Reviewed by Tom Denton
As someone with an almost unnatural fascination with the nuances of card sleights, I was very interested to get my hands on Liam Montier's latest release on Big Blind Media, The Elmsley Count Project. I've liked Liam's previous work, especially his two volumes of The Wicked World of Liam Montier, but, as a purist card guy, there wasn't much there that was useful for me personally. Still, I knew he had a creative flair and good attention to detail, so I had high hopes for this two DVD set.
As the title very helpfully makes clear, this release is all about the Elmsley Count. It's become a ubiquitous card move since it's popularisation by Dai Vernon in his Twisting the Aces routine, but, to my mind, it's often performed badly. In some contexts, it's quite an unnatural way to show a packet of cards, so if you're going to use it, your technique needs to be flawless to avoid arousing suspicion. The first disc of the set goes into minute detail on Liam's handling of the count, and I would go as far as to say he performs it as well as anyone I've ever seen. The teaching in this section is superb, and I think that anyone from the novice to an experienced card handler will find something to improve their Elmsley Count here.
The rest of the first disc is made up of variations of the basic move, and teaching of additional similar counts. All this content makes this DVD an excellent resource for the principles of false counting, with Liam's personal touches and details which genuinely inspired me to think more about these kind of ideas. As this is a Big Blind Media product, it goes without saying that the production quality is very good, everything is shown clearly and this is very easy to learn from.
Then we come to the second disc. Here, Liam teaches eight tricks using the Elmsley Count, or one of the variations taught on disc one. These range from the classic to the modern, and include two contributions from Liam himself. Having been impressed with the content of disc one, I have to admit I was a bit disappointed with this disc. As I've said, one of the main failings of the Elmsley Count, to my mind, is the fact that it can look very unnatural, and therefore it needs to be well-justified by its context. I didn't feel this came across in Liam's performances, as, many times, I felt that the execution of the move itself didn't fit the rhythm of the trick itself. Therefore, I don't think this disc showed off the move to its best advantage. In fact, I would suggest that some tricks would have been better if they had been streamlined and the count removed completely, which kind of defeats the object of including them on an Elmsley Count DVD.
Having said that, this DVD set is still a great investment. While the second disc doesn't really bring much to the party, the first disc more than makes up for this. The subtleties in handling that Liam teaches, make this a brilliant resource for studying the Elmsley Count.
Available at http://www.bigblindmedia.com/product-elmsley.html
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