The Anti-Faro

C reated by C h ristia n E n g b l o m , D e s c r ib e d by R ichard K a u fm a n

V ery rarely do I come across a sleight that I cannot, at the very

least, stumble through successfully. With all the books I have
written, all the tricks and sleights (thousands!?), it has always been
important to me to be able to execute the sleight or routine in order
to write it properly: knowing how it “feels” is vital. Here is a revolu­
tionary sleight that has been whispered about in the underground
for several years, that I cannot do. Not only that, I have no idea how
or why it works. Neither does its creator, Christian Engblom. In
fact, no one seems to understand its mechanics, yet a number of
magicians have learned to do it! Interesting.
Unlike the Reverse Faro, a cumbersome sequence where you alter­
nately out and injog cards as you spread through the deck, The Anti-
Faro is a single action and can be done in an instant with the entire Hold your palm-up left hand a few inches below and in front
deck. The Reverse Faro is a dreary and time consuming business that of your right hand (fig.3). Your hands are much closer than they
is therefore usually relegated to tricks where only a packet is required. would normally be if you were springing the cards as a flourish.
Michael Weber, for example, was able to learn The Anti-Faro in
about an hour after having it described to him (and without having
seen it). It is an acquired “knack,” and about 50% of the time I can
get many of the cards to jog properly. Some of you will be able to
learn it quickly, while others will never get the knack.
Christian Engblom: “I first developed this in the fall of 1994. I
developed The Anti-Faro by accident while working on a very dif­
ferent move. One day while springing the cards from hand to hand
I just noticed that afterward almost every other card was jogged. It
wasn’t perfect— about half the deck was properly jogged. I thought
it would be great if I could do it with the entire deck. It was just a
knack. I drove my wife crazy. After two years of sitting in front of
the TV and listening to the sound of cards springing from hand to
hand she announced that she would divorce me if I didn’t stop prac­
ticing in front of the TV. I stopped!”
Here is the technique, which amounts to no more, really, than Your left palm is not directly upward: it is tilted about 30
springing the cards from hand to hand. My job is to explain to you, degrees to the right. The deck is held at an identical tilt, parallel with
as clearly as I can, how Christian does this in a way that results in the left palm, the top tilted about 30 degrees to the right.
causing every other card to jog. The right hand bends the deck in preparation for the spring,
Begin by alternating the cards face up and face down, making bringing the thumb and fingers closer together. Give the cards a
it easier to keep track of things when you’re learning. A Faro Shuffle good squeeze (fig.4).
is, of course, the easiest way to do this. Hold the deck in your right This is where it happens— in the release: Allow the cards to
hand in Biddle Grip (fig.l). While Christian keeps his first finger spring off your right fingertips and shoot into your left hand (fig. 5).
curled lightly on top, you may also keep it beside your second fin­ Here are a few vital points:
ger at the outer end of the deck. Just a bit of the tips of your thumb, 1. The cards should be aimed so they land on the pinky side of
second, third, and little fingers extend below the deck (fig.2 is an the heel of the left hand. This gives them plenty of room to slide for­
exposed view from beneath). ward, toward the left first finger, once they land. (If you shoot them
toward the first finger, which is the common handling when spring­ Anti-Faro, you will develop your own methods to correct mistakes.
ing a deck, they will square against the finger, defeating your goal.) Christian explains, “When doing The Anti-Faro there will be mis­
2. The cards may be curled when they leave the deck, but they takes in it— a good Anti-Faro will have only one or two mistakes
straighten quickly. Each card should be almost flat and glide onto near the top or bottom, and these are easy to correct. Mistakes in the
your left palm like a plane landing. center are extremely difficult to correct, and if this happens I will
3. Do not allow the cards to square! Every other card will be square the deck and do another Anti-Faro. The second one will usu­
injogged, though the amount will differ. Once all the cards have ally produce a better result.”
landed things look extremely messy and it is not in the least bit obvi­ One obvious question would be why didn’t someone discover
ous that any sort of control is occurring. this years ago. One possible answer has to do with the changes in the
4. If you’ve tried to spring cards from hand to hand for a while, finish on playing cards that occurred in the 1990s. U.S. Playing
you know that there are two ways to do it: hard and soft. The hard cards eliminated their long-standing linen finish and adopted the
touch involves bending the deck more and has a very noisy slick plastic finish used by the Arrco Playing Card Co. (which had
riffle/release. The soft touch involves bending the deck less and has been purchased by U.S. Playing Cards). One clue that this might be
a softer “rustling” sound as the cards are released. The odd thing the case: Christian relates that The Anti-Faro cannot be performed
about the Anti-Faro is that it seems to combine elements o f each', the with Spanish playing cards made by Fornier. These, I believe, have a
deck is bent quite a bit prior to the release (fig.4), yet the sound it linen finish.
makes is the “rustling” associated with the soft release. You may feel that you have read this explanation and under­
5. You might be tempted to think, as I did at first, that the cards stood nothing other than how to spring the cards from hand to
jog alternately only when they land in the left hand. In other words,
that the separation takes place in the “catch” rather than the
“release.” This is most definitely not true. Christian can separate his
7
hands by a foot or so, and when he springs the cards you can see
them separating as they fly through the air. I was able to confirm
that the alternating jog is caused by the manner in which the cards
spring off the right thumb and fingers by watching the videotape I
shot of Christian performing The Anti-Faro in slow motion.
As the spring ends, bring your right hand down onto the top of
the deck, your second and third fingers pressing the cards firmly in
place (fig.6).
Curl your left first finger beneath the deck, then straighten it,
raising the deck to the left fingertips (fig.7). This allows your left
thumb and fingers to square the sides of the deck, while your right
thumb and fingers lightly square the ends (fig. 8). What you want to
do is bring the two groups of cards into alignment without disturb­
ing the jogged position of every other card.
It must be said that The Anti-Faro is not perfect. It absolutely
does not work 100% of the time. None of the magicians who’ve
learned and use it, including Christian Engblom, Paul Wilson, and
Michael Weber, can do it perfectly every time. Far from it. Paul
Wilson has, however, created an effect that does not require a per­
fect Anti-Faro and I’ll explain this sometime in the next few months.
Christian Engblom has a complicated system of “corrections” to
compensate for errors in his Anti-Faro, but I will not explain these
because there are dozens and dozens of them and all, I feel, are fair­
ly exclusive to the way he handles cards. I f yon can learn to do The
hand. That’s how it seems to me! That’s what the Anti-Faro is, but
with some additional finesse to produce a result that, at this writing,
defies further explanation.
Let’s conclude with a few more comments by Christian:
“Rhythm is very important in order to execute The Anti-Faro ...
The Human Scale
i i ^ ^ h e first paying job I had was as a stock boy in
A Klein’s grocery store on the North side o f Chicago.
That was over 5 0 years ago and in those days staple items
like sugar and rice were not pre-packaged in small bags,
but arrived in hundred-pound bulk sacks. These sacks
were opened and one o f the employees then measured
their contents into one-pound and five-pound bags. Thisjob fell to me.
“I recall one time when Mr. Klein came byju st as I had complet­
ed my weighing task with the rice but I had notyet sealed the bags. He
held one bag, which he had weighed on the meat scale, in his left hand
and then picked up another bag in his right. He became what he called
a human balance scale. He could determine with unerring accuracy if
each o f the bags I had filled were lighter or heavier than the one he had
weighed, and would add or remove small amounts to a bag when he
thought it was necessary.
“After he had left, I checked a few bags on the scale by the meat
counter. He was right on the mark every time.
“Another one o f his astounding talents was his ability to estimate the
amount o f small change handed to him without looking at it. He did this
by taking a handful o f coinsfrom the cash register in his empty hand and
once again he made himselfinto a human scale. Somehow by the sense o f
balance, he could determine exactly the number o f quarters, nickels, dimes,
and pennies the person had given him.
“How did he do this? I asked him but his answer was, ‘in life there
are some skills which can be learned but cannot be taught. ’
“Tonight I will try to demonstrate what Mr. Klein did, but let me
make it quite clear that I am in no way his equal. I rarely get it dead
right! But you should get a better appreciation o f what he could do. ” A
woman is invited to come forward: “What’syour name?”
“Madeline!”
“Willyou please help me Madeline?” She is guided to stand next
to the performer. “What do you do with your loose change? I drop mine
into a plastic container each night and, when it gets nearly full, I treat
someone to a surprise. Generally I save quarters, but once in a while other
coins get in among them. ” The performer introduces a clear plastic
container which is about one third full of coins. As he patters, he
reaches in and removes a handful, allowing them to cascade back.
“Willyou help me Madeline? Reach into the container, close your
eyes and grab a good handful o f coins. Go ahead. ” She does so. “Take
a few more. "She does.
Assume she is happy. The performer then reaches into the con­
tainer and takes a handful in his right hand and transfers the coins
to his left hand. He pauses in thought, repeats the action and takes
some more coins from the bucket.
“Please put your hands together and shake the coins like this. ” He
puts his right hand over his left and shakes the coins thoughtfully, as
though listening to the different sounds they make. Then, leaving
The best thing I can tell you is to do it with a fairly good deck of
cards. Maybe one deck in 200 will be the kind of deck that really
works great, where you get only one mistake or no mistakes most of
the time ... If I were going to do something like this in a trick for
laymen I would use a Stripper Deck!”
From My
Thoughts
Barrie Richardson
them in his left hand, he extends his right hand toward the assistant
and asks her to place her coins in his hand.
With eyes shut, he extends both his arms in simulation of a bal­
ance scale. The left hand is slightly lower, so he drops a few coins,
one at a time, on the table where each lands with a “clink” as it falls
into a metal cookie tin. After several coins have been dropped, the
performer’s arms are level. Apparently satisfied, he returns the right
hand’s contents to the assistant.
“I think I now have exactly the same number o f coins as you have.
Not only that, I also believe I have precisely the same number o f quar­
ters, dimes, nickels, and pennies as you have! Let’s see how well I ’ve done.
Please open your hand!” The performer sorts through his own coins
and announces, “I have two pennies here! How many do you have?”
The spectator counts hers, “Two!” They both drop their coins
into the cookie tin. “Good! Now look at your nickels. I have four nick­
els. Andyou?” “Four!” Those coins are also dropped into the tin con­
tainer. “Now dimes! I have none, how many do you have?” “None!”
“Let’s now count our quarters together one at a time and drop them
into the cookie tin” The process begins with the performer and spec­
tator each holding up a coin, counting “one” and dropping them
into the tin. The procedure continues until both have counted (in
this example) seven quarters. The performer pauses for several sec­
onds. There is a sense of tension in the room.
“I have two left, ” states the performer, holding them aloft and
dropping them— clink, clink! To everybody’s astonishment, the spec­
tator also has two quarters. She is given these to keep as a memento.
Explanation: There are two facets of this effect. First the per­
former must be able to discern how many coins of each value the
spectator has in her hand. The second requirement is to secure the
same number and type of coins in his hand.
The first problem is solved by the innocent appearing plastic con­
tainer. The container I fashioned is made from a quart shaker that I
found in a local supermarket. The sides are nearly vertical and there is
a tight-fitting top. The plastic is not perfectly clear. The container I use
is called “Shake Pour N Store” and it’s made by United Plastic.
You need to purchase two of these containers since you will use
one of them to make a false bottom. Here are the steps to follow:
1. Peel off the manufacturers label from one of the plastic con­
tainers and put it on the other container. These labels don’t look sus­
picious and they will largely hide the area where the false bottom
meets the outer chamber. Continued on page 62