A completely hands off ACAAN to be precise, the holy grail (maybe, if the holy grail existed!)

I've long been a fan of ACAAN and have several methods, however I'm eternally conscious the public has no interest in such a plot, so I figured the best way to create interest is make them part of the decision making process...

This is scripted for a TV show, lets say the hosts are called Penn and Teller and the presenter is Alison (just names off the top of my head!)

Magician - You have all seen this trick before, it's called any card at any number, now I know you will roll your eyes out loud at that but stay with me - I want each and every one of you involved in this tonight. Alison, I'm going to ask you to handle the cards, I want you to shuffle them, I want you to deal them, I don't want you to let anyone else touch them, especially me, ok?

Alison - ok

Magician - Penn/Teller, in a moment I want you to think of a card, Penn you can name any value Ace through King, Teller I want you to think of a suit and give me a sign once you have it, ok?

Penn - ok

Magician - Audience, you have each been given a a small device which links to the screen behind me, in a moment I want each of you to think of a position in the deck, 1 through 52 and type the number in, ok?

Audience - ok!

(I'll paraphrase from now!)

Magician - Alison please take this deck out the pack, you will see it is new, all the cards are in place, there are no doublers, none of the cards are stuck together, they are not marked, notthing out the ordinary, a brand new regular deck. I want you to shuffle the deck as much as you want, make sure it's completely mixed and place it on the table.

Alison does this

Magician - Penn/Teller, what is the card you are thinking of?

Penn shouts 10 Teller points to his heart

Magician - Ok, the 10 of hearts. Now audience, where in that deck that Alison has shuffled do you think the 10 of hearts is?

(a bit of blah blah, I don't know, no one can know, but maybe the wisdom of crowds theory...)

Numbers will start appearing on the screen, 41, 5, 16, 33, 27, etc - the magician can even pick a couple and ask who selected that, showing peoples hands in the audience.

Magician - ok so now we have Alison's shuffle, P&T's card choice and the audiences prediction on position, we are going to take the average of all these numbers - if anyone wants to do so themselves to check the sums feel free, I'm going to ask this program to do it

The screen displays the average is 22.3 (or whatever)

Magician - ok so it looks like the audience has chose 22, Alison please confirm no one else has touched those cards

Alison - no one else has touched them

Magician - you examined them, you shuffled them, now I going to ask you to deal, one by one from the top, face up so we can see

Alison starts dealing, everyone counts together, the 22nd card is the 10 of Hearts

It's miracle!


If anyone is due to appear on P&T or AGT/BGT/etc in the next year, give me a shout, I'll give you the method!

I’m not appearing on any shows, but I think the effect is great! It is always best to have as many spectators participating as possible to keep interest and add to the overall randomness of the trick. I’ve recently been trying to search for the best acaan effect and something like this is better than the method I currently have. I would say that if this were not on the stage then it might be a little bit of a hassle having audience members write down all of their numbers and then taking the average. Other than that, great trick!
With regards,
AlxRosekoski

Thanks, yeah I agree it would be harder to work on a small scale performance, but there could be a way to do it in a small theatre/fringe type show with people filling out slips of paper, would need a bit extra setup tho