The Expert at the Card Table

The lights are dimmed, a piano is tinkling in the background and a gentleman sits in a well-cut waistcoat reading a book beside a green card table. The gentleman is the conjuror Guy Hollingworth and the book is none other than the century-old bible of card tricks and cheating techniques, The Expert at the Card Table by S.W. Erdnase.

Affable Hollingworth takes us back to the turn of the last century and the events surrounding the writing of this book. The tale of the mysterious author and his friend, Milton Andrews, is one of twists and turns involving trickery, friendship, suicide, murder, deception – and more trickery.

The story itself is gripping, the masterfully-performed card tricks that accompany it are stunning, and the explanations are fascinating. It is easy to imagine performing some of these as a party trick, until the realisation hits that they involve such feats as memorising the colour order of an entire pack of cards in just a few seconds. Understanding the sleights of hand behind the tricks makes marvelling at the power of the trickster’s brain and skill just as enjoyable as marvelling at the magic.

Also demonstrated is 'The Reformation', one trick Erdnase did not know as Hollingworth himself invented it. In front of the audience's eyes a card, signed by a spectator, is torn into quarters and then reassembled piece by piece. The whole, perfectly restored card is then passed around audience members to inspect. Magic, surely?