Betcha by Kent Bergmann

One more from the talented Kent Bergmann! Before Kent became the king of 3D printing he created quite a stir with his Z-Wood (Zebrawood) line of magic. This is a rare beauty from those times. Anything from his Z-Wood Magic line is highly sought after by collectors.

Betcha looks really pretty, but the effects that come with it are a little disappointing compared with the quality of the props.  In essence there is a magician’s choice, a mathematical game, a corny joke, and a surprising magical transposition to end. Luckily all is not lost … if I was to perform Betcha I would incorporate one or two other effects:

• Free Will using the props that come with Betcha (die, chess piece, domino, and prediction)
• And for a real optional kicker the new Anverdi Mental Dice.

This is the order I would run them in:

1. Play the game of NIM
2. Free Will (play this last if you don’t do the Anverdi Mental Dice)
3. Domino transposition
4. Anverdi Mental Dice (Extra Optional Bonus)

If you don’t have either Free Will or the new Anverdi Mental Dice I would strongly advise that you get them …

Of course you can stick with the original routine and you might decide to tweak it a little.  It is not bad, but just felt a little light for the beautiful props. If it was a cheaper item it would probably be fine.  But who are we kidding, if you are a collector you’ll probably never perform this anyway, so it will look great on the shelf regardless 🙂

Effect: The performer presents a beautiful hinged box and asks a spectator to open it up and carefully remove the contents until the box is completely empty. As the box is being emptied, the performer explains that this box and its contents have been passed down to him from his late uncle who loved to bet on almost everything. The box contains some of the most memorable items from bets in which his uncle has won. The contents include a poker chip, a chess piece, a die, a domino, a small self locking drawer box and a small paper holder. The performer then continues on to demonstrate a few of the bets his uncle had won in the past. The performer lines up the die, domino, chess piece and poker chip.

The first bet is the performer can predict which of the four pieces the spectator will pick (I know, not a great trick, but you all should know how to do this), the next bet involves the closed drawer box. The performer opens the drawer box to reveal a drawer full of wooden sticks (don’t worry, the box is self locking and won’t allow you to open the box upside down so the sticks fall out). The performer lays the sticks out and explains to the spectator about the next bet. This game is called NIM, the object of the game is to be the one to remove the last stick, and you can remove one, two or three of the sticks on your turn . . . obviously, you, the performer, always wins.

Okay, so you say show me something cool. Here we go . . . Remove the drawer from the drawer box and look over the items on the table (note: the inside of the drawer box can be seen by the spectator, nothing to hide in there). Pick up the domino and place it into the drawer. Bet the spectator that you can make the domino disappear without physically touching the domino. Obviously the spectator is intrigued, “you’re on”. The performer picks up the drawer (with the domino inside) opens the empty, main box on the table and places the drawer with the domino inside and closes the lid. “There, it is gone”, and the spectator is not impressed. Realizing this, the performer removes the drawer (with the domino in it) from the main box and places the drawer back into the drawer box. The performer then explains that he could have done better … and has. The performer opens the drawer box to reveal the domino is no longer in the drawer. The spectator is now amazed, but where did it go? The spectator is instructed to open the main box and look inside. There inside the main box, the domino is found.

This set is handcrafted in Zebrawood. The top and side of the box is inlaid with Bloodwood as is the prediction holder. The NIM sticks are made from Canary wood. The drawer on the drawer box and the inside of the main box has been lines with black flock. The entire set is treated with a natural, oil rubbed finish. The main box measures approximately 5″ x 4″ x 2.5″. The drawer box measures approximately 2.5″ x 1.75″ x 1″. The un-gimmicked poker chip, die, chess piece and domino are all normal sized.

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