Move Zero Volume 3 – John Bannon
$32.21
http://www.bigblindmedia.com/move-zero-vol-3-by-john-bannon/

The Hype:

Move Zero III is a veritable treasure trove of killer routines, none of which require any sleight of hand. Not a single sleight in sight, yet you will be devastating audiences with tricks that appear to show the greatest skill imaginable. 
From the insanely clever ‘Thirty Second Sense’ (whose method is as elegant as it is in explicable) to the stone cold classic ‘Origami Prediction’, the nine featured routines provide an almost comical level of ‘bang for your buck’ in terms of ease of performance compared to impact on your audience.

And beyond the incredible nine magic tricks featured, Move Zero III will also empower you with five mind-bending techniques that you can employ in other self-working routines. These ‘trickbag’ lessons are genuinely invaluable – demonstrating just why John Bannon is held in such high regard by his peers. Master these and you’ll be able to fool ANYONE.

Crucially, Bannon also shows you how to intelligently mix these techniques together to create sleight-free tricks whose methods are truly unfathomable. Never again will you see self-working tricks as cute, throw away magic for children. 
Move Zero III – a masterclass in the art of the self-working card trick.

MOVE ZERO VOL #3 – The 32nd Sense * Trickbag – Automatic Placement * Mousetrap * Candy Crush * Trickbag – Prophesy Move * Poker Pairadox * Origami Poker * Trickbag – The Parity Principle * Origami Prediction * Big Bad Add * Trickbag – Vertical Addition * Cross Purposes * Box Of Doom * Trickbag – The Einstein Tautology *

My Take:

In a word? Wow! With each new Bannon release I become a bigger fan. If you like to do card tricks and have no appreciable skills, then John Bannon is a god to you. You will be able to do every trick on this disk first time out of the box. 

As a bonus, purchasers receive a free video download of John’s Hybrid Holdout, a move which he has been teaching in his lectures and is also available in his lecture notes, “Lucky”, along with some other great stuff. (And, quite frankly, this bonus is worth the price of admission itself).http://johnbannonmagic.com/books/lucky.html

I have been told that John is not a professional magician but a lawyer. I have two nephews who are lawyers and I know that it is a very time consuming job. The real magic John performs is how he manages to come up with such great material with the little free time he has left over from his profession and we are all richer for that.

 Now, down to the good stuff.

John teaches five techniques and tricks to do with each one. “Automatic Placement” is based on Marlo’s work. I have seen tricks using this previously but John gives the technique necessary to change the outcome. I have used Bill Simon’s Prophesy Move for years if I needed to force two cards. He has added a further layer of deception to it. “The Parity Principle” examines Bob Hummer’s Cut and Turn Over Two principle. “Vertical Addition” is a number prediction you may have seen before but John dissects it thoroughly allowing you to customize it to your needs. And he explains the Trick That Fooled Einstein completely.

There are nine killer effects taught.

The 32^nd Sense – This doesn’t seem like it should work but it does. Every time. From a completely shuffled deck, your spectator removes a small group of cards, counts them and puts them into the card box. The card at the position matching the number of the cards is remembered and is revealed to match a prediction made previously.

Mousetrap – Using the same basic technique as 32^nd  Sense but the simply thought of card is caught in a sandwich between two previously removed cards.

Candy Crush – Nice use of the Prophesy Move to spell to a selected card.

Poker Pairadox – A nice effect with a Texas Holdem theme. A group of cards is shown in pairs with no two cards matching in both value and color. A card is removed by the spectator and now every pair is a match. Really nice use of Bill Simon’s move.

Origami Poker – A group of cards is mixed face up and face down then dealt down to the table. The cards are then flipped over from side to side or up and down. When spread the only cards face up are a royal flush. Artist Tony Dunn did this for me a while back and I fell in love with it. This is really a great trick based on Bill Hummer’s work.

Origami Prediction – A number of card and shuffled face up into face down and laid out in a matrix. Similar to the Origami Poker routine but here is where it varies. A prediction was in an envelope before the cards were shuffled. The prediction turns out to be true despite a small glitch on the way. The plot is identical to Simon Aronson’s Shuffle Bored.

Big Bad Add – Two spectators each have a group of cards in their hands. They each put a card face up on the table to create a two digit number. This is done three more times. When the four numbers are totaled, the total matches the prediction. Nice use of the “off by one” Kenton Knepper used in Kolossal Killer.

Cross Purposes – Two spectators each grab a small packet of cards from the deck. One remembers the card at the position matching the number of cards she chose. The other counts down to the number of the cards she chose and finds the selected card. Inexplicable  but it works.

Box of Doom – A very nice version of the Trick that Fooled Einstein ends complete with two cards matching the card chosen by the spectator and the last of the four stapled to the inside lid of the box used to hold the cards. This will devastate your audience. My only complaint on this would be that the effect was previously released on Fractalicious (which you should also own).

What can I say?  John has once again delivered a superb collection of easy to perform tricks that will devastate your audience. These are routines you can indeed do “right out of the box” Simple to do but the methods are so hidden you will fool yourself.  The only thing that might be an improvement would be Volume 4 of this series. I can’t wait to find out. Highly recommended.

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