To be honest, I was not expecting the spectator reactions that I received from performing this trick. After watching the promotional video, I thought it was a good trick with an engaging patter. I thought it would be received well, but I really underestimated the effect it was going to have on spectators. After about a dozen performances, I can honestly say that the reactions could not be better. All of the spectators walked away with “winning” lottery numbers and almost all of them promised that they were actually going to play the lottery this weekend. Alakazam Magic and Mark Elsdon have a hit, again.
Against All Odds is a lottery prediction trick with a specially printed deck of cards. These cards have pictures of lottery balls on the faces and are not regular playing cards. Although I have not seen this before, apparently a deck of lottery cards were popular in England to help people randomly pick numbers for the lottery. The backs of these cards all look the same and show numerous different colored and numbered lottery balls. The trick also came with two cards that have pictures of balls with numbers on them, 1-52, but there is no explanation for why it was included or how it can be used in the performance.
Basically, the performer fans the cards face up for the spectator. The spectator can see many different colors on the cards. The performer squares the deck and places it face down on the table. Then, the spectator cuts the deck several times, discards half of the deck, discards even more cards by other methods and randomly arrives at 6 face-down cards. The performer points to a piece of paper that was written before the trick was started and was in view the entire time. Amazingly the 6 different numbers that are on the faces of the 6 selected cards (representing 6 lottery balls) match the 6 numbers on the papers. You can either have the numbers written on paper or a lottery game card.
The trick comes with a link to either watch or download a 32 minute instructional video, taught by Peter Nardi. Against All Odds was purchased by Nardi 10 years ago and just recently released after Nardi played around with the idea and concept.
The instructional video is well taught and the audio and video quality is par for the Alakazam Magic (that is top-notch). First, it explains how to set up the deck, which is very easy. The set up takes about a minute or two. Then, Nardi demonstrates how to perform the trick in a studio setting with one spectator. This performance can be seen in the promotional video.
A few minor issues with the trick. First, Nardi explains that he only uses 49 cards (numbers 1-49) and removes the cards from the deck that are marked numbers 52, 51, and 50, since the English lottery apparently only uses 49 numbers. That is not the case for all lotteries. This doesn’t really matter, but cards 52, 51 and 50 must be removed. What I have done to explain why the cards are being removed from the deck is to merely explain that with each card that I remove from the deck, the spectator’s odds of winning increases. Nardi explains that to pick 6 different numbers out of 49, the odds are 1 in 14 million. Although I am not a math wiz, I actually think the odds of winning using 49 cards are around 1 in 10 million and the odds of winning, using 52 cards is about one in 14 million. And, I could be wrong, but it doesn’t make much of a difference because the odds of winning are still so insanely large and I guarantee that no spectator will know the actual odds and will just accept what you tell them.
Once you perform the trick the reset can take up to a minute or two, but that is not an issue because you would not want to repeat the trick again, and, unlike many other tricks, I was not asked to “do it again” once it was done.
The trick is very easy to perform and has proven to be outrageously impressive to spectators, especially since the spectator makes all the decisions regarding which cards to pick, cut, discard and select. It is mostly hands off by the magician and there is no sleight of hand required. This trick is great for close-up and you can have multiple spectators assisting in the card selection process. The promotional video and the ad copy are accurate.
In additional to the standard performance, Nardi teaches an alternative way to reveal the prediction with two envelopes; one labelled “Loser” and one “labelled “Winner.” Nardi also teaches his stage chair-test version that used PDF’s that are included with the trick. Although I did not perform the stage version, it seems to be a great variation of the basic effect. Nardi only teaches it, but does not demonstrate it. It would have been nice to see a live performance of the stage version.
If you are looking for easy, hit the ground running and impressive, look no further.