High Caliber by John Bannon

Details: John Bannon’s highly-engineered, yet easy-to-do brand of magic shines in this retrospective.

Over forty complete routines are described in Bannon’s easy-going readable style. Here are the tricks and the clever, innovative thinking behind them. Collected from Bannon’s publications over the ten years since his internationally best-selling Dear Mister Fantasy, you’ll find an impressive variety as well:

Sophisticated “fractal” packet tricks Contemporary gambling demonstrations Ultramodern Ace assemblies Unorthodox “garden path” tricks Unconventional transpositions Refined mental mysteries High Caliber covers the magical waterfront with a fresh, original view.

Yet, notwithstanding this extraordinary breadth, no gaffs are employed and no difficult moves are required. Virtually all of the routines use regular cards, most are impromptu, and quite a few are self-working. Typical of Bannon’s work, each layered construction has been polished until the trick has a point, a purpose, and a place in the magical firmament.

All in, High Caliber is a remarkable collection of card magic by a modern master.

A 7 x 10″ deluxe cloth bound volume with dust jacket; over 300 pages, illustrated with photographs.

Contents (Jake Austin; updated July 2018):

vii Foreword
ix Acknowledgements

1 Fractal Card Magic (2008)
3 The Royal Scam: expanded version of Roy Walton’s Cascade with the Aces
6 – Alternate Formation – Glide Version
14 Duplicity: red backed Ace in one packet transposes with blue backed Ace in another packet and more

23 Six. Impossible. Things. (2009)
25 Counterpunch: a sucker card trick
31 4 Faces North: version of Last Man Standing Triumph-type routine from Dear Mr. Fantasy
34 Watching The Detectives: a card sandwich plot
38 New Jax: follow up to produce the now-missing Aces
42 Full Circle a logical and surprising return of the three missing Aces
44 Origami Poker Revisited: a Royal Flush ending, using just 12 cards
46 Riverboat Poker: a gambling demonstration]
53 The Einstein Overkill: a stop trick with the production of three Aces

57 Open And Notorious (2009)
59 Opening The Open Prediction: open prediction plot and making it interesting
61 Fifty-One Fat Chances: last card turned over is the bet-on card
65 Que Sera Sera: an open prediction with a switch
69 View To A ‘Skill: magician predicts outcome of a card game – uses the principle of Miraskill

79 Mega ‘Wave (2010)
81 Mega ‘Wave: named Queen in one packet turns over in 2nd packet, and more
91 Fractal Re-Call: a wild-card plot with an unprepared deck
99 Short Attention Scam: from 9 Aces of Spades, 5 turn to a Royal Flush, and the others change to other Aces
105 Mag-7: Blank cards turn into duplicate Queen of Spades one by one as they touch the original Queen
109 Fractal Jacks: Magician’s hand gets four Jacks on two deals, when spectator’s suspect all 8 cards are Jacks, four Aces turn up
114 Wicked! Transposition: Card placed between two Red Queens ends up between two Black Queens

119 Bullet Party (2011)
121 Bullet Party: in keeping track of an Ace among 3 Jokers, the Jokers turn out to be other Aces
131 Bullet Catcher: Ace production
135 Drop Target Aces: the Drop Sleight used in a Four Ace effect
141 Four Shadow Aces: first of three Ace Assemblies
148 Flipside Assembly: a good follow up to the above
154 Big Fat Fluff Aces: the third Ace assembly
161 Box Jumper: selection is spun out of deck, but has transposed with card in the box
169 Fat City Revisited: first selection appears between Jacks, then whole deck except selection if between the Jacks
175 Poker Pairadox Redux: a poker routine with 16 cards
182 Question Zero: Spectator thinks of 1 of 5 cards, loses them in deck, and magician spins one card out – the selection
186 Elias Multiple Shift: John’s version of the Neal Elias Multiple Shift
189 Crocodile False Cut: an in-the-hand-false cut
192 Flytrap False Cut: another

195 Triabolical (With Liam Montier, 2011)
197 B’rainiac (Bannon & Liam Montier): a named Ace is found to be the only one face up in a packet, and more
206 Short Attention Spin (Bannon): Ace vanishes from packet of blank cards, then all become Aces, then backs change color
210 Montinator 5.0 (Montier): a “find the Queen” packet trick with cards marked on the back with Joker or Queen
211 – Smooth Jazz Handling
212 – Hard Core Handling: more technically demanding

215 One Off (2010)
217 Aces Over Easy: simplified handling of Larry Jennings LJ Double-Undercut Aces
220 One Of The Better Losers: a ten-hand poker deal
225 Cull De Stack: method of achieving a particular stack

227 All In (Magic Magazine, February 2012)
229 Chronic: magician finds card at spectator’s mentally selected hour
237 Buf’d: Queen and Ace transpose several times
244 Origami Poker Revisited: cards are mixed and end up displaying a Royal Flush in Spades
253 Ion Man: versio of Max Maven’s Positive Negative, where magician predicts which of 3 coins selected, and heads or tails
260 Bannon At The Sidebar (Raj Modhok): about John’s creative process

263 Shufflin’ (2012)
265 Spin Doctor: a Twisting the Aces effect
278 Power Of Poker (D. Solomon): Spectator chooses the cards to deal but is beaten by the magician’s hand
285 The Bannon Triumph AKA Play It Straight Triumph: cards turned face up and face down turn face down, except for cards of same suit as selection
289 Fractal Recall (Remix): a logical version of the Wild Card plot
298 Origami Prediction: spectator mixes packet face up and down, magician’s first and 2nd predictions are correct, but 3rd seems wrong, and then 4th prediction fixes everything

• Publisher: Squash
• Pages: 305
• Location: Chicago, IL, USA
• Dimensions: 7″x10″
• Date: 2013
• Binding: hardbound

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