Top row is Clubs, Diamonds and Spades
Second Row is a Joker.
I'm still working on values.
Deck ID
- Thread starter leecreighton
- Start date
Top row is Clubs, Diamonds and Spades
Second Row is a Joker.
I'm still working on values.
Amazing. You even got the Joker!
What can I send for numbers: several in a row from the same suit?
The number system is a bit archaic. I know the first one is a King. I think the second one is a Queen and the third is an Ace.
Hmmm. As Meatloaf says, three out of four ain't bad.
Can you post the back of a 3, 5, 6, 9 and Queen?
Can you post the back of a 3, 5, 6, 9 and Queen?
Are the cuts on the side of the red cards straight or slanted like a stripper deck cut?
Not sure why I didn't do this before, but here are all the pictures from the 38 effects. The directions are on a strangely shaped type of tissue paper, and these drawings are tiny. Most tricks have no picture at all. None have two pictures, so these should not be taken in order, as if they show a relation in series.
Two do show the narrowing of the cards we now know about.
Two do show the narrowing of the cards we now know about.
Attachments
As requested, all of clubs.
Attachments
To me, it looks like the dots inside the circle change size with each one. On the right side of the octopus ("above' the big curvy tentacle). One dot is always bigger than the others.
The Queen has the First dot (top one) in the 1st column from the left, the 9 has the 2nd, the 6 has the 3rd, and the 3 has the 4th (bottom one). The 5 has the 3rd dot in the 2nd column. I think it's this:
There are 3 columns, the first 2 have 4 dots and the last one has 5. The bottom dots, from left to right are "3 2 1". You go up that column counting by 3s. So if you were to write out the column, they would look like this (Jack is 11, Queen is 12, King is 13, Ace is 1)
________ K
Q___ J___10
9___ 8___ 7
6___ 5___ 4
3___ 2___A
Try it out, or lemme know if you don't get what I mean.
Wait, I just realized the card and the back in one pic wont match up. What are the values of the face down cards?
Unless I’ve made a mistake, the face up cards (from another poker-sized sticky-as-hell Bee deck) correspond to the back in the picture. Hard to take a picture of both sides at once. Which one is troubling?
RealityOne figures most of this out using four cards, and even when I tried to throw him off by quizzing him with a Joker, he got it. And you, sir, have completed the picture of the markings.
Now if we only knew why the red cards are shorter and less wide than the black cards, in a non-stripper deck, we’ll have beaten this deck.
BTW, I don’t know what standard-sizes Chinese cards come in, but these are a bit smaller than US bridge sized cards. I’ll have to figure how to work this into a routine. “I got these cards off an AirChina flight from an old man with a beard and two glass eyes...”
RealityOne figures most of this out using four cards, and even when I tried to throw him off by quizzing him with a Joker, he got it. And you, sir, have completed the picture of the markings.
Now if we only knew why the red cards are shorter and less wide than the black cards, in a non-stripper deck, we’ll have beaten this deck.
BTW, I don’t know what standard-sizes Chinese cards come in, but these are a bit smaller than US bridge sized cards. I’ll have to figure how to work this into a routine. “I got these cards off an AirChina flight from an old man with a beard and two glass eyes...”
Ah ok. So then yeah, that's the way the numerical system is marked (the way I said above).
Check one thing: Are both the sides short, or are the corners short? Line up one card behind the other , lined up at the bottom and the right, then take a picture and see.
The shortening doesn’t show up in a photo. However, if tou’ll Look two messages absolve the pictures of the cards, you’ll see in the pictures taken from the directions that the red cards are shorter than the black ones in both directions.
Now to figure out what tricks are intended for this deck. The Chinese directions have 38.
Now to figure out what tricks are intended for this deck. The Chinese directions have 38.
@Maaz Hasan , you are correct, except for the King
K_________
Q___ J___10
9___ 8___ 7
6___ 5___ 4
3___ 2___A
For the suit, it is the inner most set of dots to the left of the Octopus. The first from the bottom is irrelevant, the second is Spades, third is Clubs, fourth is Hearts and Fifth is Diamonds:
D
H
S
C
Irrelevant
The face down card with the back that doesn't fit the system is the Joker. Notice it is the only one without a suit.
My sense is that allows you to utilize the short card principle regardless of whether you use a riffle or Hindu shuffle. Essentially, combining a short-side short and a long-side short.
The diagrams appear to show how to do a double lift with a short card (much easier than a regular double) and to change the card for the double. It also seems to show how to do a backflip force.
To re-cap, we have a one-way, marked deck where the cards are alternated with regular black cards and dual side short red cards.
If you get Encyclopedia of Card Tricks, there are sections with effects using short cards and one-way decks. Additionally, there is a section on Svengali decks which may give you some ideas how to use this (showing all red and all black is just the beginning). There is a great book called Hidden in Plain sight by Kirk Charles that deals with using marked cards.
The deck can be riffle or Hindu shuffled without disturbing the pairs. You can pair the cards like an invisible deck to have an alternate way of determining what the selected card is. You can also pair the cards with their mates (AD with AS) and use effects for a Mene-Tekel deck (also in Encyclopedia of Card Tricks). You also can arrange the cards in a stack like Si Stebbins (also in Encyclopedia of Card Tricks). If you have Card College Light, there is a great Out of this World effect in there that you can get into from this set-up.
To re-cap, we have a one-way, marked deck where the cards are alternated with regular black cards and dual side short red cards.
If you get Encyclopedia of Card Tricks, there are sections with effects using short cards and one-way decks. Additionally, there is a section on Svengali decks which may give you some ideas how to use this (showing all red and all black is just the beginning). There is a great book called Hidden in Plain sight by Kirk Charles that deals with using marked cards.
The deck can be riffle or Hindu shuffled without disturbing the pairs. You can pair the cards like an invisible deck to have an alternate way of determining what the selected card is. You can also pair the cards with their mates (AD with AS) and use effects for a Mene-Tekel deck (also in Encyclopedia of Card Tricks). You also can arrange the cards in a stack like Si Stebbins (also in Encyclopedia of Card Tricks). If you have Card College Light, there is a great Out of this World effect in there that you can get into from this set-up.
Wow, dude, you did yeoman’s work on this deck. Tons of what you did wouldn’t have occurred to me at all. What a great job figuring it out.
I’ve had a few parts of the directions sent to a Chinese friend-of-a-friend, so we’ll at least know what the deck box says and what the major paragraph at the beginning says.
Did you see the picture from the directions that I posted that had the octopus on it? Of course I can’t read the Chinese, but since they use Arabic numbers like us, I saw something below the picture that maybe is the explanation of the markings. I’ll try and sort it out, but it has something occurring in pairs and threes.
I’ll keep you posted on the translation.
I’ve had a few parts of the directions sent to a Chinese friend-of-a-friend, so we’ll at least know what the deck box says and what the major paragraph at the beginning says.
Did you see the picture from the directions that I posted that had the octopus on it? Of course I can’t read the Chinese, but since they use Arabic numbers like us, I saw something below the picture that maybe is the explanation of the markings. I’ll try and sort it out, but it has something occurring in pairs and threes.
I’ll keep you posted on the translation.
Hi Guys,
Here are translations of some parts of the deck: The front of the box (with the magician on it), the side of the box (which had four phrases on it), the opening paragraph, and a random trick.
What's interesting to me: When I used an iPhone app to translate the Chinese to English (via a picture and OCR) I kept getting the word "Poker". I figured that's just poor machine translation, but I notice in these translations (Which are okay, but clearly not a strong English speaker) the word "Poker" shows up a lot. So this may be a poler deck.
I think there are directions on how to deal any card to a person that they choose during a game. Maybe.
Anyway, if you're still interested in this deck, this might be the last part. If any of you know poker sleights using shortened & marked cards, maybe I can go from there.
Here are translations of some parts of the deck: The front of the box (with the magician on it), the side of the box (which had four phrases on it), the opening paragraph, and a random trick.
What's interesting to me: When I used an iPhone app to translate the Chinese to English (via a picture and OCR) I kept getting the word "Poker". I figured that's just poor machine translation, but I notice in these translations (Which are okay, but clearly not a strong English speaker) the word "Poker" shows up a lot. So this may be a poler deck.
I think there are directions on how to deal any card to a person that they choose during a game. Maybe.
Anyway, if you're still interested in this deck, this might be the last part. If any of you know poker sleights using shortened & marked cards, maybe I can go from there.
Attachments
Interesting, the reference to the cards being trapazoidal indicates that it may also serve as a stripper deck. I think that what you thought was a long side short card was actually a stripped card. If the original set-up was to have the red and black cards paired so that the one way design is going different ways, that appears to be intended so that you could strip out all of the red cards. Check by holding the cards with the back going the same way and with the back going a different way.
I did check if it was a stripper deck. I turned a card around and tried to get a finger break under it, cut to it, slide it out (like a Hindu shuffle, but hoping to grab one card) and none of that worked.
With the card reversed, you can see that the deck looks a little odd, like the pattern of the short-long-short-long might have a problem. Stripping down it it doesn’t let me feel anything. Just a vague sort of look.
Turns out what I’m seeing is when a card is “wrong way” in the order I have then in. When alternating red-black-red-black, the cards need to reverse their direction in order for me to see the short parts as being a little recessed. When the up-down-up-down pattern is disturbed, looking from the side, you can see that something looks out of place, but that’s not enough to base a trick on.
Maybe if I had all red cards in some sort of packet with a single black card, I’d be able to find it.