I think you're totally right. There have been a few tricks that were good, but still leave some ideas as to how they could be done, but the trick that still has me in disbelief and leaves me with zero clue as to how it was possible is this one: http://videosift.com/video/Shawn-Farquhar-s-Fantastic-Card-Trick-Fool-Us-Penn-Teller

Shawn Farquhar gets just Penn's signed card flipped reverse with all cards in new-deck order INSIDE a box and wrapped in plastic! WTF!

Penn & Teller: Fool Us // Kostya Kimlat Makes Penn Mad has been added as a related post - related requested by lucky760 on that post.

Shawn Farquhar's Fantastic Card Trick-Fool Us Penn & Teller has been added as a related post - related requested by lucky760.

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You're making an assumption about the show and about Penn's reaction ;0)

Haha @ Penn picking the three of clubs.

I think I see how this is done. Watch at .25 speed around 3:58. As he's going through the deck, you can see he's filtering face-up cards versus face down cards. Then just before the reveal, he does a "cut" which aligns the cards. He has Penn and Tellers cars set opposite...if they went in face-up then he put them in the face-down cut, if they put it in face-down, he put it in the face-up selection. I'm surprised that they didn't realize how this was done. Pretty basic, actually. This is the phantom shuffle method.

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)

Penn might need to adjust his Low-T treatment.

@eric3579 Apparently, Penn/Teller confirmed on twitter that she wasn't a plant. (This from an unrelated blog post, I don't know how to find the tweet itself). Also, every participant has to tell a "judge" backstage how the trick is done, to avoid any funny business (for instance, denying that Penn & Teller's explanation is correct, even if it is).

I would guess shes a plant and knows three of the mens names in the audience.

I wonder why Penn thinks the choosing of people were random. Maybe for whatever reason they just cant say the women and or men are plants.

Rubik's Cube Magician Steven Brundage fools Penn & Teller... has been added as a related post - related requested by lucky760 on that post.

All I saw was someone that had a tremendous amount of experience with Rubik's Cubes and very, very, fast sleight of hand. Some of his switch moves are incredibly fast. The best one at showing this skill is the trick @ 1:51. Penn & Teller are easily noticing the amount of sleight of hand needed to pull it off, as they clap at every one of the tricks involving not only solving the cube but also using very fast sleight of hand as well.

Your video, Rubik's Cube Magician Steven Brundage fools Penn & Teller..., has made it into the Top 15 New Videos listing. Congratulations on your achievement. For your contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

*promote awesome cubing/cheating. watch until the very end to see his award. Thats a priceless use of typography from P&T. I'm betting thats Penns idea.

I was providing a more "technology tailored" way to fool us and how it might create a great magic trick. I also love magic tricks that make use of self-created "magical" devices (his vest counts towards what I'm talking about).

As I mentioned there are probably quite a few ways to do this trick and I wholeheartedly agree with you that the most likely way the majority of this was done was via misdirection and cues. As it is true with almost everything, the simplest answer usually is the truth.

I however, became interested with he kept moving his hands (and the "cards") to the same spots or moving them, repeating, the same movement over and over again right before the "change" or flip occurred (with other things as well like the smoke--and yes, I know it was more than likely misdirection--but, sometimes smoke is just smoke ).

That is what made me think of a scanner (mostly because I'm a computer/engineering/physics hippie and I have seen scanners that can be made to look exactly like that mat; but I also have learned a bit of magic, with that instead of becoming an amateur magician I instead learned about magic and it's history instead). But, like you said and I also said above in my comment, this all can/could be done through many various schemes. Using differing ways of that same scheme/idea, the same mechanics and/or devices, with sleight of hand and a lot of misdirection (very well done too, simply because there was so very much of it needed--which Penn & Teller commended him on in their own way).

His jacket for example is obviously HIS engineered creation. It has a lot of hidden and secret functionality; in fact it may have been the underlying foundation that allowed the whole trick to work so well (you never know just what exactly is the magician's biggest helper in many tricks). That is what I love, personally, about magic is the engineering and love--the workmanship--that can go into it. Every great magician definitely has that engineering facet to their personality; they all know how to create a device that gives them just what they need. I've seen so many magical devices and how they were used and how they're made as well and I must say, it is a terribly interesting thing to learn about and see done. Sometimes you have devices made just to perform one extremely small function, just to add that little bit of "panache" to a trick...

Every magician--good and average--however do have or need one thing in common no matter what, and this refers to what you talk about (and this magician may be leagues ahead of others, making all tricks completed in that same manner seem simple and mundane compared to what he can accomplish with the exact same, extremely fundamental, aspect to magic; pulling off tricks that almost all magicians would believe to be impossible using such a standard fare of abilities and methods): agility and sleight of hand. With this comes the uses for that "god-like" speed and manipulation. Use that with engineered tools (not necessarily what I mentioned--the scanner, printer, and ink method--but, things easier to craft and more likely to be used like his vest) and it can suddenly make any of the simplest tasks (or even tricks that other magicians perform) we do everyday, extraordinary if not miraculous.

I thought I'd add my idea, because I like to figure these tricks out as well; as I'm sure many of you are as well.

Overall, if I was Penn and Teller, I'd be most impressed with his ability to keep his showmanship intact while obviously needing great concentration on the trick at the same time--not to mention he keeps showing superb sleight of hand the whole time.

So many magicians are just amazing to watch. The tools they create (which can be so complicated that you'd never believe that someone would create such a thing or something fairly complicated to complete one very easy task) sometimes never let their presence be known--if done right. But in other cases you know there is "something" helping the magician, but you can't begin to imagine what exactly he has created or what exactly it is accomplishing for him.

I do wish they'd give us a general idea how these tricks are performed, without destroying the "magic" involved. Just tell us general things, like "misdirection and a magical device", etc... They don't need to explain it into it's minutiae.

I'll always love magic and the amazing use of the mind and the body to create illusions grand and small (or "magic" that just tests the limits OF the mind or the body; feats, as it were).

When the body and mind work together in perfect unison to create such wonderful uses of sleight of hand, feats, and "magical" devices...these are the type of people that will continue--hopefully for as long as humans exist--to create magic as real as it can get. Waking up the child inside us all!

/length