True ‘dat!

@Sal – Thanks for sharing brother. It’s all about makin’ it your own. Too bad you didn’t enter it in the contest. 🙁

The first phase of the trick is the same, but instead of leaving only the top card face down, you leave the TOP TWO cards face down. That sets you up for the perfect excuse to type part of a post in all capital letters, as well as helps with the trick. You then replace the selection with a tilt (that leaves the deck as follows: face down card, face down selection, face down card, a bunch of face up cards, and the rest of the deck face down).

You then tell the audience that you’re going to perform a trick and then teach them how it’s done. Perform a double lift and show that there selection rose to the top (at this point, and while saying the next line, I like to do somewhat of a ‘flourish’ with the double to engrave the image of ‘one card’ face up on top of a face down deck). I then burst the spectator’s bubble by revealing that I’m not really the devil incarnate with the powers of black magic, but all that I did was I turned over all the cards above the selection, giving the illusion that it came to the top. I then thumb off the top card revealing another face up card, then show all the rest of the face up cards (hiding the face down second to top card – quite deviously I might add). I’ll write this at the end of this paragraph since I couldn’t figure out how to put it in the last sentence in a grammatically correct manner: when you thumb off the top card, put it either down on the table, or if you’re working completely stand up, then just move it out of the way of the rest of the deck. This actually does make a difference for the next part of the trick, I’m not just typing a lot because I’m tired and can’t think in full coherent sentences (although that does help a lot 😀 ).

You then turn over all the face up cards (as well as the hidden face down card), and put the selection on top of the deck face down. This leaves the deck in the following order: selection face down on top, a bunch of face down cards, a face up card, and the rest of the deck face down. You then convince the spectator that you stick their card halfway into the deck (by any method you prefer i.e. top change, second deal and put the dupe into the deck, Jedi mind control, etc.), and tell them you’re going to repeat the trick again and that now that they know what to look for they might catch it.

Now, I’m not going to give a specific patter for the next phase for 2 reasons: 1)You should be original and come up with your own presentation, and 2) I haven’t come up with the ‘perfect patter’ myself yet, just a general idea (I’ll admit, it’s really only the second reason). You then turn over the entire deck (and perform a half pass of the bottom card; their selection) and ask if they saw their card come to the top this time. They say no, and you then punch them in the face and go to a more cooperative spectator. However, if you ever want to be hired for a show again, instead of knocking them out you could explain to them that the reason why they don’t see their card is because you DIDN’T turn over their card. You then spread through the deck and show that their card is still face down. Place the portion of the deck that was on top of the face down card onto the table. But since it isn’t really their card, you must once again rely on some sneakiness.

I came up with two ways to show the card in the center as their card. The first one relies heavily on misdirection: Scream out ‘Hey look, a three headed monkey!’ and point behind them. While they look the other way, secretly switch the places of the face down card in the middle with their face down selection on the bottom. However, for those of you who have a different performing persona (or already used up your quota of ‘three headed monkey’ lines), there is a sleight that could get the job deal: a pseudo ‘double bottom deal turnover’, where you turn over the bottom card together with top card (in this case, the face down card on top of the remaining half and the bottom face down card). It’s hard to explain the move in writing (meaning I’m too lazy to type it up write now). For a visual idea of what this move is like, look at the preview of Twizinser on DanandDave.com. Near the end, he does a variation of this move.

Well, that’s the variation of Overtime that I came up with. If I didn’t write this up clearly enough, I’ll try to explain it again.

I know that this variation is much more complex than the original and many people like to keep things simple, but I have a different view. When I was at a lecture by Alex Pandrea and Jonathan Price, they gave a new perspective to the old idea of K.I.S.S. (Keep It Simple, Stupid). A simple trick means simple for the SPECTATOR to understand, which isn’t necessarily the simplest method from a technical standpoint.

Tell me what you guys think!

P.S. I wrote the first half at about 1 in the morning, which explains the craziness in my writing style. I wrote the second half later, but I figured, Hey, why stop now? 😀

Awesome! I had an Evil Knievel bike too. That totally rocks!

I used to have a Donny and Marie Drum Set!

@Steven – Captain Purple is not ringing a bell . . .