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M AYHEW Your arms cross and the hands continue moving until they are again about eighteen inches apart. Display the card in your right hand and toss it face up onto the table. “There’s one.” This production may seem obvious, but if you do it quickly, it’s not clear where the card comes from.

The second card is produced using the same technique, but the hands move differently after the card is caught by the right hand. After you catch the card during the hands’ passage, extend the right hand forward instead of to the left, and move the left hand up to your mouth. “There’s two...” At the moment the right hand turns the face of the card toward the audience to display it, the left hand thumbs over the third selection into your mouth.

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M AYHEW Hold everything in place. What was the bottom half is almost vertical, and its upper edge is aligned with the right side of what was the top half, forming an inverted V. With your right thumb, reach over and pull up the bottom card of the bottom half (the selection) by contacting its face at the upper side.

Simultaneously reverse the left index finger’s action to undo the ­Charlier-type cut, returning the bottom half to where it started, flat on the left palm. As the halves coalesce, the selection ends face up, rightjogged, and sandwiched between the halves.

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and drop it onto the table. It will look like you are grabbing the card you just turned over.

The illusion is perfect, and you can repeat the procedure as often as you like.

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M AYHEW Display the crumpled piece of paper and say, “Here, Andrea.

I made this for you.” She will probably be underwhelmed. If so, respond with “That’s all right, not everyone appreciates art.” If she is polite and responds with gratitude, you can laugh and say, “Wow. You’re very sweet. No one’s ever liked it before!”

Either way, continue with “But if I set it on fire, then it’s cool!” With your left hand, reach into your pocket and remove the lighter. Light the flash paper and from the flame produce the carnation by swiveling it into view.

“Awww...” you say, “...a sensitive magician,” as you hand the flower to Andrea. Encourage her to put it into her hair or behind her ear, or to display it somehow. Continue, “But not everyone is the flower type. So, just in case, I always have a backup.”

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M AYHEW at a time to count a hundred dollars. Thumb the bills into your right hand and flash both sides of each. When you are left with just one of the twenties and the flap bill with the hidden singles in your left hand, quickly turn both hands palm down to flash the backs of the bills. The remaining twenty in your left hand, and your left fingers, help to cover the one-dollar packet in the gimmick.

Place the stack of twenties back onto the flap bill. Fold the outer ends of the bills back toward you and move the entire packet toward your left fingertips. Raise the packet to your mouth to blow on the bills and, as you do, use your 281