Review of Naked by Salvador Sufrate

Despite the intriguing name, “Naked” isn’t a card trick, it’s a card change (color change) - a joker that quickly changes into any card that you choose, even a signed one - as you hold the card in your mouth. The change looks good in the promotional videos, but I found this one rather clumsy to use. And given that the playing card gimmick is something that you use with your mouth, I’m pretty sure that it’s destined for a relatively short life.

After a spectator selects a card and signs it, you lose it in the deck. You then remove a joker from the deck and use your mouth to hold the corner of the card - the card dangles from your mouth. You spin your body completely around so the card is momentarily out of spectators’ view. And when the joker is back in view, it has changed into the spectator’s signed card. The card that’s selected is a free choice and yes, it may be signed. And at the end, it is the spectator’s card that is dangling from your mouth.

With a little minor clean-up, you can give the signed card to the spectator to keep. An accompanying DVD teaches you the necessary moves. With the exception of the card color change, you’ll only require basic sleight of hand skills with cards to perform the given routine.

The Bicycle-backed gimmicked card is poker-sized and as the title implies, your clothing has nothing to do with the effect. You won’t need a jacket or sleeves or any special clothing. This one will work in either stand up or close-up/strolling work.

The change looks good in the hands of the creator, Salvador Sufrate. He has a smooth spin that looks nice. And if you don’t care to spin your body around, the DVD teaches a variation where the card changes as you cover it with a card fan. All you need is some cover for the change to occur. Angle-wise, you’ll want your audience in front of you. If a spectator is behind you, they will see the workings of the card change (the card has to be out of sight of spectators for the change to occur).

While Sufrate makes the change look great, I found the gimmick to be clumsy to use. In my mouth, the card often seemed to get caught up and not change. Sufrate shows that it can be done smoothly, but I’m not confident in my ability to make this work under performance conditions.

More important, while the gimmicked card is well made, it’s made from an actual playing card. And since it’s near your mouth, it’s going to get wet. After practicing a short while, my gimmick was getting damp. And we all know that playing cards that get wet tend to have short lives.

In the hands (or, I should say “mouth”) of Salvador Sufrate, the “Naked” card change looks great. But I found the gimmick mostly awkward and inconsistent to work with. I’ll pass on this one.