Over the last ten years, a group of players from Poland has emerged on the world bridge stage, winning world championships, and even invading the United States and winning National titles there too. Yet, apart from the fact that they are incredible card players and play incomprehensible bidding systems, we know little about them. In this book we learn more about these new stars, men and women who have taken the bridge world by storm yet who, up to now, remain enigmas.

A famous magician's journey to find the greatest cardsharp ever evokes the forgotten world of magic where Americans found escape during the Great Depression It has the nostalgic quality of an old-fashioned fable, but Karl Johnson's The Magician and the Cardsharp is a true story that lovingly re-creates the sparkle of a vanished world. Here, set against the backdrop of America struggling through the Depression, is the world of magic, a realm of stars, sleight of hand, and sin where dreams could be realized - or stolen away. Following the Crash of '29, Dai Vernon, known by magicians as "the man who fooled Houdini," is tramping down Midwestern backroads, barely making ends meet. While swapping secrets with a Mexican gambler, he hears of a guy he doesn't quite believe is real - a legendary mystery man who deals perfectly from the center of the deck and who locals call the greatest cardsharp of all time. Determined to find the reclusive genius, Vernon sets out on a journey through America's shady, slick, and sinful side - from mob-run Kansas City through railroad towns that looked sleepy only in the daytime. Does he find the sharp? Well, Karl Johnson did - after years of research into Vernon's colorful quest, research that led him to places he never knew existed. Johnson takes us to the cardsharp's doorstep and shows us how he bestowed on Vernon the greatest secret in magic. The Magician and the Cardsharp is a unique and endlessly entertaining piece of history that reveals the artistry and obsession of a special breed of American showmen.

Mulholland provides illustrated instructions for mastering scores of magical feats: card tricks relying on an easy memory device, extemporaneous tricks such as making a coin vanish and then reappear in a bread roll, tricks for entertaining youngsters, magical thought transference, and other exploits of mystifying wizardry.

Definitive work on card technique: everything from basic manipulations to advanced flourishes; also a wide variety of tricks. 318 illustrations.

Thirteen entertaining chapters and more than 100 helpful illustrations show beginners how to make objects disappear, conjure something from nothing, levitate, and perform other illusions. Readers will learn to master three kinds of magic — close-up, club and parlor, and stage magic — with advice on misdirection, presentation, routining, and showmanship.