If you have secured your seat for tonight’s event at the official Anaconda Dribble website then you’ve already got an email from Bone Ho and The Virts telling you that the Pre-Release will be open for 60 minutes before the official launch.

Now, I can tell you that this “special” VIP window will be open in about 9 hours from now so if you haven’t put your email in the Reservation List go do it as soon as you can because it is right now filled with 520 people and growing.

EDIT:

Release will be Wednesday, 19th August, 7pm GMT

If you are not sure about buying this DVD or letting it go, this video, the winner of the “Crazy Ones” competition, might change your mind.

Bone Ho Anaconda Dribble

So here is the deal.

Official Price:

* The Anaconda DVD will cost $47.
* The Eye Cut will cost $37.

However, for the first 4 days of the 7 day period, they’re going to give everybody at AnacondaDribble a huge discount.

Price for the first 4 days:

* The Anaconda DVD will cost $35. (You save $12)
* The Eye Cut will cost $27. (You save $10)

But I’m sure some of you are wondering whether you’ll get a discount if you get both the Anaconda DVD and The Eye Cut.

The answer… is yes. If you get the bundle, you’ll save a total of $37.

Bundle price:

* The Anaconda DVD will cost $27. (You save $20)
* The Eye Cut will cost $20. (You save $17)

Yup, they’re gonna give you both The Anaconda DVD and The Eye Cut for the original price of the Anaconda DVD… $47.

Remember that this DVD will only be for sale the first 7 days after the release and then you will only see it at eBay for hundreds of bucks.

Don’t be stupid and go pre-order, even if you don’t like it, which is impossible, you will be able to resell it and make money to buy some Jerry’s Nuggets.

Bone Ho Anaconda Dribble

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“What Gambit should have been.”

“We’ve all watched X-Men Origins: Wolverine… where Gambit makes a cameo of sorts. Whilst Taylor Kitsch was awesome as gambit, his role wasn’t quite the kickass card dude in the cartoons and comics. I mean he barely used his signature playing cards!

With that…here’s our little take on Gambit after watching the movie… well… if he did card flourishes.

Credits:

X-Men Origins: Wolverine

Footage from www.xmenorigins.com

Directed by Gavin Hood

Taylor Kitsch as Gambit

Virtuoso: Gambit

Directed by Huron Low

Edited by Daren Yeow and Huron Low

Filming and Cinematography by Huron Low and Daren Yeow

Card Flourishes created by Huron Low, Daren Yeow, Bone Ho, Dan and Dave Buck, S W Erdnase

Card Flourishes performed by Huron Low and Daren Yeow

Title Track “Gambit”

Composed, recorded, scored and mixed by Roland Lim

Special Thanks to Zarinah Bahtiar, Kevin Ho, and Bone Ho

Check out Bone Ho’s AnacondaDribble DVD

Direction and Cinematography by Huron Low
Filmed and Edited by Daren Yeow and Huron Low

Title Track “Our Time is Now”
Composed, Performed, Mixed and Recorded by- Roland Lim

Card Flourishes Performed By
Huron Low, Kevin Ho, and Daren Yeow

Card Flourishes Created By
Virtuoso/ The Virts: Huron Low, Kevin Ho, Daren Yeow
Bone Ho
Daryl Chang
Paul LePaul
Dan and Dave Buck
Check out Bone Ho’s AnacondaDribble DVD

—

Check out Bone Ho’s AnacondaDribble DVD

This is what UK’s famous magician Dynamo, Daren Yeow, Huron Low and Criss Angel do in their free time.

For those of you that can’t stand the last one… i’d say watch it anyway, there is a nice card flourishing virtuoso mini-jam that you can probably slow down and stream it over at mebeam.

I didn’t miss Kevin Ho in that video, I’ve got enough with all those tweets he writes at @visualmadness.

I took a trip to Singapore to see relatives in the summer of 2008 (as I do every 2 years). This time I decided to arrange a meet-up with the world renoun flourishers virtuoso aka the virts.
However, I could not meet up with Elijah.

So I met up with Kevin Ho, Huron Low, and Daren Yeow.
Kevin Ho-Black Matrix shirt
Huron Low-Blue shirt
Daren Yeow-White shirt
Eugene (me)-Black Aeropostale shirt
Zarinah (Huron’s girl)-Green shirt
I kept these videos to myself and a couple of other friends.

Now, with some hesitation, I decided to release a clump a raw footage of a meet up with the virts at a local Starbucks.

With that said…

Enjoy!
-Eugene Soh

Tools, Inventions and Applications for the Modern Card Magician.

Introducing the card magic and flourishes of Kevin Ho, Smooth Operations is a 60 page book explaining an array of new material for both the curious student and seasoned pro. Over a hundred photo illustrations in full color provides an enjoyable learning experience.

Kevin is a rising young Singapore-based magician with some serious talent. As a flourisher, he’s already earned a reputation as one of the best. His style is fresh, ultra smooth, and extremely visual. And his magic is no different. Learn 5 effects, 4 sleights, 3 productions and 2 flourishes in 1 kick ass manual on card magic.

Step into a world of visual madness and experience the unexpected.

CONTENTS:

PUNK’D:
This version of Re-Set is simple, instant, and leaves you completely clean. Imagine two four-of-a-kinds, like the four Aces and four Jacks, instantly changing places with each other, and then back again moments later.

STATIC 4:
A quick and easy four Ace production that’s perfect for getting into any of your four card routines. It’s also one of Kevin’s favorites.

INVERSE IMPULSE:
A very magical looking one-handed color change that can be continuously repeated.

LONG DIVISION:
This clever routine is fun to do and gets killer reactions.

A card is produced, equaling the value of two spectatorsí chosen cards. This single card is then visually ìstretchedî into a long card, which the spectators help split into their respective selections.

PEGASUS:
An insane production of any four-of-a-kind that will blow your audience away. (Includes an alternate version.)

FLORIDA COUNT + PCP:
I guess you could say it’s a rhythm count…on acid. Very flashy, very visual, very cool.

This is definitely one of our favorite effects. It’s fast, visual, direct, and allows you to showcase beautiful sleight of hand.

PCP:
Four Jacks are counted between your hands as they seem to visually change into the four Aces. (Note: If you’re tired of the remark, “Do that again”, this is not the trick to do.)

CHASER:
The magician offers to demonstrate different aspects of sleight of hand. What follows is a fast-paced sequence of cards appearing, teleporting, changing, and transposing with each other in a casual, yet highly visual manner.

RACCOON:
Imagine a card spinning atop the deck 540 degrees to infinity. This cool little flourish is so neat and original, it has to be seen.

COLLECTORS: REDUX:
In the process of finding three spectators’ selections, the four Queens (or any four-of-a-kind) are found in an insanely chaotic and visual way that only Kevin would think of.

VISA SWITCH:
This very cool switch is open for many, many applications, of which Kevin supplies two. However, I’m sure after a little experimenting, youíll have applied it to numerous ideas of your own. All around, itís a fun little move to play with.

FULLY LOADED:
In this effect, Kevin explains how a deck of cards can be a deadly weapon with not only the ability to shoot single cards out of the deck, but also to produce a four-of-a-kind (Okay, it’s a really cool ace production with some fun patter.).

CONSPIRACY OF FOUR:
An extremely visual and fun handling of a classic plot.

The magician offers to find a four-of-a-kind other than the four Aces. All goes well until the fourth and final production – it’s an Ace. However, within the blink of an eye, the other three cards instantly turn into the other three Aces, forming a complete four-of-a-kind after all.

BOB CHANGE:
With a light shake, a card held in the magician’s hand instantly turns into another card.

A very clever and in-your-face take on the well-known Shapeshifter change.

REPAINTED:
A blank fan of cards is seen. With a quick wave, the faces of the cards visually appear. The method is so obvious itís hard to believe no one has ever thought of this before. An instant classic in my book.

Get it now at dananddave.com

Our  sponsor Aceking has listed some great deals on hard to find playing cards.

These Dr. Leon playing cards are Hiro Sakai’s custom decks (the creator of the Duck Change and  Street Magic Professional).

He has some Split Spades Lions which are David Blaine’s New custom deck as you all know (the creator of… and yeah, another Street Magic Godfather).

But my favourite cards would be the smooth finish Aladdin that Kevin Ho uses all the time in his videos, the amazing Texan Palmetto wich are the most beautiful deck for fans, the uber famous Wynns and the #1 overall deck Tally-Ho fan back and circle back.

2 decks Bicycle Dr. Leon Yellow Black Playing cards

12 decks Bicycle Elephant Tsunami playing cards green
12 Bicycle Tragic Royalty Halloween Playing Cards Poker

1 black deck Split Spades LIONS Playing Cards blaine
2decks red/blue Split Spades LIONS Playing Cards blaine

12 Decks Bicycle Pro Peek Poker Playing cards

12 decks Texan #45 Palmetto playing cards poker magic

12 Decks Aladdin 1001 air-cushion playing cards poker
12 Decks Aladdin 1001 smooth finish playing cards poker

12 NEW decks Bee WYNN logo casino playing cards
12 NEW violet decks Bee WYNN logo casino playing cards
60 NEW decks Bee WYNN logo casino playing cards
12 new RED decks Bee WYNN logo casino playing cards

12 Tally-Ho No.9 Playing Cards Fan Back poker
12 Tally-Ho No.9 Playing Cards Circle Back

What’s your favourite deck? Make sure you check Aceking’s store for more hidden treasures at awesome prices and remember that you have up to 10% discount if you tell him that you are subscribed to my feed or email newsletter.

Hi guys,

I guess most of you have noticed the Interviews tab on the top navbar of the blog, or at least have seen a couple of them either here or at my youtube channel.

I started this initiative because I thought our art lacked personality, i mean, we knew each other for our avatar and signatures in the forums and our perfect manicure (which i didn’t ever have) from the videos.

First I thought of trying to interview the big names only so that we could demistify themselves and put them closer to us poor average card guys, but then, after a while i thought it would be interesting to interview anyone that was in the “spotlight” or had anything interesting to say about our art.

The easier method i though of was sending them some questions in a text file that they should answer whenever they had some spare time.

This way i got a few interesting ones but then i got to ask my friend Jordan Lapping and he came up with the idea of doing the interview in front of his webcam, thus making it even more personal and impromptu.

I loved it and then I started asking many people to do that for the community.

The responses were priceless, and this was what made this blog be what it is now, so I feel like I have to thank you for building up this whole thing with your videos, articles, card gossip and constructive comments.

There are some great interviews for you to watch if you didn’t already and some other scheduled for the future, here is the list of the names that we’ve got so far so select one, sit back and enjoy and after that mind leaving a comment or asking them a question.

TheCuso interviews Kent
TheCuso interviews Chris Hestnes
TheCuso interviews Kate
TheCuso interviews Vincent Dark
TheCuso interviews Jaspas
TheCuso interviews Ineski (taken down temporary)
TheCuso interviews Mattgic and MaXim
TheCuso Interviews Adam
TheCuso interviews Pierre Tran
TheCuso interviews David Blanch
TheCuso interviews Bone Ho
TheCuso interviews Jordan Lapping
TheCuso interviews Daren Yeow
TheCuso interviews Jonas Haglund

There are some great interviews coming up like Kevin Ho’s,that he might film this weekend, Cardshark88’s (co-founder of The3C and youtube top subscribed card guru), Justflourish staff (Sebastian, Tical…), Luka, Brendan Conner, Justin Kelly, Scenacle french guys, Scott and Sean, Allan Hagen, Ling and many more.

So i would like to hear from you about what do you think about this whole initiative and how could it be improved, who would you like to be interviewed in the future or what other ideas do you have to bring the artist closer.

Leave a comment and chose your favourite interview.

- Alejandro Portela

This is one of the effects that is going to be taught in Kevin Ho’s new set of notes coming soon which will include 14 sweet items:

5 magic effects
4 utility moves
3 ace productions
2 flourishes

Punk’d, Collectors: redux, Pegasus, and Raccoon will all be explained in the notes in beautiful detail, alongside many of his other magic-related pet items.

Filmed in late 2004 2005 this video shows the baby steps of singaporean flourishing team The Virts. You can see an excerpt of this video in the Virtuoso video.

Directed, filmed and edited by Huron Low and featuring the old virts Huron Low, Kevin Ho, Sylvester, Elijah Cai and Daryl Ho.

These guys have been rocking the flourishing scene for a long time now. Who will ever defeat them?

Early 2007

Time for another podcast with our lazy host Adam. In this episode he talks about what happened these last two weeks.

The HL x-files, Allan Hagen’s video, Sick and Twisted Wings of the Mockingbird Tutorial by Kevin ho and some other things that i want you to discover by watching the video.

What does the name of this episode mean? You’ll see.

Here is the download in mp4 for your ipod / iphone / mp4 player TheCuso’s Podcast: Episode 2 – Pussy and make sure you subscribe with itunes using this feed.

Here’s another amazing tutorial by Kev. You saw this in portable playground and the first fase in the Virtuoso video.

Now it’s your chance to learn this classy and stylish move. Big thanks to Kevin, i hope you do the same in the comments section.

Here is KevHonline’s signature move Damn Straight tutorial for you guys. Most of you already seen it but this is for the ones that dont.

Thanks Kevin for all the things you contributed to this art and for what’s to come.

One of the classic underground videos with Kevhonline and Dan Buck from mid 2005.
Awesome tcteesa/pandora there Dan. Gotta love this video. The music is still in my head since the first time i saw it.

After initial hesitation, Kevin Ho from The Virts has finally agreed to do an interview for the blog.

In addition to answering the questions I’ve given him, he will also be answering select questions asked by readers.

So if you have a question that you’d like to ask him, please leave it in the comments section of this post.

We will choose the ones we consider most relevant and interesting, so please don’t ask things like whats his favourite lingerie (it’s Pampered Passions.)

In addition, you’ll get your name credited in the video interview if your question is chosen so think twice before you select them.

Please ask only one question per reader.

Good Luck,

Alejandro

Adam, Kevin Ho and Fiddling Steve met up last week at Danbury, Connecticut and shot this amazing flourishing video. A must favorite for all you guys.

Who do we perform for?

The people on the other side of some random computer screen, or people in real life?

When you’re doing flourishes for people out in the real world, what’s usually the case is that everything you’re doing is brand new to your spectators. As a result, you want to be doing the most eye-popping, variety-rich material so as to effectively display your masterful prowess in this little-known art. So what usually happens is that you’ll turn to the tried-and-true, published material of the masters to include in your arsenal of 52. And that’s perfectly fine.

However -

When you’re performing for the online card community, it’s a whole different case.

Is your intention to impress us? If so, the bars have been set – there are countless amazing videos out there, so if you want to make any impact at all you’re going to have to raise the stakes a little. If I’m going to sit down and spend a minute or so of my time watching a video, why should it be yours? Usually this involves the introduction of original moves, original takes on classic moves, or an original approach altogether. One of the most awesome videos of all time, Daryl Ho’s Reloaded, only had a few original moves, but the way in which he approached the presentation of the video had never been done before, and it remains iconic for that reason.

On the other hand, perhaps you’re posting a tutorial of a move, which is admirable – one can be a little… hesitant to share material nowadays, for reasons I’m sure we’ll all aware of. But like it’s been said before, keep in mind that merely adding a packet to a cut or changing the direction of a swivel is not enough to be able to call something your own. In my opinion, it has to do with intentions – are you merely publishing a tutorial so as to present the illusion that you have original material, or do you genuinely have something worthwhile to share? Usually it’s the second case that brings more inspiring material in terms of originality.

Part of the reason the online card-related video community was started up over half a decade ago was so that people who did what we did could give honest and constructive feedback on each other’s progress so as to help each other get better, advancing the future of the art in the big picture. But what happened along the way is that it turned into a competition of which metaphorical lab rat could get to the metaphorical cheese the fastest, and all those who were generous enough to share their own material started to withhold in disillusionment. The solution is simple – for commenters to have higher standards and let people know when their roses really smell like poo-poo-ooo, and for those with an abundance of original material to come out of their cages and start providing hotspots of inspiration again.

All in all, though, keep in mind that this art is still in its beginning stages – the foundations are still being laid out, so consider yourself lucky to be one of the early practitioners of the sport. And while you’re at it, why not add a building block of your own?

-Kev, The Virts

as read in dananddave.com/forum

The art of playing card flourishing is expression through the manipulation of cards utilizing a deck’s ability to split into 52 parts.

It is an extension of the flourisher’s personality, where through this expression he finds a sense of freedom.

In 2004, four artists in Singapore formed the card flourishing team, Virtuoso, and took the world by storm.

They took a break from the public scene in 2006 to reconceptualize their team.

The year is 2007, and here Virtuoso pushes the limits of the art again like never before.

Welcome to the tip of the iceberg of what’s to come.

The Virts…are back.