All In Volumes 1 and 2 by Allan Ackerman and John Lovick

When I was in my early twenties, I learned of Allan Ackerman through his first two publications: Magic Mafia Effects (1970) and The Esoterist (1971). I was impressed; in fact, two of the moves in The Esoterist remain in my toolbox to this day (Ackerman Varies Kelly and Slip Shod). In the fifty-plus years since those manuscripts appeared, Allan has continued to provide card magicians with top-notch effects and sleights, in books (Here’s My Card, Las Vegas Kardma), videos (Advanced Card Control, The Expert at the Card Table, Prequel Sequel, and many others), and lecture notes. Concerning the new, two-volume set of books, Allan writes:

“In early 2021, Andi and Josh from Vanishing Inc. asked if I would write a new book. The last book I wrote was Las Vegas Kardma in 1994, almost thirty years ago. Since then, I have not been idle and have released nine lecture notes and twenty-five DVDs. So, these two volumes contain some of my favorite items from those notes and DVDs, plus quite a few new routines…The reader will find a wide variety of card material in these two volumes, from the almost self-working to routines that will take a fair amount of time to master.”

Card enthusiasts will certainly delight in the fact that this material, scattered throughout various manuscripts and released through the course of three decades, is available in a beautiful, two-volume set of books. There are ninety professional caliber routines and more than fifty sleights and moves explained in the 400+ pages. John Lovick helped edit and update the original texts.

Obviously, this is a lot of material to work through; this makes it difficult to do a comprehensive review. Instead, I’ll point out a few of the items that caught my interest, I’ll give you a summation of the contents, and I’ll provide some suggestions of how to approach books of this nature.

The first chapter in each volume contains moves and sleights; I urge you to spend some time gaining familiarity with them. They are used in routines throughout the books; having some facility with them will keep you from constantly having to flip back to refresh your memory. And these moves are definitely worth learning. In particular, I liked Marlo’s Bottom Deal Exchange, the OPOS Display, the Blackjack Roll (a great way to flop a deck), the Multiple Slip Shuffle, Alan’s handling of the Bro. John Hamman Cull, the Ultimate Gesture Cut, the Bluff Swing Cut (a great alternative to the much overused Double Undercut), and the large section on variations of the Rhythm Count.

Allan has long been a fan of memorized deck magic. Rather than the familiar stacks of Tamariz or Aronson, Allan prefers a tetradistic stack in which like values are thirteen cards apart. The familiar Eight-Kings stack and the Si Stebbins stack are tetradistic stacks. Over the years, Allan has experimented with various incarnations of the tetradistic principle. He now uses Jennifer Gwinn’s Tetra-Red stack. (The book gives a code allowing you to download Ms. Gwinn’s manuscript on the stack.) Allan discusses ways to calculate the position of any card, or to calculate which card is at any given position. However, if you intend to use one of these tetradistic stacks (and they do have some attractive features), you’ll want to establish which card is going to be the top card of the stack (stack-number one) and then memorize that order. If you have to use calculation, many of memdeck’s best effects will be un-performable; in the real world you don’t have time to calculate.

As for the tricks and routines that make up the bulk of both volumes, they are uniformly good. Allan is one of the brightest guys I know; he tackles classic card problems with a clear concept of what needs to be fixed. You’ll find sandwich effects, four-Ace routines, Oil & Water routines, variations on Dai Vernon’s Travelers (many of which require little or no palming), and many more. Be sure to check out his Prequel-Sequel routine, which was designed to solve this problem: How could you perform a MacDonald’s Aces routine that starts clean and ends clean? Allan’s solution is ingenious and practical.

Obviously, All In is not geared toward the beginning card magician. However, even intermediate card magicians may find the text daunting, especially if most of their knowledge has come from videos. Here are two suggestions that might help. First, if you purchase the PDF version ($74.96), Adobe Reader (free PDF viewer) will read the text out loud to you. (Go to VIEW -> Read Out Loud to activate this function.) In this way, you can keep your eyes on your hands and pay attention to the photos. Second, Allan has posted videos of many of the routines in the books. You can find them at allanackerman.com/videos/ or at Allan’s YouTube channel. These are performance videos, not explanations, but by watching them you’ll get an idea what you’re working toward. Plus, as you go through these, you’ll find the routines you want to work on.

If you are a card magic enthusiast, All In is probably on your “must-have” list. Whether you’re looking for utility moves or card routines that will fool both laymen and magicians, or if you just want to study how an expert constructs his material, the two volumes of All In have it all.  These are books I will refer to often.
Recommended.

All In Volumes 1 and 2
By Allan Ackerman and John Lovick
Available from: vanishingincmagic.com
Price: $99.95 (USD)