Derren Brown's Card Memory

[mex]

sword me too, hypnosis is largley usless in poker though, the mind is too focused.

any one intrested in hypnosis and memory look for books by ormand mcgill.

Derrin said that poker is about deception and calcuation,the problem being finding the proportion in which an individual uses them.

Most of the street stuff he does people want to be amazed, this makes it easier to do.

I do like the way he shows his failures too ( about 1 in 10 won't work)

[Swordpoker]

sword me too, hypnosis is largley usless in poker though, the mind is too focused.

Even when using it on yourself?
The mind is too focused? Milton Erickson would have a word or two to say about that.

I'm a Neuro-Linguistic Programmer really but it's always a mouthful explaining that so I usually just say I do hypnosis and stuff. My main use of NLP with poker is looking for tells. I put myself in a state of mind to help figure out peoples emotions - is he excited or is he scared? Often the two look very similar. It also helps me to hide my own emotions (or give off false ones). Sometimes it even works!

[Sark79]

I bought NLP forDummies

[jammer]

He did reply in the end but turned them down. He told them he was a rubbish poker player.

Indeed. On the DVD commentary of his first series, he mentions how he used to be a card counter, and made about £35,000 from blackjack in a couple of years before the casinos banned him. Just about everyone says to him 'you should play poker - you'd be brilliant' but he says that he's just never been any good at it - he doesn't know why.

Because he's a magician.

Its not really psychological tricks that he performs, or power of the mind - its all just magicians circle stuff.

Derren Brown is incredible because he manages to convince the audience he's not doing magic tricks (he's written books on the importance of this) and that something else is at work. genius.

He's a very clever guy. But just a magician, not far removed from paul daniels in content, but light years away in terms of style.

[Sark79]

But Paul Daniels does have the ability to pull women 30 years younger than himself.  That is a talent. 

[HarlemShuffle]

But Paul Daniels does have the ability to pull women 30 years younger than himself.  That is a talent. 

If David Blain did that he would have to be locked up. Then we'd see how good he is at escaping from places!

[Pokerron]

Its not really psychological tricks that he performs, or power of the mind - its all just magicians circle stuff.

Every week, Derren Brown says by way of an introduction, "This show fuses magic, suggestion, psychology, misdirection and showmanship."

My favourite DB 'bit' was when he simultaneously played chess with nine of Britain's leading chess masters by using nothing more magical than his excellent memory.  If I remember correctly (my memories not as good as his) he beat 6, lost 1 and drew 2, despite being a novice chess player.

[jammer]

Its not really psychological tricks that he performs, or power of the mind - its all just magicians circle stuff.

Every week, Derren Brown says by way of an introduction, "This show fuses magic, suggestion, psychology, misdirection and showmanship."

My favourite DB 'bit' was when he simultaneously played chess with nine of Britain's leading chess masters by using nothing more magical than his excellent memory.  If I remember correctly (my memories not as good as his) he beat 6, lost 1 and drew 2, despite being a novice chess player.

sure but its a magic trick right? He plays them against each other I think... my memory is also not top banana

[smithy69]

THE WAY HE DID THAT WAS AMAZING

he basically played the players against themselves, he mirrored the moves one player used against him, then moved onto the next table and used the exact same move on his opponent. This meant that he would win 4 and lose 4.

He picked the weakest player and actually beat him fair and square, hence winning 5-4

i think thats how he did it!!!!!!!!!

[shimmy]

My favourite DB 'bit' was when he simultaneously played chess with nine of Britain's leading chess masters by using nothing more magical than his excellent memory.  If I remember correctly (my memories not as good as his) he beat 6, lost 1 and drew 2, despite being a novice chess player.

He effectively played them against each other by copying their moves in all but one of the games (so scored exactly 50% against these players). He played one 'real' game against the only weak player in the group and managed to win (Derren is actually a reasonable - by most people's standards - chess player). I'm a strong chess player myself, have spoken to some of the guys on the show about this and they all of course knew what was going on after only a few moves. The really impressive bit was at the end of the show where he produced a pre-prepared envelope containing information about the positions on the boards at the end of the games, the opinion is about this is that an envelope swap must have been engineered at some stage, it is simply impossible to do!

I like the guy though, he is always entertaining imo!

[AndrewT]

Of course, at heart, Derren is just a magician. But he came along at exactly the right time.

In this era of Derren Brown, David Blaine and the Monkey Magic boys, it's easy to forget that magic just about totally disappeared from British TV screens for years (with the exception of one short-lived BBC2 programme with Jerry Sadowitz and John Lenehan (and also Penn and Teller, though they were more anti-magicians by this point)). Then we saw David Blaine doing his street magic in the car commercial. This was something we hadn't seen before - a magician doing tricks right out in the street with no TV camera tricks (or so we thought at the time). That was his USP (that and also his background - no doubt he suffered the same 'Tiger Woods of pasttime X' press that Phil Ivey puts up with).

Just when we were tiring of David's po-faced seriousness, along came Derren Brown, doing Jedi mind tricks. He was different. There were no cards, or coins - he was seemingly free of the cliches of other magicians we'd seen before. He was funny. He was also one of us - a Brit. Of course, he was essentially just doing magic tricks, but he dressed them up very well. For example, the 'memorising a book' trick he did at the British Library was a new twist on a classic trick that Chan Canasta did on Parkinson back in the 1970s.

He helped bring magic into the 21st century, just as David Blaine wants to be the 21st century's Houdini.

[Sark79]

But Paul Daniels does have the ability to pull women 30 years younger than himself.  That is a talent. 

If David Blain did that he would have to be locked up. Then we'd see how good he is at escaping from places!

lol.   Wasn't he going to do a chains escape in the Themes in London?

[jammer]

Of course, at heart, Derren is just a magician. But he came along at exactly the right time.

In this era of Derren Brown, David Blaine and the Monkey Magic boys, it's easy to forget that magic just about totally disappeared from British TV screens for years (with the exception of one short-lived BBC2 programme with Jerry Sadowitz and John Lenehan (and also Penn and Teller, though they were more anti-magicians by this point)).

I bloody loved that Jerry Sadowitz show. He was shit hot too.

IIRC Derren Brown talks about a time he was pretending to read people's phone numbers by looking at their reactions to his questions. He actually had a guy upstairs with a phone book talking to him through an earpiece. But then he picks manages to pick someone who was ex-directory, and so obviously made a pigs ear of it. But the act of cocking it up, convinced people even more that the others he were "reading" were for real and it actually improved the overall effect. As I said, he's a clever guy.

[Swordpoker]

I know this very cool 'hypnotic' magician called John Vincent. He does a trick involving an imaginary pack of cards. He offers the 'cards' and the person pretends to take one. The person then vividly imagines the card and John tells them what card it is.

This was driving me nuts trying to figure out how he does it. I figured that he must be installing a card by suggestion - somehow telling them what card to think of. So i put him to the test. I thought up a card before going to speak to him. That way he would do the trick with me but couldn't install a card in my mind as I'd already chosen it - sneaky huh?

So I went up to him, told  him how much I liked the trick and would he show it to me. His reply was 'seven of diamonds'. I was gob smacked! That's exactly the card I had in mind and he hadn't even asked me to pick a card. Also, I hadn't told anyone of my intentions and there is no 'normal' way that he could have known my card. He just knew what I was thinking of. Was it really a trick? Yes, of course it was but it was also a skill. No microphones or any other gadgetry could have helped him.

He kept his secret safe of course, but he did teach me some other stuff which I'm looking for volunteers to practise on. If anyone's interested, give me a shout.