h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

With many magic tricks you should never repeat the trick. In this case if Churchill had demanded the trick to be repeated 5 times, the magician would either have prepped 5 more decks and surreptitiously swapped them out for each performance, or better yet, found a way to "shuffle" the deck in such a way as to prep the deck properly again. I'll assume the magician has no need to perform the four card demonstration again, so he could just set aside two cards of each colour. Since the cards are already separated into colours, one need only pick them up in a way that the reds are all on top and the blacks on bottom. Then use a false shuffle. There are several shuffles that keep the cards in order. For instance you can cut a deck of cards repeatedly or take a small set from the top and move them to the bottom repeatedly and it doesn't change the cards order but simply treats the deck as a loop cycling through where the break between the top and bottom card lies. All one needs to do is have a way to purposely stop "shuffling" when you get correct card back on top. I'm sure there are better methods.

But even so, repeating a trick like this 5 times would be a bad idea. If nothing else, the ruse of suggesting the volunteer has a left/right bias doesn't work on the second pass. And the trick won't work if you don't have some excuse for swapping the colours.

Some tricks bear repeating, but I don't think this one would.

Hi BG,

Yes, you're right. It all adds to the evidence doubting the story.

Icy

I believe most of the story.


It's a good trick.

It is very plausible that Churchill was impressed by the trick.



I only doubt that it was repeated... directly... for Churchill. Later, at the event, maybe the trick was repeated for new "volunteers".



By the way. If any of you meet me in person ask me about the "Three Coin Trick" or the rubber band "Thumb Cuffs".

One of my colleagues used to do a rubber band thumb trick. He had rubber bands stretched between thumb and finger on each hand, looped so one was under the other. He then pulled his hands apart so that the bands seemed to pass through each other. It was amazing. He repeated it again and again and I couldn't see how he did it.

Yep. That's the one. David Copperfield performed that trick on US tv back in the early '80s.