Matt Baker Masterclass

Francois

John

Extra star over the first session as the credits were even more impeccable, if that’s possible. The material was good here and the explanations were excellent, very in-depth. The presentations were not necessarily my style, except for Card College, I think that’s normal though isn’t it? We all have our own style and approach, or should have. All in all an enjoyable and productive few hours, thank you Matt.

David

Jerry

Sean

Daniel

This is a terrific Master Class. I think I got more out of this one than any of the other ones. Even though I have read Matt's Book (The Buena Vista Shuffle Club) I was pleased with new material not included in the book (although he did teach modifications and improvements to some of those in the book). There are new principles (to me) that I appreciated learning about, in particular the Sierpinski Fractal principle, principle used in Pile Driver 2.0, (including 'pivotal peek'), The Free Cut Principle, and Simon Aaronson's Undo Influence Principle. This Master Class has effects I have and will actually do - Free Sandwiched, Any Two Cards at Any Two Numbers (Twice as Nice), and Match or No Match. It also includes variety of other effects (rope trick, a prediction effect with M&Ms - that also introduces another interesting principle The Red-Black Relationship principle, and Joshua Jay's fractal cut - worth price IMHO) that are satisfying. With detailed PDF notes to go with the lectures, as well as good tips on learning a memorized deck, this is without doubt the greatest value I've seen in a Master Class.

Jack

Akash

Victor

James

What a fun masterclass this has been so far! His the material taught has been a pleasure to practice and learn. The way he thinks about magic is something new and makes this masterclass a pleasure to watch.

Tim

Excellent

Michael

I'm a card guy, so I liked week one better (plus I had an interruption during week two). That said, I found Matt to be very articulate and engaging in his explanations and I just might wind up using some of the non-card things that he exposited, as I'm working on elements of a parlor show too.

Adam

Top notch stuff.

Wow. Very good.

Jay

Nice mixture of tricks; excellent overview of Gilbreath principle with beautiful examples of application in his creative card effects. I liked his extrapolation of the "old" rope trick best!

Sergio

Heather

Gary

This was a good masterclass even though I was a little disappointed because the first two tricks performed and taught were very long and convoluted, However I did enjoy his teaching of the Gilbreath principle, and I would recommend his book the Buena vista shuffle club as there are some great routines in this book.

Chuck

Great impromptu magic! Great math magic! Great Matt (Baker) magic! Honest evaluation here, Matt does a great job demonstrating a trick. He does a great job explaining it as well, however he sometimes over-explains an effect, or details the principle behind it repeatedly or his inspiration for a trick or too many credits given for a single effect. These concerns simply make the class seem to drag on and I started to lose interest at times.

Gordon

Well, so far, I'm not convinced that mathematical card tricks can be made worthwhile. In particular, the first two tricks taught are too long and involve far too much dealing and counting. Matt seems very personable, organized, and sincere though, so I'm cautiously optimistic. The bonus eBook given after session #1 was as very nice touch.

Roger

Part 1.

A good first part of this masterclass. For me, however, the first two tricks in particular are much too long in their presentation for a normal audience! Magic for magicians probably applies more here! Nevertheless, the underlying mathematical principles are an enrichment for anyone who does not know them yet! Since I'm a great admirer of Simon Aronson's magic and also already own the book by Matt Baker, there wasn't really anything new for me here. So I hope that the second part will bring me more!

Ben

I waited until I had seen all three parts of this masterclass before posting a review but my initial impression has held. This is the worst sort of magic. These tricks may have clever methods but they are confusing, convoluted and tedious to watch. I am unable to imagine any lay audience finding them entertaining and am baffled at why magicians seem to enjoy this sort of thing either. I firmly believe mathematical principles have a place in magic but here there is no wit, no theatre, no clarity of effect, just tricks that have been designed to justify using some novel principle without any thought for the audience experience. The teaching is also very poor, and frankly most of these tricks are probably not suited to video tutorial in any case. Tricks like these that do not rely on sleights are easier to explain in text because the methods are not visual. This is a terrible introduction to VI Masterclass and I'm hoping that next month's will be much better because frankly this was a complete waste of money.