After a break (working on Mind of a Magician #12 among other projects), Here we go:

NO Poker

[Segue from 10d: OUT OF THIS WORLD] “And if we trust that this particular group is meaningful. And here for some interesting reason; that begs the question ‘What am I doing here’?”

“Any good heist needs someone to pull it off. A planner. A puppet master. Someone who can see the big picture while keeping in mind every minute detail. And not to toot my own horn here, but tonight that role will be played by me.”

“The skills someone needs to plan the perfect heist are not that distinct from the skills one needs to become an effective magician. A type A attention to detail and a type B ability to think out of the box. A careful understanding of human behaviors. And most importantly, the pointedness to control exactly what you need to happen. Down to the second.”

EVAN invites three audience members onto the stage

“In fact, I’d love to give you an example by playing a bit of a game. If you three would join me on stage at the table, I can show you how exacting a magician can be.

They come to the table, EVAN takes out a deck of cards and they play a round of poker. EVAN deals off 20 cards and begins shuffling the packet.

“Being a magician is actually quite simple. All you need to do is think of every possibility that can ever happen, and then convince the people in the same room to choose the possibility that looks most impossible. “

“Right now, if I were to deal out some hands of poker, giving myself a good hand might not be that impressive. I’ve been shuffling the cards, and maybe – I dunno – I could do something sneaky while I was dealing.”

“But these three seem much more trustworthy than me, so-

EVAN addresses someone in the first row

“- should player one, two, or three deal for us?”

Response. [offsets] EVAN hands the deck off to the named person.

“You got it! Person X will deal us all a hand of poker – 5 cards clockwise around the circle if you don’t mind. [to audience] Here’s where a magician’s skill set thrives. We present a challenging situation – like a poker game where the magician doesn’t even get to deal – and produce an impossible outcome.

EVAN asks the participants to show their cards and reveal their hands. They show various hands but nothing impressive. EVAN turns his cards around revealing a royal flush.

Thank you. But it doesn’t stop there, because there’s a problem. Magician’s take challenging circumstances and create something impossible. As strange as it sounds, that’s actually less difficult than what a thief can do. A real mastermind behind a perfect heist takes complete normal circumstances and does something unlikely. The catch 22 is that the wildly unlikely outcome is actually more difficult to predict and control than a magician’s impossibility. So let’s keep going with the deck of cards.

EVAN stands up and takes out a notebook, which he uses to make a prediction during the next segment.

“Magic has a problem. Well, it has many problems, but that’s a whole different show. The problem for the moment is that it’s too predictable. There’s no excitement or risk or possibility of defeat. Magician’s always win.”

“So I’d like to try something more challenging. I’m going to try to lose.”

EVAN writes the word “LOSE” in big letters on a pad of paper.

“We’ll play a number game, well, really it’s more of a decision game. You all [gesture to players] will make a series of decisions using your cards…

NOTE- This structure is driving me crazy, so in the spirit of moving forward with the draft, I’m going to move forward past it and fill in the details later. Here are the basic plot points:

  • EVAN gets a royal flush with someone else dealing
  • Something about setting up the idea of “winning and losing”
  • Write the word LOSE or the number 3507 [plain sight prediction]
  • All players choose one card at a time to create a multi-digit number that will all get added together
    • Is it more impressive here for me to be controlling a very specific outcome or for it to be hands off and somehow still aligns at the end?
  • At the end, the numbers are all added together, and they make 3507.
  • The plain sight prediction is turned either from word to number or vice versa.

Phew! Now I don’t have to think about this one for now.