Lucky Card Deluxe by Wayne Dobson & Alan Wong

LUCKY CARD has been Wayne’s signature close-up routine for many years. He has found a way to continue performing it right up until today, despite his paralysis that caused him to lose the use of his hands.

One consistent feature of Wayne’s routines is how, in stripping everything down to its basics to suit his condition that demands ‘hands-off’ routining, he actually tends to improve the original. He’s brought the plot into sharper focus and has simplified the mechanics such that no solution seems possible because the spectator appears to do everything.

Many performers have been inspired by the Dai Vernon classic card effect, The Trick That Can’t Be Explained. Wayne actually admits he came to this classic quite late in life, but was intrigued by its jazzy nature. It is a routine that requires the performer to be very well-versed in card magic, since he has to be capable of taking the effect into different directions according to how the cards happen to fall. This obviously could not lend itself to Wayne’s demands of his routines, because of his MS, and is also a demand that many performers find daunting.

With this in mind, Wayne evolved and published his Lucky Card routine some years ago. More recently he wanted a device to make the revelation of the prediction more theatrical and showy. So in conjunction with Alan Wong, he developed Lucky Card Deluxe. It is a showy way to display a prediction, to enhance the theatricality of its revelation – so much stronger than simply placing a prediction card on the table, or having it inside an envelope.

Whilst it was designed purposely for Wayne’s Lucky Card, Lucky Card Deluxe adds intrigue to the revelation of any prediction or coincidence-type card effect, since it is so obviously sealed securely within a plastic Frame.

For the first time, Wayne has described his four-stage routine that climaxes with the Lucky Card: armed with a deck and the Frame, you are set to perform a complete card act. When asked which of his many effects is his favorite, Wayne replies enigmatically, “I’ve always believed my best effect is my next one. But of all my canon of material, I’d pick out the Lucky Card as my go-to hands-off card routine: I love doing it.”