I love this "Loyal User" person and the anwers he gives.
Seems he has been gambling for the last 20 years since leaving the casino business, Forte tells me.

Hi Tommy,

I think I read somewhere that Steve Forte was a young profesional poker player prior to getting into casino dealing and management. He shows rare talent wiith a deck of cards although his first love is dice work apparently. According to Doc 'the unknown' and he should know, Steve Forte has never cheated at cards for a living. However, the nature of his job and his reputation in the bisiness brings him into contact with many professional hustlers and top flight magicians and this must result in a unique knowledge of a wide range of cheating techniques.

With regard to Wess's DVD, I don't think that he is setting out to compete with the likes of Steve Forte. Apart from anything else he cites Steve Forte as a source of inspiration on the DVD and my understanding is that Wess is intending to follow a carear path into casino protection himself, a road Steve Forte has already sucessfully trodden. To my mind, the value of these DVD's is for the magician wishing to learn and hone gambling moves for the purpose of integrating these into gambling themed routines. As has been stated above, it would also serve as a good introduction to basic cheating moves if this was the intention of the student. For me at least, the strengths of the DVD are the range of moves, the fact that they are taught (unique in this kind of genre) and Wess's idea of choreographing these techniques into a simulated 'live game' situation. Again, I don't think the intention here is to teach true cheating at the table, merely to give a flavour of what certain moves might look like in a rough home game. I would point out to those who feel this to be an unreal and poor demo of the art of true professional cheating, that simulating real world hustling would be very boring. It takes place over many hours, sometimes days, and involves a few selected moves. It is often a judgement call made by the experienced hustler who combines honest skill and playing craft with a judicious use of cheating techniques to provide an edge when lady luck is against him/her. The only way to learn this kind of craft is to become a skilled card player and gambler in the first instance, a con artist in the second instance and then to apply a few specialised and honed cheating techniques 'under fire' at the table. This kind of thing cannot be taught in any book or DVD.

This DVD is very much like Wess himself, young, raw, energetic, passionate about the moves and to some extent flawed through inexperience. Personally, I find this very refreshing and I am learning some useful moves from it. As such I applaud Wess for bringing his craft to market and I wish him every success both now and in the future.

Regards,

Paul H

Did Steve Forte ever cheat or not?

Enough knowledgeable people on these and other boards have implied enough so I am surprised that is still being asked.

Darwin ortiz wrote in print that if your doing gambling material your holding yourself up to a much higher level and I'm sure Wessmiller knew that.

Plus if you want to con people why not con magicians. They are MUCH easier to con.

WHY?

Because we already know what they want! Plenty of money to be made.

He has put out plenty.Do a google search for these words "steve freeman 9 inch rear parking"

You will see that he has released videos.But I don't think any magic was involved.

He told you this?

Regarding the answer to this question is no one's business but Steve's and who he tells. I do thank ya'll a lot for respecting my viewpoint at this forum but in this matter "SILENCE IS GOLDEN." Please don't quote me as an authority on people's personal lives because in that area I would lie to all you if necessary in order to protect any of my friends reputation if necessary. I care less about how people see and view me because only God's opinion will ultimately matter when all is said and done in the end.

It is a fact that I'm a cheat even though I'm not proud of it nor the title.

Bottom Line. A friend IS NOT one who blabber's his or her mouth about someone else's private life. I consider myself his friend.


Respectfully,

Doc

The point of the question was to question if, those making assertions that, one needs to have gambled and cheated to be an expert on the subject like Forte, really know that Forte did this before making his tapes. It appears to me to be merely based on assumptions and speculation. My interpretation of Fortes own words is, that he did not.

If Forte did or not, I still do not think it is necessarily correct to say that one needs to have cheated and gambled to be an expert on the subject. I think it might help but it can also give a biased view of the subject rather than an objective one. Whit Haydn for example is an expert on the short con but he is not a con man. Well actually he might be, as he did con me into searching for Ricky Jays big book of magic.

Tommy

Hey Jess Props to ya sir, the up and coming generation , I will definatley check out your dvd. I think its about time we get an expert at the card table in dvd format instead of a book

I agree with Tommy that you don't need to cheat and gamble in order to become an expert on the subject. You can learn all the techniques in a control environment and you can become very good at it.

Application of the techniques is another story.

This reminds me of a story of the famous Japanese samurai Yagyu Munenori. He was a master swordsman under Tokugawa Hidetada and in his whole life he didn't use his sword but ONCE. As a personal bodyguard to Hidetada in "the war of Osaka summer", he cut seven enemies who had been attacked at a moment, and saved Hidetada.

In the same sense, you don't have to cheat to prove that you can use the techniques. But of course, not everybody is like Munenori

All I gotta say this video is good and well worth the money!

Cool Samurai story!

Sharpie
Now that is the bottom line "Is it worth the money?" everything other than that is not important.

Later

Tommy

I would like to hear some input from the likes of Paul Chosse on this one? For being marketed as Weapons of a Card Shark I would have expected a better bottom deal.

Dave

I can't really comment without seeing the material. The real question is: what is the purpose of the tape? Is it to teach someone to cheat? Or to teach someone to demonstrate how to cheat? Or to teach some cheating moves that can be applied to magic? Or to entertain those of us who like to watch guys do things with cards? Or to get a bunch of people to buy a tape? I can only address how good the material is when I know what the goal of the performer is, and whether or not the material helped him to reach that goal. What did Jess want to do? And did the material he released help him to do it? If I get a chance to watch the video, I'll let you know what I think, for what that's worth...

Best, PSC

It's an OK DVD. Nothing special. I agree with petersd comment. Pick up Expert at the Card Table instead. It's cheaper.

Or to cash in?

Anyway.. if I wanted to learn these moves, I'd get a video from someone who's been doing it and practicing for 20 years and not someone's who's 20 years old.

He's ok but not great. I agree that I would only buy card shark techniques from someone who is an expert and also knows the ins and outs, gambling knowledge (ie - consults to casinos), etc...

Everyone keeps commenting that he is only 21 years old and give him a break. I don't care if they are 2 or 100, it's smooth technique that counts.

Check out the bottom deal on Cogitations, know that's what I am talking about.

Dave

I would love to hear what wessmiller thinks about all the negative feedback?

Hey wess,

Are you gonna tell us what your thinking??????

His technique is not that great. The trailer shows the best of what he has and you expect us to learn from someone whoes technique is not what we would expect from a card shark. His bottom deal is worse than mine and I have no business putting out video and neather does he. This is a classic example of what Mike Close continues to preach. Too much medicore product hitting the market and this is medicore in my opinion. Where is is going to be in ten years is a pointless argument. He needs to earn a positive reputation and this takes years before a dvd is put out. Age has nothing to do with it.

Ortiz gave his blessing. Who has actually heard this from Ortiz rather than the author of this video or his friends whom have biased opinions. I have seen the trailer and need to see no more since this is a representation of the work. Period. You can waste your money and that's your choice.

Dave

It is also worth mentioning that even if Wess's technique is not the best it can be, he is one of the few who actually teaches the moves. Apart from this being a plus for buying the DVD it also provides an opportunity for the viewer to take the moves learn them and improve on them. In comparison, it is true that Forte's GPS and Turners 'The Cheat' display fabulous technique but its not always easy to see exactly what they are doing and how they are doing it. I had terrible trouble unravelling one of Turners card switches until Wess taught this move on his DVD. Personally, I have all these Videos and DVD's and find all of them indispensible and that includes Weapons of the Cardshark.

Regards,

Paul H

Regards,

Paul H

I'm just done reading all the posts here.
And I'd like to give you all my opinion about this.

This week I sent Jeff a email about his new dvd. Within 24 hours he sent me an email back with nice answers. This is a young man who loves what he is doing and likes to share these thoughts with others all around the globe.

I can see that most people like his dvd. Some (think) they do not, but they didn't see it yet. I can understand that someone feels more comfortable with a teacher who has more years of experience. But I can also say that Jeff explains very well on this dvd. What do you expect? That he can share all his knowledge with us in 93 minutes?
Wihtout a doubt Jeff is very talented and we can expect much and much more from him.

I really enjoyed watching his dvd. And he gave me some new thoughts. I've been practicing my push through shuffle a long time now. Seeing how Jeff did his shuffle gave me some inspiration and I must say that I've improved.

I bought many dvd's and books since I started practicing sleight of hand, and many dvd's I only watch once. Not that I didn't like them, maybe it's because I feel no need to watch it again. A very few dvd's in my "collection" I do watch over and over again: Fred Kaps: seeing is believing / vernon: revelations / Darwin Ortiz: card cheating / and indeed... Jeff's dvd.

The reason I do watch these dvd's again and again is that I feel the magic when I look at it. It nearly impossible to watch it without a deck of card in your hand. You want to do the moves yourself.

I think this dvd is a great purchase and I think Jeff succeeded well in explaining, and bringing the magic to live.




Thanks again.



Tom. (the Netherlands)

I like his style, and I like his passion for the art.