Could the Mercury Card Fold be the sleight that is responsible for more tricks being in bottom drawers than any other?
Its execution in essence is dead easy. You can describe the mechanics to a lay person in seconds, and they could be giving it a pretty good bash in a minute.
And there lies the reason it is a trick assassin, a move that is easy yet takes a lot of effort to master. It is easy to buy an effect that uses it having convinced yourself this time you will overcome your fears; you’ll be able to get an accurate fold and no one will notice you doing it.
You will also become obsessed with doing it as quickly as possible.
Having a messy card fold can spoil a trick, not because the audience notice, but because you will rush to get it unfolded. Spoiling any build up to the reveal. I really don’t think accuracy is as important as we think (chances are only you will be aware of any discrepancy between the two folded cards) but it does provide confidence.
The general advice I hear is get 5 packs of old cards and sit in front of the telly, folding away. I have no idea which element of the MCF this is meant to help you with, if your fold is naturally squiffy then folding 250 cards squiffy just makes a morale busting mess.
The MCF needs to be practiced in a smarter way.
Just do the first fold and stop. Look at where are the fold is and how the short edges overlap (assuming you haven’t nailed it). Is the fold in the middle or closer one end? Is the front edge higher that the back edge? This indicates if the fold happened too soon or too late or you lowered the hand moving back.
Now do the fold again, slowly. Watching your hands and seeing how the card bends. Move your fingers and adjust until you find out the position and motion to do that first fold close to the middle.
Keep folding slowly whilst watching making sure you get the fold as central as possible. At the same time checking it is a straight fold with the edges parallel and you aren’t bringing the front of the card backwards at an angle.
Don’t be scared to make bold changes or try different hand positions. You may want the deck quite low in your palm and use the crotch of your thumb against the deck as a guide, you may want it higher with your palm almost perpendicular. There is no correct answer, but by making mistakes and playing the physics of the move will become more apparent.
Once you can do the fold in the middle and square when looking, only then try with out watching. Hopefully, having played about a fair bit already, you will understand the cause and therefore the solution to any misalignment.
Once you have nailed the first fold, start adding the second fold, with the same process.
Only when you have the correct mechanics in mind should you start blasting through the old decks. Even then not mindlessly but seeing if you are making mistakes and adjusting accordingly. Don’t practice mistakes!
Once your fold is good enough, you simply need a little bit of misdirection to carry it out. This is using integrated into most routines anyway. Often you draw everyone’s attention to an impossible location with the heat off the deck.
If I feel exposed or on stage for example, I have found tugging up my sleeves a great reason to pass the deck from hand to hand, making the fold in two steps.
Experiment there is no correct answer.
And now the best bit, you can cheat a bit!
Perfect Score by Jon Allen is a card scoring device which makes accurate folding a doddle. You can prep the whole deck in a few minutes or just do one card and force it.
Matthew Wright has just released Easy Fold which takes another approach entirely, perhaps slightly less versatile. But a full review is coming.