Seems like one way to do the trick would be the following: Choose some pre-determined sequence of the cards and memorize it. Buy 52 decks of cards, and put them all in that same sequence, but shifted by various offsets, ranging from 0 to 51. Then hide all the decks in various places. Now when someone names a card and a number, you just need to figure out which deck is shifted by the right amount to put that card in that position and point them to the corresponding deck.<p>Anyone see any obvious flaws in this approach?
Some random but perhaps interesting things to know about this trick from my perspective as a magician. I made my full-time living as a performing magician in my 20s for several years including touring until I got into tech which paid better (even though I made good money for a magician). Since then magic has been a hobby. Like many things, it can be a better hobby than profession.<p>* Many magicians really enjoy ACAAN type tricks, however that doesn't mean it's a "good" trick from the perspective of non-magicians. Magicians find it fascinating because there's a huge variety of methods to achieve the effect. Some of these methods are extremely technical and some require very high proficiency in arcane card sleights. There are even entire books about different ways to achieve this one effect. At magic conferences there are occasionally seminar tracks with sessions just on ACAAN presented by various experts.<p>* From a non-magicians perspective, all the different methods will look essentially the same. A worse problem is that ACAAN fundamentally doesn't have a very engaging plot. It's basically a puzzle or challenge-style effect where nothing happens except watching someone turn over cards. Done well, it appears the magician didn't even <i>do</i> anything.<p>* The effects audiences love most are rarely the effects magicians love most and that goes both for watching them and performing them. A couple years ago I was in a closed teaching session for experienced magicians given by brilliant Spanish card technician Dani D'Ortiz. Dani did an ACAAN that absolutely <i>smoked</i> everyone in the room. It's really, really rare for an experienced magician to see any effect and not know how it's done (and usually 17 other ways it <i>could</i> be done as as the various trade-offs between them). At the end of the effect you could see the magicians making eye-contact with their friends with a raised eyebrow, and the answer being a subtle shake of the head. I did the same. I had no idea.<p>* However, that doesn't mean you would think what Dani did was a good trick. Dani carefully crafted that version of ACAAN just for fellow magicians. In all likelihood he doesn't even perform it for non-magicians because, thankfully, he's <i>also</i> a great entertainer and he knows it's not all that entertaining (though Dani could probably make watch code compile seem entertaining). What made it spectacular to magicians was that Dani structured the effect in such a way that all the typical methods for achieving it were apparently eliminated. Thus, he did something new, or at least did something old in a new way. And to magicians that's interesting. For a hardcore ACAAN-geek, adding one more way of achieving the effect to their existing mental inventory of dozens of other ways is one of the most interesting things in the world.<p>* On the TV show "Fool Us" featuring Penn & Teller, the magicians that 'win' haven't actually fooled the hosts (Teller is actually the magic historian more than Penn). Teller certainly knows several methods to achieve every effect ever presented on the show. The "winners" are the ones who craft their effect in such a way that it's hard for an expert observer to infer <i>which</i> method was used (and they may insert intentional red herrings). If Teller infers the incorrect method, then they technically "win", even though <i>any</i> of the possible methods would fool a non-magician equally well. There are other times the contest wins where P&T are just being generous and giving the win to a performer because the effect was creatively reimagined or just beautifully executed.