What Happened at the Meeting on Friday 15th May 2026

The theme of the night was "Card Tricks with a Borrowed Deck" hosted by Al Hirschel.

Al borrowed a deck and started us off with three effects, the first of which I'm going to call the "two card coincidence". Telling a story about how coincidences are actually more common than you think, Al has two cards selected from the pack. After some shuffling and rearrangement, their pairs of the same suit and spot value are revealed randomly at the top and bottom of the deck. Keeping with the story theme, Al has a card selected and then discusses depth charges for submarine hunting during World War II. The cards are dealt into four piles, which are then narrowed down with various submarine, sonar and radar themed criteria. The final card left, which receives the depth charge, is the correct one! Sublime! To finish, Al performed a sequence effect with four aces, four knaves, four hearts, four bears, four spades, four diamonds and four queens. The story goes that four knaves are marooned on an island. The cards are dealt into various piles before a storm comes and mixes all of them thoroughly. Despite this, when dealt at the end, everything is magically and neatly ordered in piles.

David Blunden also performed three effects. The first trick has a selected card returned to the middle of the pack. The deck is spread out and sure enough, the selected card is face up... or is it? It's the wrong card! Magic works in funny ways and with a little counting based on the spot value of the upturned card we come to the correct one. The kicker is that all of the cards in the middle that were counted out are all aces. Sticking with the aces theme, David performed a Mark Wilson classic, placing an upturned selected card in between the two red aces. With a little magic, the upturned card disappears and reappears in the middle of the pack, but this time, face down between the two black upturned aces! With assistance from Raquel, David finished with a spelling routine. Raquel picked a card, returned it, and then confirmed that the deck was a genuine borrowed one. Raquel spelled out a random card, dealt out letter by letter, and sure enough that card appears. Next she spells out her chosen card and it is revealed in exactly the right spot also!

Noel demonstrated a playing card that played like a harmonica, before sharing several card flourishes. His first card trick told the story of four diamond thieves and a famous investigator. Despite finding the four thieves (The four aces), time and time again the guarding constables lose sight of them. The aces, despite being put into piles with a number of regular cards, consistently disappear and appear in their own pile. Perplexing stuff! Noel also performed a detailed ambitious card routine with a story about people we may all know who are consistently ambitious. A card placed into the middle of the deck rises to the top, even after being placed back into the middle, near the top or right at the bottom. This 'ambitous card' was unstoppable - No matter the method used, it kept coming back to the top. Even after splitting the deck into two separate piles, it still gets to the top of a separate packet. Finally, the deck was reduced to just a small packet of three. Even in this restricted set, the ambitious card is always on top.

Raquel showed what she called an eyesight test with help from Dianne. She dealt four cards, each time ending with a king. These were clearly dealt onto the table so that everyone could see that each fourth card was a king. Two piles are removed, leaving us with two piles, each of which should have only one king. Raquel clearly moves just one regular card from one pile to the other and just one king in the opposite direction. Now, suddenly, all four kings are together on one pile and the other pile just has the regular cards! For her second trick, Raquel has seven cards chosen and Dianne picks one. Dianne is then asked to spell out any card of her choice from the pack, with one card dealt for each letter. After this, a decision is made on whether to spell out truth or lie. With the cards dealt accordingly, the correct card is revealed on the last letter!

Ben, a new visitor to the club, wowed us with some fast and dextrous routines. First he spells out cards quickly, revealing the five of spades from the top of the deck, as predicted. Next, a chosen card is placed back into the deck. With a few shuffles, this card is returned to the top of the pack... or is it? No, it's the five of spades again! This is attempted three more times with various shuffles, but each time, it's the five of spades revealed. It's the ambitious card all over again! In the end, it turns out that the chosen card was sitting face down on the table all along. For the next effect, Neil freely chooses the seven of diamonds. Two jacks are dealt onto the table and then lost into the deck. Within moments, the chosen card is found and revealed right between those same two jacks. During the following fast trick, a queen is randomly chosen. With only a few deft cuts, all four queens are found and revealed rapidly. For his final baffling routine, Ben has Noel pick a card before covering it with his hand on the chair, it can't go anywhere. The four queens are going to find Noel's card, although only three of them are face up, what's the face down one? It's the chosen card! So what's under Noel's hand? Of course, in the reveal we find out that it is the missing queen. Royally entertaining.

Warden was up next with a lightning fast trick. Raquel picks a card freely and yet Warden knows what it is immediately. Following this, the card is inserted randomly back into the pack and fanned out. Sure enough, it is the only one facing up in the fan. In his final effect, Warden deals four piles of four cards onto the table. He cuts the pack multiple times, he rearranges the pack, he goes through a number of steps to show that they could not hold the same order, and yet, upon dealing again, all cards remain in their respective piles. This is in keeping with one of the emerging themes for the night, which surely was "piles of four all arranged in order"!

David Whitson was the last performer, starting out with an explanation of the different shuffles, including classics like the the hindu shuffle, Australian specifics like the ASIO shuffle and of course the universal political reshuffle. He also demonstrated a "playing card" that plays a tune like a flute, similar to Noel's harmonica. To conclude the night, David presented a story using jumbo cards. This detailed story, called the Adventure of Diamond Jack, uses every single card in the deck and is packed full of puns. Jack was an Ace in the war, not flush, but went on a date with a redhead Queen and her sister. Unfortunately he was King hit and wound up in the hospital. The story has a happy ending though, with a marriage, two of a kind and of course two hearts as one. Happily shuffled together ever after!

A great night of card tricks, dexterity, trickery and at least three crimes against probability. No rabbits were harmed, but several decks are now emotionally unavailable.