October was our Card Magic Competition. It took place on the evening of 15th October 2024 at the Drama Centre. It attracted an attendance of 41 members. The entire event was sponsored by Gician Tan.
9 contestants took part. Each contestant was given 10 minutes to perform. Each of them was provided with a brand new and sealed red deck and a blue deck of playing cards. No other items or accessories were allowed to be used in the performance.
A draw was held earlier to determine the order of performance. The first contestant was James Pang. 6 cards were randomly selected and lost in the deck. James proceeded to locate all of them, one at a time. Each card was revealed using a different method.
The second contestant was David Fillary. He found the 3 mates to a spectator’s selected card. He transformed the 4 Aces to the 4 Kings and magically produced each Ace from his sleeve. His final effect was a version of “Shuffled-Bored” with 2 spectators where he could predict the number of face up and face down cards mixed by 2 spectators.
Tommy Kian demonstrated how gamblers do the second deal with a deck of cards. Tommy magically located the 4 Aces, and could tell the name of the card at a randomly named position by a spectator. He transformed 4 cards selected by a spectator to the 4 Jacks, and then changed them into the 4 Aces.
Siew Seng Meng had a spectator tear his 4 cards in halves into 8 half pieces. The spectator kept a piece of the half card. In a series of mixing and elimination, Seng Meng discarded 6 of the remaining 7 half cards. The one half card left matched exactly the piece that was held by the spectator.
Joseph Then found a wrong selected card, and magically changed it to the correct one. He performed an “Out Of This World” effect where the spectator managed to separate the black from the red cards in the deck.
Enrico Varella made a spectator’s selected card rose from the middle of the deck. He then caused the selected card, which was sandwiched between 2 Jokers, to vanish and reappear reversed in the deck. Similarly, he made 4 Aces vanish one at a time to reappear reversed in the deck. He changed the 4 Aces to 4 Jacks and performed “Dr Daley’s Last Trick” with the 4 Jacks.
Henry Tio used the Kings, Queens, Jacks and Aces of the 4 different suits to tell a tale about 4 kingdoms. A spectator mixed the 16 cards and managed to get all the Kings, the Queens, the Jacks and the Aces to gather together.
Performing to music, Aaron Ang produced the 4 Aces and the 4 Kings from the red deck. He then caused all the rest of the cards to separate into the 4 suits in order between the Aces and the Kings. He lost the 4 Kings into the blue deck. He changed the 4 Aces into the 4 Kings and then separated the cards in the blue deck into the 4 suits in order between the Kings and the Aces.
Thomas Yeo was the last contestant. Using 4 cards, one from the blue deck and 3 from the red deck, he did a couple of observation tests with a spectator. Each time, the spectator failed to identify the face or the back of his card. He used another set of 4 cards, the four 4’s, from the red deck. He changed each of them, nominated by the spectator, into blue back cards.
The judges were Harapan Ong, Desmond Peh, and John Teo. As the judges deliberated on their scores, everyone was treated to snacks and packaged drinks.
The results were announced and the Champion was Tommy Kian. Taking second place was David Fillary and the third place went to Aaron Ang. Each received a trophy from the sponsor Gician Tan. The Champion also received the Challenge Trophy, and his name would be carved on this trophy’s plate.
The contest was hosted by JK Tan. Baharudin provided the videography and Ng Kah King was the time-keeper. The event administrator was Kenneth Chia.
After the contest, members mingled around and patronised the dealer booth of Goh Yin Xiang.
All who attended received a special fanning deck featuring “My Little Pony” by courtesy of Gician Tan. It was an exciting evening for all.
