Re:Magnus Carlsen Repeats at World Chess Championship
by gyom on Monday November 24, 2014 @02:07PM
(#8654043)
That's kind of a cool approach. As long as you can "salvage" the trick, then nobody needs to know about the failed portion.
One of my friends had a card trick that involved me selecting a card. Before starting the trick, he jokingly picked a card at random from the deck, and asked me if that was my card. He had 1/52 chances of being right, but it would have been an insane trick if it had worked.
He guessed wrong (naturally), shrugged and went on with the actual trick as though the first attempt was just a joke, to be forgotten because an actual trick was about to take place.
I actually don't think this is true. As I understand it, a given routine will have a number of high-risk tricks that may work, say, only 1-in-3 times. If they do work, they're highly effective, precisely because they're so implausible, and if they don't work you can just pretend it's a bluff and move onto plan B. It's all about effective showmanship and managing expectations.
(Disclaimer: not a magician!)