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http://www.llpub.com/zenshop/index.php?main_page=product_inf…Alexander De Cova – EnigmaticQuote:I greatly admire the creativity and ingenuity of Bavarian magician Alexander de Cova. His brand of magic offers some well-thought-out enhancements to classics and the six stand-up effects on this DVD are varied and strong. As he did on his “Thumb Tip” DVD, de Cova fooled me bad. None are difficult to perform, but will take some rehearsal.DVD 1:Rope a Dope[b]More like a phase in a rope routine than a stand-alone effect, “Roping” offers an extraordinary jumping knot that’s easy to perform. The magician ties a knot and by pulling on the ends, causes the knot to visually jump off of the rope. Audience members in the front row can even catch the knot. This is a clever variation on the old disappearing knot trick. I’m trying to find a place in my rope routine to feature this one.[b]PremonitionBased on Eddie Joseph’s amazing effect, in “Premonition”, de Cova offers a gimmick-based routine that is equally baffling and easier to perform. The magician brings out a sealed envelope, which is laid on a table. A volunteer is asked to name a playing card and another is asked to name a number between one and 52. Both are completely free choices. A spectator takes a deck of playing cards out of its box and counts to the named number. The card is shown to be the wrong one. But when the spectator looks for the named card in the deck, it’s found to be missing. The envelope is opened to reveal a note. When the note is read, it states the chosen card. A brilliant gimmick and a sneaky reference makes the miracle happen and removes the use of the index. This one will take some time to make, but it’s mind-blowing.Beer GameBased on a Paul Curry effect. “Bavarian Beer Game” offers a prediction that revolves around beer. Six empty glasses are placed on a table and a set of written instructions is given to a volunteer. A stack of name tags is shuffled and a spectator is asked to pour beer into one of the glasses. Bills of different denominations are borrowed and the magician puts up a $100 bill. The spectator places the bills in any order in the glasses and is free to change the position of the glasses. The shuffled cards are then placed on the table, one in front of each glass. The volunteer follows the instructions read by the other spectator. Various glasses are switched, moved around and taken away, and are referenced to the name tags. At the end, the glass with the beer remains. This mathematical wonder is impressive and fairly easy to setup and perform. It’s pretty much a self-worker with the exception of a switch and another brilliant adaption with some clever additions and an entertaining theme.SympatheticBasically de Cova’s version of “sympathetic silks”, “Master Silks” has the magician and spectators tying two silks together, which are placed into a clear jug. Another spectator is handed two separate silks which are held in his hands. The knot is magically passed from the tied silks to those held in the spectator’s hands-the tied silks are found to be separate and the separate silks are found to be tied together. Again, there’s a clever gimmick and some subtle handling that makes for a baffling effect that is easy to perform.Cuts Like a KnifeIn “Stab in the Dark”, a deck of cards is brought out and mixed. A spectator is asked to perform a single cut, complete the cut, remove the top card and place it into a card box without looking at it. Everything appears to be fair. The magician quickly scans through the face up cards in the deck, names a card and then “blindfolds” the deck by covering it with a silk. After placing a knife under the silk and stabbing it into the deck, the resulting card at the knife’s location is found to be the mate of the card in the box. This one is good and to perform this effect, de Cova teaches some convincing false cuts that won’t take years to learn. Actually, you’ll only need about an hour. Even without the false cuts, “Stab in the Dark” is strong and fairly easy to perform.The “Cups & Balls Move” is just that, a single move that makes it look as if you’re scraping a ball from your open hand with the mouth of the cup and resting the cup, mouth down, on the table over the ball. It’s a clean move that takes the place of vanishing the ball before performing a similar motion.A RingerRing-o-Change offers a startling transposition with borrowed finger rings. The magician gives a spectator a cloth bag and asks him or her to remove their ring. The borrowed ring is placed inside of a folded handkerchief. The spectator opens the bag that he has been holding and finds a ring box inside. The box is opened and after a big build-up, the ring is found to be a different ring, not the spectator’s. A second ring is borrowed from another spectator and placed on a stick that the magician is holding. The second ring is given to the first spectator and is found to be his ring. And at this point, the ring in the box, which had been sitting on a table, is found to hold the second spectator’s ring.This routine is slick and requires some gimmicks and a bold move. However, there’s nothing difficult here. The ring box ungimmicked, but there’s a move that may require the box to be on the thin side. I’ve never seen a ring case like the one that de Cova uses in his performance. The ring boxes that I’ve seen from jewelers tend to be thicker. Although they’ll probably work. Throughout, de Cova offers excellent and thorough explanations. If any of these effects sound like ones that you would like to perform. This DVD is worth itDVD 2:Money, Money, MoneyIn “Misers Dream”, de Cova doesn’t offer an actual routine for the classic effect where a magician seemingly pulls coins out of the air and drops them into a bucket. de Cova explains a gimmick-based method for producing coins that requires minimal skill and is clean and deceptive. I particularly like the way that the method makes the coin pop out, as if it was really pulled out of the air. In fact, there’s probably no way to produce the coin in a similar manner using pure sleight of hand. Like other gimmick-based versions for producing coins, you can’t show your hand empty before producing the coin. de Cova also presents a clever gimmick for the bucket that doesn’t require you to hold the bucket in the classic method along its walls. de Cova’s gimmick allows you to hold the outside or bottom of the bucket and still make it sound as if the coin is dropping into it. If I were developing a Miser’s Dream routine, I would definitely experiment with de Cova’s method. However, since I already have a mature and reliable routine, I’m not apt to consider this one.Card TranspositionBased on a Bruce Cervon effect, “Boxed Transposition” is a strong card routine. A card is randomly selected and the spectator thinks of a flight number and an airline, which the magician writes on the card. The card is partially inserted into the deck and left sticking out. Four queens are pulled out of the deck to act as flight attendants and are placed into a card box. The selected card vanishes and is found in the card box with the queens. In the second phase, one of the queens is cut into four pieces and placed into the card box. In the end, the selected card turns into a queen and the four pieces in the box are found to be the four pieces of the selected card. This one is brilliant.A ForteIn “Forte X”, the magician asks three people to each think of a card. The magician talks to each person and tries to write down an impression on blank cards, which are placed inside of a clear goblet. The spectators push out their thought-of cards from a face-up, spread out deck. In the end, the magician shows that he correctly predicted the thought-of cards by displaying what he wrote on the blank cards. This mentalism effect is a stunner that’s based on a gimmicked deck and not a swami device, and relies on some simple, but bold handling. I caught this one, and I’m not sure if astute spectators wouldn’t be apt to catch on as wellBring Out the PlasticIn “Porous Plastic”, three silver dollars penetrate a clear plastic ziplock baggie three times. This visual piece is based on basic sleight-of-hand and a clever, visual ambiguity. I like this one because it resets automatically and can reside in your case and be brought out and immediately performed. de Cova originally performed this one with cookies, which brings up some definite possibilities for themes. Based on the movie that inspired it, “Groundhog Day” offers a routine where things appear to change but don’t-spectators are taken back in time. In the routine, two silks are tied together and a series of cards with frowning and smiling faces are mixed. In the end, the silks are found to be separate and untied, and the cards are correctly sorted in groups of happy and frowning faces, just as they were in the beginning. This is an offbeat effect.Accounting for EverythingIn “Bean Counter”, the magician presents a jar that’s filled with beans and also holds some money and a folded piece of paper. The jar is sealed with a removable cap. Spectators are told that they will have to guess the number of beans in the jar. When the audience agrees on a number, the jar is opened, the spectator reaches into the jar and pulls out the note, and the number that’s written on the note matches the audience’s estimate. This is another offbeat routine that has a brilliant and diabolical method that isn’t difficult to perform. I found the method to be as stunning as the effect. I laughed out loud when de Cova explained this one. In “Tea Time”, the magician displays a prediction, a folded playing card that’s sitting in a tea strainer. Interestingly, on my DVD player, the presentation segment consistently seized-up. As a result, I can’t comment on the effect because I couldn’t watch it. But this one has a killer method with lots of possibilities. If you can work the tea strainer into your predication effect, this is a great idea.On his DVDs, Alexander de Cova proves that he is an innovative thinker. His secrets are clean and direct and rely on clever methods. This DVD is worth watching just for the methods-I was entertained by the amazing approaches. And there’s also some great effects that you can add to your repertoire.