My mother made one" and start the trick again either straight away or perhaps a little later. I would mumble some excuse, probably saying "We all make mistakes. I would have handy an extra deck all set up in case of emergency. I think I know what I would do though if I were doing this trick on a regular basis and needed to protect myself from my own inevitable incompetence. Alfred probably has the best solution in that you make sure you don't screw it up in the first place. But how would you get out of trouble if you screw it up as I would be very likely to do? There is nothing in the Hopkins book to help you as far as I am aware. I just can't be bothered with the inconvenience that's all. I have never done Sam the Bellhop and probably never will as I work impromptu and can't be bothered setting up full decks although I am not against it either. However, I started this post by musing that this particular trick is an awkward one. People like you to be human -not perfect. Except Sam the Bellhop of course!Īlan Alan once said to me, "You are looking for the outs before the trick has even gone wrong!" Some magicians try to be too perfect and I have always regarded that as a mistake in itself. This gives you an out for just about every situation. Part of my secret has always been a marvellous little book called "Outs, Precautions and Challenges" by Charles Hopkins. There are so many ways of getting out of trouble particularly with cards. Besides most of the time nobody knows you have screwed up anyway. And it helps with sucker tricks since they have seen you screw up in the past and as a result are more likely to believe you have merely believe you have screwed up again. In fact it is often an asset because it lowers the natural resentment of people when they watch magicians. However, in 90% of cases it doesn't make the blindest bit of difference. That is an awkward one isn't it? I get all sorts of tricks wrong probably about 30% of the time and always have. 60) and that you are certain you can pull off here and there during the routine. But it can still be an entertaining piece with some safe but convincing false cuts that are within your technical ability (e.g. Very few people on the planet (if any) are going to be able to do it like Bill does.
If you are doing false shuffles and/or cuts in the routine, they have to be perfect otherwise, you would be better off doing it without. This is truly a case of an ounce of prevention being worth a pound of cure. There is no reason for having a card(s) in the wrong place. Since the entire deck needs to be set up ahead of time, just double and triple check the order before presenting the routine. If you have a card in the wrong place, depending on where it is, it could have repercussions beyond just one mistake and mess you up beyond recovery. "Also, if you perform Sam the Bellhop, how do you cover an occasional goof, like one card in the wrong place?"