Trick Review: Royal Stab by Richard Sanders

Instead of throwing a bunch of cards into the air and somehow stabbing a spectator’s selected card with your knife or pen, in “Royal Stab,” you use the King of Clubs to enter the deck, seek two selected cards and impale them on his swords. The picture says it all. This effect only requires basic sleight-of-hand skills and is easy to perform. It’s a good close-up card trick that you can always carry with you.

Getting the Point

Two "freely" selected cards are lost in the deck. You bring up the topic of the classic effect, “The Card Stab,” where a magician thrusts a sword into a deck of cards and impales the selections on it. You state that there is a card in the deck that carries his own sword, the “King of Clubs.”

After the King of Clubs has been examined, it is pushed half way into the deck. When it emerges, you can show that one of the selected cards is now impaled on the king’s sword-it’s actually printed on the card. Repeat the process and the second card is “impaled” on the other sword.

At this point, you can hand out the card for examination. There’s nothing to find. The selected cards are actually printed on the “King of Clubs.”

Not Difficult

This trick depends on a specially printed card and some basic sleight of hand. The cards look great and feature Bicycle backs to blend into your Bicycle decks.

This one is easy to learn and perform, assuming that you can already perform a basic force and you can switch a card (DL will do and this is only necessary if you wish to show the King of Clubs ungimmicked in the beginning). The trick comes with two King of Clubs with different outcomes in the event that you want to repeat the trick.

You can definitely entertain with this one in your walk-around and close-up sets.

-Wayne N. Kawamoto

MSRP: (US) $10

Dealers can purchase from Murphy's Magic Supplies, Inc.