Hi all,

Please excuse the intrusion of a card hack but I need some information please? I was studying volume one of The Close Up Magic of Frank Garcia and came across a push-through riffle that Garcia claims was shown to him by a gambler named "Artanis" a.k.a. Joe Sinatra. While Garcia was a a master magician, his crediting of material was at best suspect and often times he blatantly stole the work of others. What I am trying to find out is if anyone knows if this Joe Sinatra was a real advantage player or was he a fictional construct of Garcia. The reason I doubt that he is a construct is because if you've ever studied a Garcia book, the first six or so pages are Mr. Garcia pimping Mr. Garcia. If it is his shuffle he would certainly have claimed it. If it wasn't his shuffle he would have claimed too. He writes that "many claim this shuffle as their own, but, it originated with Artanis."

It's a great FS for magic but I really doubt it would fly in a game.

Thanks all for any insight!

Best and may you always have the nuts,
Vlad

He was real. You can get his bottom deal book here http://www.lybrary.com/joe-artanis-m-32.html

There are other his moves published in some of magic periodicals.


http://askalexander.org/search/%22artanis%22/

I have several photos of him with Walter Scott during a card session. Artanis died of a heart attack after a bet that involved running around a block in a certain amount of time. He won the bet, and then dropped dead. Howie Swartzman knew Artanis well.

Would you be kind enough to post one of those photos Gary? Artanis and Sinatra together, a good shot, for sure.

Thanks.

Thanks everyone for the information. What a glorious way to go out winning a bet like that. Not too smart but still better than something like the way Jimi Hendrix went out.

Quick aside: Mr. Plants, thanks for writing the Zarrow book. I had to unlearn everything when I read it and I am glad I did. I bought it when you first released it and I apologize for taking so long to say thank you.

FYI the Artanis False Shuffle is not a pushthrough. It's a pullout- a jog is left on the right. Too bad someone has'nt written a book about his work. He was far ahead of his time.