Expert At The Card Table
The Classic Treatise On Card Manipulation
For almost a century, this book has been considered indispensable to attaining the highest level of card mastery. In it, S.W. Erdnase, a supreme master of card manipulation, teaches card enthusiasts how to perform the dazzling tricks and sleights-many of them how own creations-that made him famous.
The first section of the book deals with card table artifice, or, to put it more bluntly, cheating at cards. Step by step, Mr. Erdnase demonstrates his own systems of false shuffling, false riffling and cutting, dealing from the bottom and such slick moves as palming cards, "skinning the hand," even three-card monte.
The second section covers legerdemain: the art of forcing a card, one- and two-hand transformations, the devious "slide" and more. Card handlers will love Erdnase's selection of dazzling card tricks, including The Acrobatic Jacks, The Exclusive Coterie, The Divining Rod, The Invisible Flight, a Mind Reading Tick and many others.
In an informative foreword to this edition, Martin Gardner relates the unhappy details of the author's personal life, and recounts the history of this famous book, whose methods, Mr. Gardner asserts, "are as useful today by magicians and card hustlers as they were in 1902. This book is still the bible of card 'mechanics,' and as much a delight to read as it was in the early years of this century."
"The Expert at the Card Table is the most famous, carefully studied book ever published on the art of manipulating cards at gaming tables." -from the Foreword by Martin Gardner
Pages 130 - Soft Bound
Note from Matt:
This book is often refered to as the "bible" of card magic. I think it is fair to say that no other book, in the history of the magical literature, has has as big of an impact on the craft as this one. Written in 1902, this book helped revolutionise and form close up card magic as we know it today. Despite being written over 100 years ago, the material contained within is still extremely relevant, I am always going back to this book to extract more insight.
It is without question that this book is required study for every magician, some may disagree however I can say with certainty that this book has had one of the biggest impacts on my work ever, as did it for Dai Vernon, Charlie Miller and every other expert to exist in the realm of magic.
You are about to go on a historical journey back to the 1900's and study the mysterious figure we know as Erdnase, not to mention discover great techniques along the way. Enjoy!
If you want to study The Expert in proper detail, I highly recommend the Annotated Erdnase by Darwin Ortiz which can be found HERE and Revelation by Dai Vernon which can be found HERE. These books will allow you to extract more insight from the classic text than you thought was possible!
