Many people believe the change was invented by Canadian close-up magician Jay Sankey. Others argue that it is an Ed Marlo idea, and yet another group of vocal magicians insist that Noel Stanton first published the move as the Pivot Color Change. So who’s right?

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Jay Sankey is responsible for popularising the colour change and giving it a more sensible name, but Ed Marlo developed the actual technique. Jon Racherbaumer published it in 1983 (see M-U-M, Vol. 73, No. 2, page 16). Marlo gave it the snappy title “In Lieu Of The Thru-the Fist Flourish” (I can understand why Sankey opted to shorten it). Marlo initially intended it to be used as a way to secretly turn over a packet of cards, either during a magical gesture or when placing the cards into dealing position.

In the write-up, Racherbaumer cites Noel Stanton’s Pivot Color Change as the inspiration for the move (see page 43 of The Gen, Vol. 20, No. 1) . Noel’s change uses the same general motion, but the card is held in a vertical position, not a horizontal one, making it more suitable when performing for larger groups. Stanton mentions that his change is based on one by Bob Hummer, published on page 53 of Dai Vernon’s Inner Secrets of Card Magic by Lewis Ganson.

In the video below, Ekaterina performs what is, essentially, Noel Stanton’s Pivot Color Change. However, Noel held the card with his palm facing his audience, resulting in a more natural grip. The get-ready for this handling is more challenging because you have to rotate the card into position with your left thumb as you raise your hand to chest height (assuming the cards are held in left-hand dealer’s grip to begin with). While the mechanics aren’t difficult, there is a greater risk that you’ll accidentally flash the back-to-back configuration of the cards, either when getting into position to perform the change or after the transformation, when attempting to clean up (ditching the original card on the top of the deck).

Ekaterina is teaching Marlo’s handling, which is far more practical in most close-up situations because it makes the clean-up very easy indeed. It is especially good when you find yourself surrounded, because you’d need to lie on the floor to discover how the change works! You must also watch out for young children, though, who, due to their height, may well notice the extra hidden card and then announce its presence to the world, much to your chagrin!

In my opinion, the original vertical handling, as devised by Noel, is far more elegant than Marlo’s and happens right next to your face. This makes it a good choice when performing for a larger group in a parlour-style situation (with your entire audience in front of you).

I’d encourage you to experiment with and practice both handlings. It is also possible to turn this into a double colour change by picking up a triple instead of a double. Briefly perform the Pivot Color Change as usual, and then immediately follow it with a Double Turnover; this enables the second change to happen in the hands of your participant.

The biggest mistake I see magicians make when performing this colour change is shaking the card too vigorously or for too long. Yes, you need a larger action to hide the smaller one, but the transformation is far more magical-looking when you attempt to minimise the shaking action. Depending on the size of your hands and the length of your fingers, you might also need to experiment with different grips and positions to make the change work well for you. This Twirl Change variation, using an unusual grip performed by Ben Seidman, is particularly beautiful, as is all of Ben’s magic.

In summary, The Twirl Change is an application of Ed Marlo’s In Lieu Of The Thru-the-Fist Flourish, which was inspired by Noel Stanton’s Pivot Color Change, which itself was based on Bob Hummer’s Visual Change. So now you know where this wonderful move originated!

Yours Magically,

Marty

P.S. Alex Boyer has some interesting touches on this sleight in the tutorial video below.

Here’s another tutorial for the Twirl Change by Will Jones and Ellusionist. Will shares some helpful tips to make the colour change more deceptive. He also explains a simple routine that uses the change.

Finally, you can purchase a digital copy of The Gen from Lybrary. com for $99. I think it is well worth this modest investment.

No one is entirely sure where this very popular card trick originated. However, we know that it dates back to at least the seventeenth century, making it over four hundred years old! The first known description of a card trick using the same Redistribution Principle, done with fifteen playing cards, appeared in Horatio Galasso’s Giochi di carte bellissimi di regola, e di memoria (1593), which translates into English as “Most Beautiful Card Games Based on Rules and Memory Techniques”. The title of the trick translates as “How to have someone think of a card and guess what it is”.2

Galasso’s book is very rare. There are only two confirmed copies; one held in the Leber collection in the Bibliothèque municipal de Rouen and the other in a private collection. There was a copy in the British Library, but it was destroyed during the Second World War. There might also be a copy of the book in the National Library of France.3 Thankfully, the book was reprinted and translated into English by Lori Pieper in Gibecière Vol. 2, No. 2 (Summer 2007), published by the Conjuring Arts Research Center.

A description of The Twenty-One Card Trick can also be found in Problèmes plaisans et delectable, qui se font par les nombres by Claude Gaspar Bachet (1612), pages 87-90, “Probleme XVI. De plusieurs cartes disposees en divers rangs deviner laquelle on aura pensé”.4

In his book Mathematical Recreations and Essays (1892), Walter William Rouse Ball, the famous English mathematician, mentions that “Several of Bachet’s problems are taken from the writings of Alcuin [735-804], Pacioli di Burgo [1445-1510], Tartaglia [1499-1557], and Cardan [1501-1576], and possibly some of them are of oriental origin...” 5

Likewise, in the English translation of Recreations Mathématiques by Hendrik van Etten6—another early source of the Twenty-One Card Trick—the author states that many of the items were collected from “…the writings of Socrates [469-399 B.C.E.], Plato [429-347 B.C.E.], Aristotle [384-322 B.C.E.], Demosthenes [384-322 B.C.E.], Pythagoras [570-490 B.C.E.]…” Therefore, one of the thirty-plus ancient Greek philosophers listed in the book may have discovered the mathematical principle behind The Twenty-One Card Trick.

It is also probable that the underlying principle of The Twenty-One Card Trick was first used with other objects, such as scraps or paper or coins, before the invention of playing cards. For example, we know that a very similar principle was used in a peculiar interactive Italian magic book called Laberinto7 by Venetian nobleman Andrea Ghisi. The book, first published in 1607, uses a well-disguised system of redistribution to discover, through three questions, which figure a person is thinking of. It is composed of twenty-one tables, one for each letter of the Italian alphabet, spread over two pages. Every table shows the same sixty figures mixed in different ways and subdivided into four groups, each containing fifteen images.

Italian magician Mariano Tomatis has painstakingly created an interactive web version of Laberinto so that you can experience the magic yourself. A few years later, in 1617, Horatio Galasso, the author of Most Beautiful Card Games Based on Rules and Memory Techniques, produced a similar mind-reading book called A devotione del signore.

The Conjuring Arts Research Center has produced a faithful facsimile of the book that is still widely available. You can see Bill Kalush demonstrate the magical properties of the book in the video below:

In summary, The Twenty-One Card Trick is likely one of the oldest card tricks in the world, and it's possible that it originated in Italy, using fifteen cards, not twenty-one. It seems reasonable to assume that someone took that idea and increased the number of cards to twenty-one, so it is logical to assume that The Twenty-One Card Trick perhaps originated in Italy soon after the appearance of playing cards. Many historians believe that playing cards arrived in Europe from the East via the ports of Italy.

In addition, the mathematical principle behind the trick, known as the Redistribution Principle, may have its roots in ancient Greece during the classical period, but it could also have originated in the East.

Therefore, at this point in time, the most accurate thing we can say is that the trick is of Italian, Greek or Oriental origin! Unfortunately, it looks like the identity of the individual who first combined the Redistribution Principle with twenty-one playing cards is lost to history. Unless a new manuscript is discovered, we will never know the true origin of The Twenty-One Card Trick.

Yours Magically,

Marty

If this article has made you curious about The Twenty-One Card Trick, you can learn more about how and why it works, as well as some fun variations of the plot, by reading the following article:

During the trick, the back of a freely-selected card changes colour from blue to red. The red-backed card is set aside. The magician offers to repeat the trick. Another card is selected and lost in the pack. However, a second red-back card fails to appear. The magician looks perplexed. He then turns the red-backed card face up. It has transformed into the second selection!

This very popular card trick is usually credited to either Frank Everhart, Jim Ryan, Frank Garcia or some guy on YouTube—all of these attributions are wrong!

So, who actually invented this trick, and why does it go by so many different names? Keep reading to find out.

The World’s Best Card Trick

Many magicians on YouTube only know this trick as “The World's Best Card Trick” or “The World’s Greatest Card Trick” and make no mention of the Windy City or good-looking ladies. But why? 

In 2006, during the early days of YouTube, a person using the username ultradeepbase1 uploaded a no-frills performance of the trick to the site. Back then, there was no algorithm controlling the appearance of content. Instead, featured videos were chosen by staff working at YouTube, and for some reason, this video was selected to appear on the YouTube homepage. This may have also been the first video labelled “Best Card Trick In The World”. For this reason, it quickly generated over one million views.

To date, the video has been watched more than twenty million times! While the performance is mediocre at best, its popularity speaks to the innate appeal of the plot. Unfortunately, the anonymous performer made some odd choices (the camera angle, for example) and seems to think that the name of an Islamic militant group is the new abracadabra! Another quick web search reveals that a few YouTube magicians are oblivious to the actual meaning of this word and have started calling it “The Hezbollah Card Trick”. Luckily, these people are in the minority; most users now refer to it as “The World’s Best Card Trick”. Well, at least that’s what the kid in the tutorial video called it. Man, what a mess! And it’s all YouTube’s fault—or is it?

It turns out that magicians have a long history of needlessly renaming tricks, and if you think this effect is called “Chicago Opener” or “Red Hot Mama”, then you’re just as wrong as the hoards of headless magicians on YouTube! The worrying thing about this practice is that magicians, even knowledgeable ones, start to credit the invention of the trick to the wrong person (for example, Xavier Spade incorrectly credits Lynn Searles in one of his YouTube videos!).

The Trick With Too Many Names

The actual inventor of the trick is a man named Al Leech. Al was a journalist and a passionate amateur magician. He worked for the United Press offices in Chicago and later for Newsweek Magazine, whose editorial offices were located in New York. This brought Al into contact with top-flight magicians like Dai Vernon, Harry Lorayne and Frank Garcia.

Al taught the trick to his friend Jim Ryan. However, Jim’s presentation was a lot cheekier than Al’s. First, Jim would walk up to a woman and ask her to select a card that was returned to the pack. Next, he would ask her to tap the pack with her finger. Then, in his mischievous Irish accent, he would say, “Do you know what happens when a red-hot mama does that?” 

Jim then taught the trick to magic bartender Frank Everhart. Frank had great success with the trick, so much so that it became one of his signature pieces. Al’s trick became very popular in the Chicago magic scene thanks to Frank. However, relatively few magicians outside the Windy City knew of the trick’s existence.

In 1956, Walter B. Gibson—a prolific writer who wrote many stories for the popular pulp magazine The Shadow—published the trick as “Red and Blue Fantasy” in his book What’s New in Magic2.

A few more years pass by. Then, in 1964, Harry Loryne shared his handling of the plot, “Color Quickie”, in a slim manuscript called Personal Secrets3. (Harry is a magician, memory expert and a well-respected author on both mnemonics and close-up card magic.)

About twenty years after the trick was invented, it received a further boost in popularity when it was published, without credit, in Million Dollar Card Secrets by Frank Garcia4, known as “the man with the million-dollar hands”.

As a result, the trick is given a new name, “Chicago Opener”, and a different ending (both duplicate cards are openly displayed at the conclusion of the effect). Frank renamed the trick “Chicago Opener” because he’d seen Frank Everhart use it as the opening trick in his famous bar magic act. Here’s what Frank Garcia says about the trick in his book:

“This is one of my favorite openers. I learned this many years ago in Chicago. It is a strong effect and one that always leaves the audience bewitched and bewildered. The action is fast, and it will establish you as a great card manipulator.”

Another handling, closer to the original, was later published by Frank in Super Subtle Card Miracles5.

Following this, in 1980, Jim Ryan’s handling of the trick was published in Jim Ryan Close-Up: Entertaining Card Quickies by Phil Willmarth6. The trick is renamed “Red Hot Mama” in the book, but thankfully, correctly credited to Al Leech.

Interestingly, Jim’s name for the trick may have been inspired by the 1934  Fleischer Studios Betty Boop animated short, Red Hot Mamma. This cartoon was banned in the United Kingdom because it depicted Hell in a humorous manner, something that was deemed blasphemous. First, Betty gives some demons the cold shoulder, freezing them into blocks of ice. She then gives the Devil a cold, hard stare, doing the same to him. Finally, she literally makes the whole of Hell freeze over! It’s a classic cartoon and well worth a watch.

So, which name is correct? Well, the answer is none of these! Surprisingly, Al didn’t name the trick “Red Hot Mama” or “Chicago Opener”. Instead, he called it “The Hot Card Trick” and published it in an undated manuscript called The Hot Card Trick No. 1 in 1950 (or thereabouts). So, strictly speaking, “Chicago Opener” and “Chicago Style” are minor variations of “The Hot Card Trick” that Frank Garcia saw fit to publish (without permission, I should add). Likewise, “Red Hot Mama” is Jim Ryan’s personal presentation of the plot (the method is the same as the one used by Al Leech).

Why all this misinformation? Although he didn’t create the trick, Frank Everhart is responsible for making it a favourite amongst magicians. (As well as making “Chicago Opener” popular, Frank Everhart was also responsible for a renewed interest in the storytelling trick “Sam the Bellhop”.) As already mentioned, when the trick was published in 1972, it was renamed “Chicago Opener” by Garcia because Everhart used it as the opening effect in his famous bar magic act.

In 1973, when the effect was again published in Super Subtle Card Miracles under the title “Chicago Style”, Frank Everhart was wrongly given credit for the routine. This mistake explains much of the confusion surrounding the origin of this famous trick. No credit is given to Al Leech in any of Frank Garcia’s books. Most close-up magicians in Chicago were aware of the trick’s origin. Ed Marlo, for example, always referred to it as the “Leech Trick”. For this reason, it seems highly unlikely that Frank was unaware of the provenance of the trick. He either purposely didn't credit Al Leech or didn’t bother to find out where the trick came from. Either way, there is no good excuse for this kind of behaviour.

Furthermore, this misunderstanding was reinforced when Daryl credited the trick to Everhart on his Card Revelations7 VHS tapes. Michael Ammar also helped to popularise Jim Ryan’s handling when he taught “Red Hot Mama” on the first volume of his Easy to Master Card Miracles8 series of VHS tapes. Michael mentions on the tape that when he asked Frank Everhart for permission to include the trick on the project, Frank told him that Jim Ryan taught him the trick. Michael then mentions that “some historians trace the routine back to Al Leech.” Even though Michael Ammar got the crediting correct, the way he mentioned all three magicians without clearly identifying Al Leech as the trick inventor likely caused more confusion. Nevertheless, crediting issues aside, both Daryl and Michael perform and explain the trick extremely well. By the mid-90s, due to this confusion, Al’s name had become disconnected from the trick. 

In summary, the trick commonly known as “Chicago Opener” or “Red Hot Mama” is actually Alfred B. Leech’s signature effect called “The Hot Card Trick”. Thanks for sharing such a great trick with us, Al!