He had a lot of ways to finish. The paper could unfold in different ways, and he doesn’t have to unfold it and show the predictions. I’m sure he had other tic-tac-toe boards on his clothes somewhere, but that one is a very likely result which with all it’s rotations. He probably has to avoid winning the game even if his opponent lets him, and of course he can’t lose. Other question reveals could be on something else he didn’t show us if he doesn’t have them on the paper. There really aren’t that many variations to account for, and he doesn’t even have to follow up on the initial questions. There isn’t much to the whole thing and he was only mildly entertaining in carrying it all out. That act could be improved to increase the entertainment value, it’s not the kind of thing done to baffle people.
Re: the latest episode (304), what was all that jargon regarding Jabrizi and Slydini and how did he fool them? Seems like it was one of those “on a technicality” things because I wasn’t too impressed with that quarter in a sugar packet trick.
The washing machine stunt was pure insanity. They should just start giving out awards to awesome acts.
I’m trying to figure out how the DR guy’s card trick was done and what Penn meant by “Shift and Cull” – are those actually two magicians P&T modeled themselves after or was it code for something else?
I don’t think the Slydini reference was about the sugar packet trick. I think it was about the pen and pencil trick, which I thought was very good, especially the “sleight of mouth”. Totally fooled me.
I went back and looked at that a couple times. I guess by the way he was holding it, one side looked like a pen and the other looked like a pencil? That wasn’t the part that fooled them though. Something about what he was doing with the quarter.
Provided the participant doesn’t play to lose (and he can stop that by saying, don’t play there because you lose!) the particular configuration (in one of four rotations) is wholly forceable.
As there are two possible choices for the colour, he would need another predication with colours reversed, I suppose this would be on a tee-shirt under his shirt.
As an aside, I play tic-tac-toe to win – with a bit of psychology it turns out not to be that difficult. In the event that the game is a draw, my method yields a unique (barring rotations) configuration: I use this as my “out”.
Yes, two sided pen/pencil. He did it very well. The Slydini reference was probably to his pickup of the coin. There’s a camera cut and I can’t make out the coin on the table, but I think they were indicating he slid the coin off the table, meaning he had the the real one already in his hand so he was just disposing of the one on the table. Slydini was the best of the sleight of hand close up magicians, you can certainly see him using Slydini like misdirection with Alyson when he picks up the sugar packet. I think P&T missed his move whatever it was.
Yes, this technique is similar to the Rubik’s cube guy on AGT. What looks like a difficult to repeat pattern, isn’t. In this case it’s forceable, with the cube you can’t really tell what the pattern is, but in both cases it’s really not as random or varied in possibilities as the viewer may think.
Re the quarter in the sugar packet: Am I missing something, or wasn’t this incredibly obvious and simple? He took forever rubbing the quarter on the back of the sugar packet, and I thought it was blindingly obvious that he was slipping the quarter into a slit in the sugar packet. He even seemed to be careful about how he handed it to Hannigan and how he told her to rip it.
That’s not much of a trick. Seems like the kind of thing an eight-year-old or even I could do, except my friends would say, “Hey, why are you taking so long to slip that quarter in the slit?”
My thoughts exactly (except they would be wondering why it took so long to slip the dime in the slot). Did P&T just completely biff this one?
I don’t think the coin was ever inserted into the sugar packet. Instead the packet could contain an unmarked coin. When he lets Allison inspect the packet, the coin could be between his fingers in the packet. Afterwards he turns the packet upside down, which would release the coin. When the packet is ripped open, he can use sleight of hand to deliver the marked coin from his palm, while the unmarked coin in the packet is still there in the packet. The obvious move about inserting the coin into the packet would just be a fake move to misdirect them, which they bought based on the “slide-iny” comment.
I see that he could have done it that way, but why would you want your audience to think you’re doing it in a really clumsy, obvious way? Suppose you’ve done something like making a baseball disappear and you did in a clever, difficult way that most people wouldn’t see. Then you pantomime tossing the ball backstage in a clumsy way that everyone can see. The audience will not be impressed by your genuinely good magic trick because they will think you did it easy and clumsy. Why would you want that?
If he did it solely to trick P&T into going for the obvious, I don’t think that’s a good thing for the show. It seems the point of the show is to do a trick that they can’t figure out; if you’re just throwing out red herrings so you can say, “Nope, didn’t do it that way,” that’s not much fun.
No, I’m pretty sure that’s the name of the technique used. I learned the word “cull” in reference to Kostya Kimlat’s amazing appearance on the show from last season. I think it has something to do with separating out the card(s) you want to control from the deck. But I’m still mystified by Felix Bodden’s (the DR guy) slight of hand. How the heck did he make the king of clubs appear when he snapped?? I’ve watched it a few times and I can’t see any move he’s making. As to the main trick, he could clearly locate and position the card while AH whispered but…
… ahh, nevermind. Just watched it again. I was mystified how he got the red cards to move closer in the deck, BUT, I believe the cull happens right after he places them and then collects the cards together.
missed the edit window but:
ETA: just saw the next move (which is the “cull” though maybe the first one is technically a cull too, don’t know). It happens when he asks her how many cards she thinks are between the 2 red ones as he is fanning through them.
Heh, the “safety instructors” for the washing machine trick were the same couple who messed up their act on AGT on 8/2 and shot the dude with a flaming arrow.
Yeah, it was fun to see them show up, especially since I had just seen them screw up on AGT. The escape act may have been entertaining to some people. I think using a washing machine is a nice touch, but he’s nowhere near Houdini as an entertainer. And I’m kind of tired of escapes. It may be tough to do while spinning in a washing machine, but those are his handcuffs, all he’s doing is marking time and then hitting the latch on the cuffs to remove them. Good side show act, not good magic.
I think there was an act in an earlier season that also did an obvious fake move to make Penn and Teller guess wrong. I don’t remember which one. I agree that it’d be bad for the show, and would rather just see impressive tricks even if they don’t fool them. Some magicians may think it’s worth it to get the gig as their opening act as well as being able to say that you fooled them.
It looked to me like halfway through (once the suds really started showing up) that he wasn’t actually spinning, there was just a flesh-colored piece of something floating around in there.
I think the most impressive part of the act to me was him getting into the washing machine.
I don’t watch AGT but just looked up the clip you mentioned and – holy crap, how do you get hit in the neck by a crossbow arrow at point-blank range and not die? I think that’s a trick in itself. :eek:
Wow! It’s as if the point of that arrow wasn’t razor sharp. Amazing!
I loved where they were asked what went wrong. They hemmed and hawed, said something about the equipment. The obvious answer is “She missed.”
I guess they had to prepare for the eventuality that she might miss. Still, at that proximity with a crossbow’s pull, it could have struck an artery and done major damage. Makes me wonder if AGT is going to tighten up their policies on “dangerous” acts since it’s all done live (or maybe they just want the ratings).