Dean Dill’s “Blizzard”Inside MagicMagic News Updated Daily for the Professional Magician

Dean Performing for Johnny Carson

Dean Dill is a famously inventive magician and one of the real neat guys in magic. He?s famous for his Dean?s Box ? a mini-s?ance ? that has received raves from everyone who has seen it.

So I was very interested when I was browsing the Penguin Magic video archive and saw that his trick Blizzard was one of the many videos they had available. By the way, they?ve done a great job with the production of these videos. Great camera work and very good sound. If you?ve seen the quality of the videos on other sites, you?ll be impressed.

Anyway?.

Here?s the effect. I?ll describe it exactly as it appears.

You ask your volunteer to name any card in the deck. No force, obviously. If they want the two of Spades, fine. If they want the nine of Hearts, it?s okay. You remove the selected cards and its mates. So if they picked the nine of Hearts, you?ll pull out (face down) the nine of Spades, Clubs and Diamonds.

You hand these four face-down cards to your lovely volunteer and ask her to shuffle the four cards to thoroughly mix them up. Again, you emphasize that the cards need to be face down at all time so that you will not be able to cheat and catch a glimpse of the order of the four…

Dean Performing for Johnny Carson

Dean Dill is a famously inventive magician and one of the real neat guys in magic. He?s famous for his Dean?s Box ? a mini-s?ance ? that has received raves from everyone who has seen it.

Anyway?.

Here?s the effect. I?ll describe it exactly as it appears.

You impose on your kind helper to place the four cards face down on to the table in a row. You propose ? out loud, because if you did it in your head, no one would hear you and you would look like you were confused and in need of some sort of counseling ? that you will pick out the card they named.

You stare at the back of the four cards and as if by magic, you are able to turn over their card.

Many a lesser magic trick would end there. In fact, many a lesser magician even with a great trick, would have ended it there. (I have no idea what that means but I read it in a translation of a foreign trick book I received for Christmas).

But you are not a lesser magician and this is not a lesser trick.

You show that the other three cards were blank and that your pleasant volunteer had selected the one card with a face. This is a pretty amazing revelation.

But there is more. The amazing thing is that your helpful assistant had actually named the only card in the entire deck with a face. All other cards are blank. You can immediately allow the audience to examine all 52 cards in the deck and they will find nothing to explain what they have just seen.

No forces, no rough and smooth, everything is examinable.

That?s the trick.

Here?s my review: Outstanding. When you receive the effect you might be puzzled by what you receive as far as props. If you?re like me ? and for the sake of your family, I hope you are not ? you will try to work the trick before you read the instructions. (I once installed a toilet without considering a single manual or instruction sheet. The problem was that the seat ended up on top of the tank and you had to stand in the bowl to get up to the seat.)

But once you give up and finally consider the instructions, you?ll become convinced that you?ve been conned. That the trick cannot work in the manner described. You will swear that only someone with the bravado of a poker player could pull off the maneuver necessary to make this trick work.

You?d be wrong. It works as advertised. I?ve tried it against the most cynical audience I know, my family. They?ve seen every move, sleight, attempted sleight I have ever done. But because of the genius of this trick, there is no sleight to see. I don?t think I would consider the necessary move to be sleight of hand.

The method it genius and the effect is amazing.

Rating: Four out of Four.