The Magician And The Cardsharp

Author : Karl Johnson
Publisher : Macmillan + ORM
Page : 381 pages
File Size : 43,8 Mb
Release : 2006-07-25
Category : Biography & Autobiography
ISBN : 9781466833043

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The Magician and the Cardsharp by Karl Johnson Pdf

A famous magician's journey to find the greatest cardsharp ever evokes the forgotten world of magic where Americans found escape during the Great Depression It has the nostalgic quality of an old-fashioned fable, but Karl Johnson's The Magician and the Cardsharp is a true story that lovingly re-creates the sparkle of a vanished world. Here, set against the backdrop of America struggling through the Depression, is the world of magic, a realm of stars, sleight of hand, and sin where dreams could be realized - or stolen away. Following the Crash of '29, Dai Vernon, known by magicians as "the man who fooled Houdini," is tramping down Midwestern backroads, barely making ends meet. While swapping secrets with a Mexican gambler, he hears of a guy he doesn't quite believe is real - a legendary mystery man who deals perfectly from the center of the deck and who locals call the greatest cardsharp of all time. Determined to find the reclusive genius, Vernon sets out on a journey through America's shady, slick, and sinful side - from mob-run Kansas City through railroad towns that looked sleepy only in the daytime. Does he find the sharp? Well, Karl Johnson did - after years of research into Vernon's colorful quest, research that led him to places he never knew existed. Johnson takes us to the cardsharp's doorstep and shows us how he bestowed on Vernon the greatest secret in magic. The Magician and the Cardsharp is a unique and endlessly entertaining piece of history that reveals the artistry and obsession of a special breed of American showmen.

Author : Karl Johnson
Publisher : Macmillan
Page : 384 pages
File Size : 50,6 Mb
Release : 2005-08-10
Category : Biography & Autobiography
ISBN : 0805074066

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The Magician and the Cardsharp by Karl Johnson Pdf

A biography set against the backdrop of Depression-era America traces the efforts of famed magician Dai Vernon, who wandered the backroads and shady underworld of the Midwest in search of a mysterious, legendary cardsharp.

Author : Jenő Heltai
Publisher : Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
Page : 260 pages
File Size : 42,9 Mb
Release : 2019-05-10
Category : Electronic
ISBN : 1725797585

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The Cardsharp and the Magician by Jenő Heltai Pdf

For 21st century readers this novel takes us back exactly 100 years and opens a world as troubled and uncertain as our own. Had Heltai been born an American, he would have been part of the Lost Generation, and his unnamed protagonist and main character in his novel would have been considered as a mirror image of F. Scott Fitzgerald's Great Gatsby, namely how somebody of rank and wealth reverts into a penniless nobody. Whether he is seen as a friend or foe of this impoverished nobleman, Mr Selfridge, the 'Magician', is a man who also lives on the edge, but due to his maturity, is more enterprising and more cautious in matters of survival. It is the grey-eyed blonde who completes the trio, and unwittingly fuels the flames of both love and hate, honour and betrayal, and is ultimately the cause which leads the story towards its dramatic end.

Author : David Britland,Gazzo
Publisher : Running Press
Page : 256 pages
File Size : 45,7 Mb
Release : 2004-03-25
Category : Games & Activities
ISBN : 1568582994

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Phantoms of the Card Table by David Britland,Gazzo Pdf

Walter Irving Scott may have been the greatest card shark ever. In 1930, Scott bamboozled a room full of New York's finest card manipulators by dealing himself winning poker hands from a shuffled deck, one of his many tricks. He liked to say that he "cheated the cheats." His skill with cards was extraordinary and he soon became known as "The Phantom of the Card Table." That's why Gazzo, a magician from England, decided to track Scott down some 60 years later. The two became friends and Scott openly discussed his work with a view to its finally being published. "I don't care what you say," said Scott, "as long as you tell the truth." This is the truth about Walter Irving Scott and other phantoms of the card table who spent years practicing a craft they rarely talk about — cheating at cards. A special chapter revealing master card tricks is also included.

Author : Allan Kronzek
Publisher : Penguin
Page : 212 pages
File Size : 47,6 Mb
Release : 2008-03-25
Category : Games & Activities
ISBN : 9781101213599

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52 Ways to Cheat at Poker by Allan Kronzek Pdf

Thoroughly illustrated and researched, and enlivened with historical sidebars, 52 Ways to Cheat at Poker is essential reading for anyone who plays cards for money—or anyone interested in the ingenious ways cheats steal your money while appearing to do nothing at all. It’s no news that cheating pervades American culture. Americans cheat on taxes, tests, sports and spouses. But the largest arena for cheating may be at the poker table! With an estimated 60-80 million Americans playing poker every week—for the highest stakes ever—you can be sure that not everyone is playing by the rules! In this fascinating look at the card sharper’s art—from its origins in Renaissance Italy to the high-tech methods of today—deception expert Allan Kronzek reveals 52 of the most diabolical scams ever invented. Topics include codes and signaling systems, hidden cameras and miniature ear pieces, false shuffles, cuts and deals, peeking and flashing, deck and card switches, culling, instant stacks, marked cards, location play, the cooler, and dozens of other devious devices. Each chapter zeroes in on a single cheating concept and provides expert advice on how to spot and foil the scam (when possible!). You’ll learn the secrets of shade, flash, and juice—the subtlest marking systems; why cutting the cards doesn’t guarantee an honest deal, how a crooked dealer can stack the flop in hold ’em, why casino card rooms are not 100% safe, and how cheating crews crush the opposition without marked cards or sleight of hand.

Author : Alex Livingston
Publisher : Rebellion Publishing Ltd
Page : 368 pages
File Size : 41,6 Mb
Release : 2022-06-07
Category : Fiction
ISBN : 9781786186089

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The Knave of Secrets by Alex Livingston Pdf

Never stake more than you can afford to lose. When failed magician turned cardsharp Valen Quinol is given the chance to play in the Forbearance Game—the invitation-only tournament where players gamble with secrets—he can’t resist. Or refuse, for that matter, according to the petty gangster sponsoring his seat at the table. Valen beats the man he was sent to play, and wins the most valuable secret ever staked in the history of the tournament. Now Valen and his motley crew are being hunted by thieves, gangsters, spies and wizards, all with their own reasons for wanting what’s in that envelope. It’s a game of nations where Valen doesn’t know all the rules or who all the players are, and can’t see all the moves. But he does know if the secret falls into the wrong hands, it could plunge the whole world into war…

Author : S. W. Erdnase
Publisher : Courier Corporation
Page : 160 pages
File Size : 41,8 Mb
Release : 2012-05-07
Category : Games & Activities
ISBN : 9780486156675

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The Expert at the Card Table by S. W. Erdnase Pdf

DIVThe one essential guidebook to attaining the highest level of card mastery, from false shuffling and card palming to dealing from the bottom and three-card monte, plus 14 dazzling card tricks. /div

Author : Adam Gopnik
Publisher : Liveright Publishing
Page : 161 pages
File Size : 53,6 Mb
Release : 2023-03-14
Category : Psychology
ISBN : 9781324090762

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The Real Work: On the Mystery of Mastery by Adam Gopnik Pdf

"[W]ise, companionable, and often extremely funny.” —Oliver Burkeman, The Atlantic Best-selling author and New Yorker writer Adam Gopnik investigates a foundational human question: How do we learn—and master—a new skill? For decades now, Adam Gopnik has been one of our most beloved writers, a brilliantly perceptive critic of art, food, France, and more. But recently, he became obsessed by a more fundamental matter, one he had often meditated on in The New Yorker: How do masters learn their miraculous skill, whether it was drawing a museum-ready nude or baking a perfect sourdough loaf? How could anyone become so good at anything? There seemed to be a fundamental mystery to mastery. Was it possible to unravel it? In The Real Work—the term magicians use for the accumulated craft that makes for a great trick—Gopnik becomes a dedicated student of several masters of their craft: a classical painter, a boxer, a dancing instructor, a driving instructor, and others. Rejecting self-help bromides and bullet points, he nevertheless shows that the top people in any field share a set of common qualities and methods. For one, their mastery is always a process of breaking down and building up—of identifying and perfecting the small constituent parts of a skill and the combining them for an overall effect greater than the sum of those parts. For another, mastery almost always involves intentional imperfection—as in music, where vibrato, a way of not quite landing on the right note, carries maximum expressiveness. Gopnik’s simplest and most invigorating lesson, however, is that we are surrounded by mastery. Far from rare, mastery is commonplace, if we only know where to look: from the parent who can whip up a professional strudel to the social worker who—in one of the most personally revealing passages Gopnik has ever written—helps him master his own demons. Spirited and profound, The Real Work will help you understand how mastery can happen in your own life—and, significantly, why each of us relentlessly seeks to better ourselves in the first place.

Author : Jean Hugard,Frederick Braué
Publisher : Courier Corporation
Page : 480 pages
File Size : 52,5 Mb
Release : 2012-04-30
Category : Games & Activities
ISBN : 9780486156538

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Expert Card Technique by Jean Hugard,Frederick Braué Pdf

Definitive work on card technique: everything from basic manipulations to advanced flourishes; also a wide variety of tricks. 318 illustrations.

Author : Alex Stone
Publisher : Bond Street Books
Page : 263 pages
File Size : 47,5 Mb
Release : 2012-06-19
Category : Biography & Autobiography
ISBN : 9780307368218

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Fooling Houdini by Alex Stone Pdf

An exploration of the world of magic that teaches the reader many tricks--including how better to understand the real world. Alex Stone--journalist and part-time conjurer--is here to amaze you. But first he had to amaze his fellow magicians. Fooling Houdini is his fascinating, revealing, and nailbiting account of his attempt to win the 23rd World Championships of Magic, the "Magic Olympics," the largest and most prestigious competition of its kind. Alex Stone managed to qualify for entry and began preparing to astonish people who astonish others for a living. It didn't help his nerves that he was placed on the bill straight after Canadian magician Shawn Farquhar, winner of more magic competitions than anyone in history. Stone's preparations and participation provide his readers with in-depth exploration of the world of magic, and magic's meaning. He spills many professional secrets, arguing that what is important is to ask questions about what lies behind the tricks: how the mind perceives the world and parses everyday experience, about how the mind works--and why sometimes it doesn't, about why people need to believe. As we become more attuned to the limits of our own perception, we become better at distinguishing reality from illusion, at reading the angles and decoding the fine print, he says. We gain intuition and understanding into how people behave. We even learn ways to influence this behavior. This makes us less susceptible to all manner of deception. It is to gain and maintain this sixth sense that Alex Stone--a schoolboy prestidigitator--has continued performing magic well into adulthood. In Fooling Houdini he takes us into that other world, populated by truly astounding characters, and leaves us with a heightened sense of awareness about the supposedly real world.

Author : Wikipedia contributors
Publisher : e-artnow sro
Page : 1976 pages
File Size : 53,6 Mb
Release : 2024-06-06
Category : Electronic
ISBN : 8210379456XXX

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Focus On: 100 Most Popular Vaudeville Performers by Wikipedia contributors Pdf

Author : Steve Spill
Publisher : Skyhorse
Page : 259 pages
File Size : 48,9 Mb
Release : 2015-05-12
Category : Performing Arts
ISBN : 9781632208620

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I Lie for Money by Steve Spill Pdf

In this funny, irreverent, unique, eccentric memoir, magician Steve Spill reveals how he managed to survive decades inside a rarely profitable, sometimes maddening, but often deliciously rewarding offbeat showbiz profession—magic! Spill tells of how his tailor grandfather sewed secret pockets in a magician’s tuxedo back in 1910, which started his childhood dream to become a magician. This dream took Spill on a journey that started with him performing, as a young boy, at a “Beauty on a Budget” neighborhood house party to engagements in Europe, Africa, and the Caribbean, to today in Santa Monica, California, where he’s been starring in his own shows since 1998 at Magicopolis, the theater he designed and built himself. Being a magician has given Spill the opportunity to interact with the world’s most famous and fascinating people. In his memoir, Spill reveals the many unique encounters that his profession has led him to enjoy and endure: hosting Sting as his opening act one night, spending two days on camera with Joan Rivers, and selling tricks to Bob Dylan, as well as encounters with Adam Sandler, Stephen King, and other celebrities. I Lie for Moneyis a literary magic show that captures the highs and lows of an extraordinary life that will delight and amaze you with wit and wickedness. This book should be an obligatory read for anyone considering a creative career, and it serves as an inspiration to those who desire to craft an independent life.

Author : Michael Kardos
Publisher : Grove Press
Page : 255 pages
File Size : 40,8 Mb
Release : 2018-04-03
Category : Fiction
ISBN : 9780802165671

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Bluff by Michael Kardos Pdf

A down-on-her-luck female magician is drawn into a dangerous criminal scheme in this “hopelessly addictive” thriller (Megan Abbott, Edgar Award–winning author of Give Me Your Hand). At twenty-seven, magician Natalie Webb is already a has-been. A card-trick prodigy, she took first place at the World of Magic competition at eighteen and has never again reached such heights. Now she lives alone in a New Jersey apartment with her pigeons and a pile of overdue bills. In a desperate ploy for extra cash, she follows up on an old offer to write for a glossy magazine and pitches the editor a seductive topic: the art of cheating at cards. But when Natalie meets the perfect subject for her piece—a poker cheat who dazzles at sleight of hand—what begins as a journalistic gamble soon leads her into a dangerous proposition with the highest of stakes . . . “Truly gasp-worthy.” —Library Journal, starred review “[A] delightfully surprising thriller.” —The Florida Times-Union “If you haven’t read Kardos yet, Bluff is the perfect place to start!” —Lisa Scottoline, New York Times–bestselling author of Someone Knows

Author : Joe Posnanski
Publisher : Avid Reader Press / Simon & Schuster
Page : 336 pages
File Size : 55,5 Mb
Release : 2020-10-13
Category : Biography & Autobiography
ISBN : 9781501137242

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The Life and Afterlife of Harry Houdini by Joe Posnanski Pdf

Joe Posnanski enters the colorful world of Harry Houdini and his legions of devoted fans to explore the illusionist’s impact on global culture—and why his legacy endures to this day. Nearly a century after Harry Houdini died on Halloween in 1926, he feels as modern and alive as ever. The name Houdini still leaps to mind whenever we witness a daring escape. The baby who frees herself from her crib? Houdini. The dog who vanishes and reappears in the neighbor’s garden? Houdini. Every generation produces new disciples of the magician, from household names in magic like David Copperfield and David Blaine to countless other followers whose lives have been transformed by the power of Houdini. In rural Pennsylvania, a thirteen-year-old girl finds the courage to leave a violent home after learning that Houdini ran away to join the circus; she eventually becomes the first female magician to saw a man in half on television. In Australia, an eight-year-old boy with a learning impediment feels worthless until he sees an old poster of Houdini advertising “Nothing on earth can hold Houdini prisoner,” and begins his path to becoming that nation’s most popular magician. In California, an actor and Vietnam War veteran finds purpose in his life by uncovering the secrets of his hero. But the unique phenomenon of Houdini was always more than his death-defying stunts or his ability to escape handcuffs and straitjackets. It is also about the power of imagination and self-invention. His incredible transformation from Ehrich Weiss, humble Hungarian immigrant and rabbi’s son, into the self-named Harry Houdini has won him a slice of immortality. No one has withstood the test of time quite like Houdini. Fueled by Posnanski’s personal obsession with the magician—and magic itself—The Life and Afterlife of Harry Houdini is a poignant odyssey of discovery, blending biography, memoir, and first-person reporting to trace Houdini’s metamorphosis into an iconic figure who has inspired millions.

Author : Graham Jones
Publisher : Univ of California Press
Page : 308 pages
File Size : 47,7 Mb
Release : 2011-09-14
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 9780520270473

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Trade of the Tricks by Graham Jones Pdf

This book looks inside the secretive subculture of modern magicians. Entering the flourishing Paris magic scene as an apprentice, the author gives a firsthand account of how magicians learn to perform their deceptions. He follows the day-to-day lives of some of France's most renowned performers, revealing not only how secrets are created and shared, but also how they are stolen and destroyed.