My friend Steve Friedberg has been a long-time supporter of The Magician’s Ltd Cookbook . In particular, he particularly enjoys performing Peter Duffie’s fantastic Travel Agent effect from the book. Steve has a great variation of Peter’s trick, which I’m happy to share here (with Peter’s permission) that turns the trick into a great impromptu “Anniversary Waltz” type effect.

You’ll need to have The Magician’s Ltd Cookbook at hand to understand my instructions for this one:

Select a couple from the audience and ask them how long they’ve been together. Tell the lady that she reminds you of a very special card from the deck. Spread through, upjog the Queen of Hearts (facing you) and ask her if she has any ideas which card you’re thinking of.

Regardless of her guess (and in Steve’s experience, most women say the Queen of Hearts here), square up the deck and openly display the Queen of Hearts. Give the Queen to the lady, and invite her to sign the face of the card. As she does that, find the King of Hearts and bring it to the top of the deck. Don’t make a show or move of it, just do it. Once she has obliged, turn the Queen face down on top of the deck (the King of Hearts remains below it).

At this point, Steve shuffles off the top block of cards off (keeping the King and Queen of Hearts together), then overhand shuffles the remainder of the deck, and finally cuts the deck in half. The Queen/King combo will now be situated together near the middle.

Next turn your attention to the guy and suggest that you also have a card for him. Let him guess his card and eventually remind him that since his partner has the Queen of Hearts, he must, of course, have the King of Hearts. As he responds, run through the deck and cut the Queen/King of Hearts to the top. Execute a double turnover to show the King and then turn it back face down and ask him to sign the back of the card, keeping the signed card on the table.

Steve then suggests to the man that he, most likely, will have dated several women before finding his wife/girlfriend…or, as he says, “your queen.”

You can now continue with Peter Duffie’s Travel Agent effect from The Magician’s Ltd Cookbook .

There’s a trend in magic that I’m seeing a lot lately and it’s to do with people who I call Mentalist Triumph Cutters.

Many magicians that I see perform Triumph say something like, “The cards are shuffled face up into face down. So, some are face-to-face, others are back-to-face and some are even back-to-back.” It’s not bad that those magicians say this, but it is bad that they say where they’re going to cut at the exact same time they they cut the cards.

This is obviously just a timing issue that can easily be fixed. The best way to fix this is to simply cut the cards before you announce the condition of the cards, or do as I do and not hit the three conditions straight away – just cut a few times without necessarily aiming to show the audience all three states.

Does it really matter? Well, I’d hazard a guess that most Triumph routines have a lot more important things to fix than this, but since it’s such a small idea that can be easily fixed, I think it’s worth considering for your next Triumph performance.