Twisting the Aces

Twisting the Aces is a card effect by Dai Vernon published in Dai Vernon's More Inner Secrets of Card Magic written by Lewis Ganson.

Effect: The magician freely shows the four face down Aces to the spectator. With a simple twist of the cards, one ace is found to have turned over. When the magician twists the cards again, the previous Ace turns face down, and another Ace is now face up. This is done another two more times until the magician has made all the Aces to turn face up.

Vernon devised the twisting motion of rotating the packet around to give a reason for the grip required for doing the Elmsley Count.

There have been many variations over the years:

• Roger Smith's Maxi Twist, marketed trick in 1975
• Meir Yedid's Card Marx, marketed trick 1983
• Lee Asher using his Asher Twist in Lecture Notes 1993
• Guy Hollingworth's Waving the Aces in Lecture Notes 1996
• Twixter by Jason Alford in Magic, February 1999
• Gary Freed's NFW, marketed trick 1999, reviewed in Genii 2000 February
• The McClintock Twist, VHS 2000