Giobbi, Roberto: Card College Light
©1988 (German), 2006 1st English Edition.
Hardcover, 177 pages

Comments (Lybrary.com): "This is by far the best ebook on self-working card tricks. From the author of Card College, the world's most acclaimed course on sleight-of-hand card magic, comes Card College Light, Roberto Giobbi's first text focused entirely on professional caliber card tricks requiring no manipulative skill...Card College Light is in a class apart from other ebooks that focus on sleightless card tricks. When it comes to artistic considerations—interpretation, staging, communication and psychology—other books seldom even recognize such concepts. Card College Light strives to remain as simple as possible, yet to identify concepts and to open doors that put sleightless tricks into the context of artistic and utterly baffling card magic. Although other ebooks consider the same type of material, their approaches to it are quite different from Giobbi's...Giobbi brings his widely respected talents as both teacher and full-time performer to bear on the topic of learning and performing sleightless card magic, giving the reader all the tools necessary for a professional-quality performance. The tricks he has selected range from time-tested classics to little-known modern miracles by world masters, and are taught with a thoroughness that includes psychology, presentations, scripts and invaluable performance tips."

Contents:

The Presentation of Sleightless Card Tricks

1 Routine 1
3 T.N.T. The magician reveals two cards chosen in a way that would seem to make this utterly impossible.
9 Intuition. Through the power of intuition, two spectators are able to separate the shuffled deck into red and black cards.
14 The Telephone Trick. The performer’s medium is called and is able to discern over the telephone the card freely selected from a shuffled deck.

19 Routine 2
21 Thot Echo. Someone selects two cards under the fairest conditions, and the magician succeeds in finding them.
27 Royal Flush. Ten cards randomly chosen by a spectator are thoroughly shuffled by him and then dealt into two poker hands. The magician’s hand is shown to be a royal flush!
35 The Waiwiki Shuffle. A subconsciously controlled swing of a pendulum reveals to the performer the identity of a chosen card.

39 Routine 3
43 Fingertip Sensitivity. The magician guesses the actions a person performs with a packet of cards under the table.
49 Muscle Reading. Someone chooses any card, then shuffles it thoroughly into the deck. Thanks to the magician’s ability to read this person’s unconscious muscle impulses, he is able to successfully find the card.
57 The Lie Detector. Someone notes a card and shuffles it back into the deck. She next takes seven indifferent cards, keeps them hidden and calls their names to the magician; but for one of the indifferent cards she calls the name of the card she selected. Because the magician possesses the sensitivity of a lie detector, he is able, unbelievable as it may seem, to discover the woman’s card!

63 Routine 4
67 The Circus Card Trick. After the audience has become convinced that the performer has failed to find a selected card, he manages to save the situation in a surprising and amusing way.
76 The Fingerprint. A freely chosen card is replaced in the deck by the spectator, under the strictest conditions. In spite of this, the magician is able to find the card by means of the “fingerprints” left on it!
81 Magical Match. The magician twice determines, in an inexplicable manner, the exact number of cards the spectator has cut from the deck.

87 Routine 5
93 Cards Never Lie! Someone selects a card and shuffles it back into the deck. The magician asks three questions about the card, and his subject either lies or tells the truth. Nevertheless, the performer is able not only to ascertain the chosen card, but he also immediately produces the other three cards of the same value!
100 Digital Dexterity. A chosen card is shuffled back into the deck by the person who selected it, and the deck is placed into the magician’s pocket. With seemingly unbelievable dexterity, he is able to fish the chosen card out of the deck!
104 Think Stop! Someone freely selects a card, then shuffles it back into the deck. Nevertheless, the magician is able to find the card through that person’s silent thought-command alone.

105 Routine 6
111 Card Caper. Two spectators each select a card from a deck that they shuffle themselves. They further shuffle their cards back into the deck. Nevertheless, the magician is able to find both spectators’ cards in an astonishing manner.
118 In the Hands. Someone from the audience shuffles a deck of cards and remembers two of them, which he himself loses back into the deck. In spite of these impossible conditions, the magician is able to locate both noted cards.
122 Back to the Future. The magician transports himself into the future, memorizes what happens there, returns to the past, and then predicts the occurrence in the present: a confusing story with a clear effect.

127 Routine 7
129 Manto. The magician writes a prediction and places it inside the card case, which a spectator guards. An audience member and the performer mix the cards face up into face down, throwing the deck into a chaotic condition. Nonetheless, the prediction states how many cards lie face up and how many of those are black and how many red!
136 Vernon’s Miracle. The magician finds a card selected under the fairest conceivable conditions.
141 That Is the Question. The magician asks no questions, yet he answers them while guessing and finding a freely and fairly thought-of card.

145 Afterword A list of recommended books on card magic.
147 Notes Further background on the tricks.