Reddit Reddit reviews The Royal Road to Card Magic

We found 25 Reddit comments about The Royal Road to Card Magic. Here are the top ones, ranked by their Reddit score.

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The Royal Road to Card Magic
Dover Publications
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25 Reddit comments about The Royal Road to Card Magic:

u/benjerryicecream · 15 pointsr/LearnUselessTalents

Magician here. Head on over to the sidebar at /r/Magic - there's plenty of information on exactly where to start.

For my money, there's no better place to start than a cheap book. For card magic, look to "The Royal Road to Card Magic". For coins, grab "Modern Coin Magic". For general magic, pick up either Mark Wilson's Complete Course or Joshua Jay's Complete Course.

None of those books should run you more than fifteen bucks. Grab a copy and just read it until you get bored.

Also, please, don't ever learn magic on youtube. The thing that's hard for those new to magic to understand is that it is a craft that has been worked on for thousands of years. Every secret, every beautiful piece of magic ever invented has been based on the work of others, which couldn't have existed if it weren't for the work of others even before them. Every secret, as minute as you can imagine, deserves to be shared with the express permission of the person who put in the hours, days, and years of work it took to discover that secret. YouTube magic schools rarely give proper credit, and truthfully, they rarely teach a magic trick very well at all. You can also never be truly sure that a YouTube magician is worth their salt, whereas you can see--from the fact that these books are decades old yet still being heralded as some of the best magic books out there--that we magicians think they are worth reading.

Bottom line: youtube will teach you secrets. A good magic book, like the ones I recommended, will teach you how to be a magician.

u/chilehead · 10 pointsr/MMFB

Stop focusing on what you don't have and can't do. That's like the kid learning to ride a bike and can't stop staring at the telephone pole in the sidewalk: he keeps staring at it and he keeps steering straight into it.

Put some focus on the things you can accomplish and can acquire: You can make yourself stronger, and it's not the thing that will take you 4 hours a day (4 hours would make it faster, but it's not necessary). 25 pushups four times a day will take you no more than 5 minutes total and costs you zero, yet after a month or so will start showing you some visible results. Swimming takes a bit more time a day, but has more pronounced results on your physique. Bike riding is pretty much free once you have a bike. The girls calling you ugly is at least half kids just being kids and doing what they can to hurt other kids - adults don't do that sort of thing very often even when it is true. Get yourself into better shape and they'll probably start changing their tune.

Good grades will only cost you the effort you put into it, and will pay off tremendously in the future: college grants and the like come far easier to the guys who have great grades and learn how to apply for them.

Get yourself a hobby that is interesting and teaches you something - this will make you interesting to others and give you things to talk about. You can research it online at the library or get books on the subject. Astronomy will give you some perspective, learning to perform magic tricks will help you entertain people (The Royal Road to Card Magic is an excellent book to start with, and can be bought used for less than $2 plus shipping), balloon animals will help you get along with kids.

Get a part-time job. If you can afford to take a girl to dinner and a movie, they'll not be inclined to turn their nose up at you. Also, if you work in the food industry (McDonalds, pizza, fine dining, whatever) you can get meals free and might be able to take some food home - your family having to pay for less meals will help their situation and perhaps generate some upward momentum.

Also, cut your soda pop intake by at least %50. For most Americans, soda makes up about 60% of their calorie intake and is horrible for your teeth. Rotting teeth are very expensive to fix and very avoidable. Plus, making yourself look good is a lot easier if you're not overweight.

Get in the habit of walking around with a good, upright posture. Whenever you can, force yourself to smile at least 10 times an hour - this has been shown to actually affect your mood regardless of whether you had a good reason to smile, plus folks take a much more positive view of people who seem happy.

At least once a day pay someone a sincere compliment - don't just make something up, find something about them or something they've done that you can honestly say something good about. Also, once a day try to do something, anything, to help someone out or make their job a little easier: people that see you do stuff like that will look up to you for it, and the people you help will try to pay you back for being a good Joe.

Also, don't even try to date girls that primarily pay attention to your wallet - unless you enjoy watching them have sex with your wallet instead of you.

u/MrDactyl · 7 pointsr/Magic

This Book. Find one used. Work through it slowly. Page by page. Read every trick in it. Find your favorites and master them. A few tricks done really well are better than thousands done poorly.

u/dforderp · 5 pointsr/Magic

Sleight of hand with coins

Sleight of Hand

Sleight of Hand with Cards


Edit: there's my 3 suggestions that I've had great experience with. These are 3 staples in any magic collection in my opinion.


Ok! I need to clarify one thing. These books are very old. Don't get discouraged at the fact that the vernacular can be somewhat confusing. If you take the time to look up any words that might be hard to understand and just work trough the text, you will find timeless effects that you'll be able to show off for years to come! Don't dismiss a move because it seems so simple!

u/zfa · 5 pointsr/Magic

Well you've not given your level of skill or experience so it's hard to give a recommendation...

Assuming that you're not that advanced I'd just recommend grabbing a copy of The Royal Road To Card Magic and picking stuff from the chapters that suits. It's a bit of a dated read but the material is good and it's incredibly cheap.

u/CuriousShef · 4 pointsr/Magic

Color Change Tutorial
I think you have to create an account for this one.

Royal Road to Card Magic

u/classiccriminal5805 · 4 pointsr/CasualConversation

Learning how to do magic might be something to look into. It can get expensive, but if you're smart about it and you're willing to put in a good amount of work it can be pretty cheap. Get a deck of bicycles ($2-3) and The Royal Road to Card Magic (≈$10) and start working. That's an older book and a lot of modern beginners ignore it, but it has great information.

The biggest problem with learning magic as cheaply as possible is that you have to learn primarily from books. It's not a massive problem, but it can get really confusing when someone is trying to describe a slight without any real demonstration. I can list some other pros/cons if you're interested. It's a fantastic hobby and it'll help build creativity and dexterity.

u/antoniodiavolo · 3 pointsr/ChrisRamsay52

Then I recommend picking up the books "Royal Road to Card Magic", "Modern Coin Magic", and "Mark Wilson's Complete Course in Magic"

As for YouTube, there's a lot of bad magic tutorials on YouTube. So be careful of who you watch.

Besides Chris, I would recommend watching Alex Pandrea, 52Kards, and SankeyMagic.

PigCake is a pretty good teacher as well but he can be sort of crude sometimes so that's up to you.

Xavior Spade also has good stuff but he also teaches a lot of advanced card moves.

u/dtgreat · 3 pointsr/Magic

Local Magic shop will usually show you what they are selling and recommend some good starter material.

I started out with Royal Road then I moved onto whatever seemed interesting.

A lot of the stuff seems a lot harder than it is, and presentation is really key. That book with some gimmick coin sets will get you rolling.

For coin stuff there is no better start than Bobo's Book.

Your mileage will vary depending on how much you practice. I usually practice flourishes on the subway, and some simple moves there too. Luckily I have a job with long stretches of down time so I am always practicing there too.

u/JamesHaven75 · 3 pointsr/playingcards

Brilliant. To learn card magic, I'd recommend the books Royal Road to Card Magic and or Card College by Robert Giobbi (VOLUME 1) . If you can afford it go for the DVD set Royal Road To Card Magic by R. Paul Wilson (does not include the book). Both the Royal Road and Card College are essential for starting out with card magic. Some of the venacular may seem dated, if in doubt look up the moves on youtube, but study the books first, please do not rely on youtube for this

u/pushkar000 · 2 pointsr/Magic

I'm replying quite late, but I don't think you want to gift him bicycle decks. He's probably already got enough of those and would continue getting more. I think it wouldn't be special to him. He would really appreciate some fancier decks as a gift. Please take a look at www.theory11.com or www.ellusionist.com for some decks. Most of them are $10 so a fair bit more expensive than the regular bicycles. www.artofplay.com has some wonderful ones as well, broader range of prices. Multiple copies of whichever deck you select would be worth it, because he would never use a fancy deck if he had just one.

Its also worth checking with him on which books he has already. Royal Road is very popular and he might already have a copy.

An example gift I would set up, priced at around $30(not including shipping costs) :

3x Aviator Heritage Edition (Art of Play) [$21]

OR

2x Knights Playing Cards (Ellusionist) [$20]

+

1x Royal Road to Card Magic (Amazon US store) [$11]

u/Garretdepass · 1 pointr/Magic

Royal Road to Card Magic - http://amzn.com/0486408434

And a fresh deck of Bicycle cards (fancy decks are expensive and make people suspicious) - http://amzn.com/B010F6BXEA

I'd also recommend Modern Coin Magic - http://amzn.com/0486242587

If a coin book sounds good, get four kennedy half dollars (or similar sized coins if you're not in the states) from the bank, just ask a teller.

Reading books is way better than watching youtube, as most trick tutorials are by people who don't actually have a lot of experience or knowledge. If you read books, you also develop your own style instead of parroting whoever is on the video. Start with those two books, then practice a lot in front of a mirror. Think about presentation too- what will you say? When? Why? (a great resource, if you're interested, is Strong magic - http://amzn.com/B00534I956) Once you feel fairly confident, perform the trick(s) as often as you can for as many people as you can. At school, at home, on the street, wherever. Stick with it and do it a lot and you'll get the hang of it.

Break a leg!

u/acromion_pr0cess · 1 pointr/kratom

Card magic. It will easily take up hours and hours. It's also cool as hell!

You can get a couple decks of good cards for less than $5, and you can get a copy of a good book on card magic for less than $10. I'd suggest starting with The Royal Road to Card Magic. It is pretty much THE intro text to card magic. You can probably find a pdf of the book floating around on the web somewhere. It's worth paying for, though. Plenty of used copies for less than $5 here.

u/RustedMagic · 1 pointr/AskReddit

Sleight of hand.

Week's challenge: Post a video of yourself performing a trick selected from the

Royal Road to Card Magic

Good luck!

u/archaic_entity · 1 pointr/casualiama

I'd recommend getting it. Also get Royal Road to Card Magic. Hugard and Braue make card magic incredibly available in that book. If you wanna do coin stuff, David Roth's Expert Coin Magic is also amazing, but you could probably find it cheaper than that listing.

u/Yobgal · 1 pointr/Magic

Instead of $10 for one effect, spend $10 to get this book that's loaded with great stuff or this book that's a little more advanced - and also loaded with great info. Or spend $30 to get this book that takes you step by step through a lot of basics, or this one that's a little more advanced. If you just really want to avoid books, try this DVD. But, really, books are going to give you the most bang for your buck by a lot. Give books a shot. Your local library might even have some good stuff for free. DVDs would be the next obvious step, since you're paying $25 for 9 powerful effects taught by a master. Even with tax and shipping, that's under $4 each. When you're looking at stuff that's $10 for a download for stuff that's generally unproven, you're usually wasting money.

Also, check the thread in the sidebar. There are a lot of good references in there.

u/Silversleights04 · 1 pointr/CasualConversation

First of all, that's great! I'm always happy to meet someone who wants to give magic a start! Don't worry about being good at it yet, it's a very involved performance art, but once you know the core fundamentals (misdirection, audience management, sleight of hand, banterful patter) it's super easy to get into.

If you want to know how I personally started seeking out magic to learn, it was around age 12 with a book called Now You See It, Now You Don't by Bill Tarr. That was my first book on sleight of hand and it covers a multitude of moves and sleights with various objects like coins, cards, and balls. I studied that book like it was a holy text and learned every move, though I didn't quite know how routines worked yet and I wasn't especially charismatic at the time. Not to sound dramatic, but that book had a huge impact on my life and very much shaped the person I would become. I still have that same copy on my shelf. After that it was the Royal Road to Card Magic for my first real introduction to card magic and card routines, but that was a much denser book. It wasn't until a bit later that I discovered online magic stores and downloadable instructional videos. They were so accessible and easy to diget, my desire to learn skyrocketed.

The first I found was penguinmagic.com when I was maybe 13? It's still my gold standard for online magic shopping; my first purchase was Sponge by Jay Noblezada, game changing magic for a kid. From there I graduated to coin magic routines from In the Beginning There Were Coins (also Jay). I recommend sponge or coin magic to start if you want an easy introduction to the principles and fundamentals of sleight of hand.

After that, just before starting high school, I found ellusionist.com and the "leather coat" magicians like Brad Christian and Justin Miller (they've since become more hipsterish, and still a great resource). They were edgy, cool, and influenced my personal style an unfortunate amount... I wore a lot of black and gray back then.

Just before high school I stumbled onto theory11.com, which had more of an artful feel to it, but it's there that I found out about Daniel Madison's Dangerous video. His card magic shaped my performance style in a huge way. He was so laid back and casual about his massive skill. I got really into gambling sleights and card control and manipulation around that time. Cards became almost my exclusive medium for years after that.

I'm 27 now and I'm more into organic magic that fits in one pocket, so less cards and more coins, rubber bands, and mentalism. I use a lot of different resources and it's mostly advanced stuff, I love the challenge of complex sleights though! Those books, those sites and those names guided me into the world of magic.

You can find some other great starting resources on the r/Magic subreddit they have a pretty comprehensive list. There are also a ton of free materials in the public domain available through libraries, google, youtube, tons of effects and fun routines you can learn quickly and easily. If you ever have any questions, need some direction, or just want to chat about where to start, I'm happy to help!

Do you have a type of magic or magician you especially enjoy?

u/gregantic · 1 pointr/Magic

If you want specifically card magic, This book on Amazon is the Dover edition and highly recommended.

For DVD, get the one by R. Paul Wilson, titled 'Royal Road To Card Magic by R. Paul Wilson'.

If you want a more general magic kit, get Joshua Jay’s The Complete Magician Kit.

u/R3w1 · 1 pointr/cardmagic

Here's some beginner tricks that I learned from YouTube when I first started:

Biddle Trick

Don't know what its called but the title says "Slop"

Three Card Monte this one is a bit more difficult. Make sure you practice this so you don't flash a card!

For novinces, these tricks are all fine and good, but you should really get proficient at sleights. I can't recommend The Royal Road to Card Magic (and its on sale right now!

The Royal Road is what I used (along with Complete Card Magic with Gerry Griffin and a Royal Road Deluxe Edition that they've stopped producing ^(you can still find dvd's on it but not the specific one I have). However, the book is better than both of these, although they are good for reference should you get stuck or confused on a part). The royal road is very very good. A good investment and teacher

u/GarrMateys · 1 pointr/IWantToLearn

Almost every card trick is a combination of a few basic sleight of hand maneuvers. Here's a decent intro, i think. I just checked it out quickly, but it looks like he talks about the basics. Buy the Royal Road if you really want to learn, it's old, but it's a total classic.

u/ArBair · 1 pointr/IWantToLearn

Okay, couldn't find my box, but I managed to dreg up what I remember as far as books go.

This book is a good start for coin magic and sleight of hand in general. Be warned though, the coins you will need for this might be slightly hard to find (silver dollars, half dollars) but is worth it. For whatever reason people think that the bigger the coin, the harder it is to work magic with it. This is false. The bigger the easier and the better looking.

This book is a good start for card magic. Sometimes it is a bit hard to understand (as all books are) but this is pretty simple and will give you some good pointers.

This book is my all time favorite. More card magic, but more advanced than the previous one.

And lastly this book which gives some good tricks, teaches some good things. Much of it is based on props and stage magic, and much of it isn't. A good read.

And lastly some advice: if possible find someone who knows how and is already practiced. That makes it MUCH easier. And stick with it. Once you learn something you never unlearn it. I have not practiced in near 5 years and I can still pick up a deck of cards and mess with them. Learn a few versatile tricks and learn some flourishes. The tricks can fascinate, and the flourishes look pretty, but only when used together does it really blow people's minds.

u/essie · 1 pointr/Magic

It really depends on your skill level.

If you're more of a beginner, The Royal Road to Card Magic (mentioned elsewhere on this page) is a great introduction to the subject.

Card College is another great resource. This five-book series provides much more in-depth information on all aspects of sleight of hand, and as such is valuable regardless of whether you're a beginner or an advanced card handler.

Finally, if you already have a little skill, Expert Card Technique is a fantastic resource with tons of great tricks that will fit your criteria.

Hope that helps!

u/TheClouse · 1 pointr/magictricks

How old is he?

  1. Get him Joshua Jay's Complete Course in Magic. It's super easy to read, has great photos, and covers card magic, coin magic, stage illusions, and tons of other stuff. Joshua also has this book for kids.

  2. Royal Road to Card Magic is a book that starts with cuts and shuffles then progresses to card magic in the manner most helpful for building skill.

    Also get him several decks so he can tear them up practicing.

    Bicycle is the most universal brand. 808 Rider backs are the most common. So if he practices with those then he'll be great if someone hands him a deck at a party.

    They're sold in "bricks' of 12 for cheap (compared to $3.50 a deck at Walmart).


    So for like $40 you can start him on an amazing journey.