James Randi is the founder of the James Randi Educational Foundation (JREF). Randi began his career as a magician, but when he retired at age 60, he switched to investigating[…]
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Close-up card magic by the master.
Question: Would you perform a feat of conjuring?
rn
rnJames Randi: I’m a bit of rnan amateur at shuffling cards. Ho, ho, ho. But when a deck is as rnthoroughly mixed up as this one is, many people think that there’ll be arn red, black, red, black. I’m not talking about suits, now just the rncolor, you see. Red, black, but it doesn’t happen that way. For rnexample here, we’ve got three reds; we don’t need the joker in there.
rn
rnJames Randi: Yes. And we’ve got oh, there’s another three reds. rn No, this is pretty good, the colors – I’m just looking at the colors rnnow. The colors are pretty well mixed in here other than here’s anotherrn joker that we won’t use in there. All right. Now. What I’m going to rndo is, first of all. We suspect that the colors would be pretty well rnsorted, or alternated all the way through the deck. But I’m going to rnshow you something rather remarkable. Here we have a well shuffled rndeck, very well shuffled deck. And I want you to come over here and rnjust give me your hand, if you’d be so kind. Step over and join me on rnthe set. Okay? Now just hold, like that with the palm up, a little rncloser—I see you have a rich future. Yes, well in any case. I want yourn to hold half of the cards for me, would you please. And I’ll hold the rnother half. And I’m going to show you something rather remarkable. rnLook at this.
rn
rnWhen I turn the back over, watch this. One black card on the top and rnthen all of the rest of them red. Every last one. Wow! And taking a rnlook. Hold those for me, please. One black card on the top just to rndisguise it, but in this case, each and every one of them black.
Recorded April 16, 2010
Interviewed by Austin Allen
rn
rnJames Randi: I’m a bit of rnan amateur at shuffling cards. Ho, ho, ho. But when a deck is as rnthoroughly mixed up as this one is, many people think that there’ll be arn red, black, red, black. I’m not talking about suits, now just the rncolor, you see. Red, black, but it doesn’t happen that way. For rnexample here, we’ve got three reds; we don’t need the joker in there.
rn
rnJames Randi: Yes. And we’ve got oh, there’s another three reds. rn No, this is pretty good, the colors – I’m just looking at the colors rnnow. The colors are pretty well mixed in here other than here’s anotherrn joker that we won’t use in there. All right. Now. What I’m going to rndo is, first of all. We suspect that the colors would be pretty well rnsorted, or alternated all the way through the deck. But I’m going to rnshow you something rather remarkable. Here we have a well shuffled rndeck, very well shuffled deck. And I want you to come over here and rnjust give me your hand, if you’d be so kind. Step over and join me on rnthe set. Okay? Now just hold, like that with the palm up, a little rncloser—I see you have a rich future. Yes, well in any case. I want yourn to hold half of the cards for me, would you please. And I’ll hold the rnother half. And I’m going to show you something rather remarkable. rnLook at this.
rn
rnWhen I turn the back over, watch this. One black card on the top and rnthen all of the rest of them red. Every last one. Wow! And taking a rnlook. Hold those for me, please. One black card on the top just to rndisguise it, but in this case, each and every one of them black.
Recorded April 16, 2010
Interviewed by Austin Allen
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