# Derren Brown Cheating Too! :(



## BillyRain (May 29, 2013)

So my friend informs me that on his latest tour, Derren is doing fake BLD.

Apparently he is letting the audience scramble a 4x4, and then he is matching a solved cube to the same scramble whilst blindfolded in approximately one minute. 

I know that misdirection and trickery is his confessed way of working, but this is just adding to the list of people misinforming the public about genuine blind solving. 

Get ready for the "Yeah well Derren Brown can do that in under a minute, you suck" comments after public attempts... 

Sad times for cubing really.. too much cheating going on at the moment.


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## KongShou (May 29, 2013)

People will know he is cheating and therefore not real bld. I don't see any problem


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## BillyRain (May 29, 2013)

May I ask how you think the general public will know he is cheating? The general public.... that knows nothing about cubing?


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## MaeLSTRoM (May 29, 2013)

Well I would expect that everyone who sees anything that Darren does will assume its not legit anyway, because that's just how he works. It's like when you get magicians throwing a cube in the air and catching it solved, you don't get comments that "O this guy can do it by throwing it in the air you suck". 
When people know it's fake, then you won't get the comments about it.

Also, there isn't that much cheating going on at all.... The only thing I can think of if at all is 4.41, the rest is skewed because of the media anyway, so it doesn't really count. I mean, if the TV show want you to do a BLD solve, theres a likelihood that you'll set it up so that people can see you get the success, which is all they care about. Saying "O I failed but it was close" doesn't cut it for the media.


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## KongShou (May 29, 2013)

MaeLSTRoM said:


> Well I would expect that everyone who sees anything that Darren does will assume its not legit anyway, because that's just how he works. It's like when you get magicians throwing a cube in the air and catching it solved, you don't get comments that "O this guy can do it by throwing it in the air you suck".
> When people know it's fake, then you won't get the comments about it.
> 
> Also, there isn't that much cheating going on at all.... The only thing I can think of if at all is 4.41, the rest is skewed because of the media anyway, so it doesn't really count. I mean, if the TV show want you to do a BLD solve, theres a likelihood that you'll set it up so that people can see you get the success, which is all they care about. Saying "O I failed but it was close" doesn't cut it for the media.



I completely agree, exactly my point but explained better than I can.


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## BillyRain (May 29, 2013)

Oh ****in forget it then and delete the thread if it doesn't matter.


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## ~Adam~ (May 29, 2013)

Anyone who thinks what Derren Brown does is real isn't worth caring about IMO.
Sorry Billy.


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## MaeLSTRoM (May 29, 2013)

BillyRain said:


> Oh ****in forget it then and delete the thread if it doesn't matter.



There's no need for that... :|

On a related note, can you list all the people that you consider are cheating or w/e. I've seen a few people mention it a couple of times now and I must be out of the loop or smt because I can only think of the 4.41 for now.


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## BillyRain (May 29, 2013)

Missing the point. 

As I said, Derren admits to being a trickster. Everybody knows that and he isnt trying to fool anyone into thinking he is genuine. 

However, that won't stop people being much less impressed by a genuine solve after seeing him do it so quickly, weather or not in their heads they know if it was real or not.



MaeLSTRoM said:


> There's no need for that... :|
> 
> On a related note, can you list all the people that you consider are cheating or w/e. I've seen a few people mention it a couple of times now and I must be out of the loop or smt because I can only think of the 4.41 for now.



I won't bother Chris because you most likely have a armory of cleverly prepared explanations for each case which will make me look like the lesser being *rolls eyes*


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## MaeLSTRoM (May 29, 2013)

BillyRain said:


> Missing the point.
> 
> As I said, Derren admits to being a trickster. Everybody knows that and he isnt trying to fool anyone into thinking he is genuine.
> 
> However, that won't stop people being much less impressed by a genuine solve after seeing him do it so quickly, weather or not in their heads they know if it was real or not.



Yeah of course, but then if you're doing solves in public purposely to impress people, there's always going to be that one guy that says "My friend/brother/workmate/etc can do that in 5 seconds behind his back, you suck lololol"

Perhaps the difference is that although you may be slower, at least your solve is legit, and that's fairly easy to prove against Derren.  
Also, I know of a couple of people who have seen him live, and whenever I ask about it, they refuse to tell me anything, saying that you should see it for yourself and that it doesn't really mean much when taken out of context, so perhaps people won't mention it anyway.


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## ~Adam~ (May 29, 2013)

BillyRain said:


> However, that won't stop people being much less impressed by a genuine solve after seeing him do it so quickly, weather or not in their heads they know if it was real or not.



That may be the case and all I can suggest is, try not to let it bother you too much.

The chances are that anyone who sees you solve 4BLD will think that it is either a lot harder or a lot easier than it really is.


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## scottishcuber (May 29, 2013)

MaeLSTRoM said:


> There's no need for that... :|
> 
> On a related note, can you list all the people that you consider are cheating or w/e. I've seen a few people mention it a couple of times now and I must be out of the loop or smt because I can only think of the 4.41 for now.





Recently, the other scandal is from Maxim Chechnev on Ukraine's Got Talent. Thread:

http://www.speedsolving.com/forum/showthread.php?42170-Maxim-Chechnev-on-quot-Ukraine-s-Got-Talent-quot-show-Final&p=857936#post857936


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## AvGalen (May 29, 2013)

BillyRain said:


> I know that misdirection and trickery is his confessed way of working, but this is just adding to the list of people misinforming the public about genuine blind solving.


No, as you say yourself his confessed way of working is misdirection and trickerty. So he is not misinforming the public about genuine blind solving. You said everything in that 1 sentence yourself already



BillyRain said:


> on his latest tour, Derren is doing fake BLD. Apparently he is letting the audience scramble a 4x4, and then he is matching a solved cube to the same scramble whilst blindfolded in approximately one minute.



That is a really good trick. I am very curious as to how he would be doing this. I can only think of the following 2 scenarios that basically come down to the same thing:
1a) A few random people in the audience scramble it, then at last somebody "who is in on it" swaps the already randomly scrambled cube for a known scrambled cube, maybe applies some more known moves to it and brings this to the podium
1b) OR the truely randomly scrambled cube is brought to the podium and then swapped for a randomly scrambled cube
2) AND He applies a prepared set of moves to match a solved cube to the prepared scrambled cube

Does anyone have another idea?


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## MaeLSTRoM (May 29, 2013)

AvGalen said:


> Does anyone have another idea?



I seem to recall a program in which he shared details of one of his shows, and for this kind of trick he had a spotter, so I wonder if the cube is imaged somehow by a helper, and then a solution is generated using an off-stage computer, and he's then talked through the moves.


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## Ollie (May 29, 2013)

Derren Brown has always been a crazy mnemonist and autodicadent, so he's more than capable of doing it for real, if not the 4x4x4 then a 3x3x3 or a 2x2x2 at the very least. But for a stage show with time restrictions, yeah... it won't be the real thing.

I'm not bothered how he does it unless he claims to use a memory technique similar to ours. He does his research as well so he may acknowledge us. Who knows


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## AvGalen (May 29, 2013)

MaeLSTRoM said:


> I seem to recall a program in which he shared details of one of his shows, and for this kind of trick he had a spotter, so I wonder if the cube is imaged somehow by a helper, and then a solution is generated using an off-stage computer, and he's then talked through the moves.


Sounds too complicated and prone to error. Please try it yourself. Use a camera to take a picture of the 6 sides of the cube from a bit of distance, find a (semi)optimal solver and generate a scramble for this scramble, then ask someone to read that scramble to you move by move and apply it. All within a minute or so of course.




Ollie said:


> Derren Brown has always been a crazy mnemonist and autodicadent, so he's more than capable of doing it for real, if not the 4x4x4 then a 3x3x3 or a 2x2x2 at the very least. But for a stage show with time restrictions, yeah... it won't be the real thing.


I am quite fast at match-the-scramble, but I cannot always do a sub 1 for 333. There is of course no way I could do a 444-match-the-scramble in 1 minute and neither could he.


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## MaeLSTRoM (May 29, 2013)

AvGalen said:


> Sounds too complicated and prone to error. Please try it yourself. Use a camera to take a picture of the 6 sides of the cube from a bit of distance, find a (semi)optimal solver and generate a scramble for this scramble, then ask someone to read that scramble to you move by move and apply it. All within a minute or so of course.



It also depends on how the act works, if he is allowed some time to look at the cube beforehand, that could possibly be long enough for the scramble to be generated, and then if he knew at least some form of notation, it could then be read out in less than a minute once he has placed on the blindfold.

I suppose we'd get more of a chance of figuring it out if there is a video somewhere, but I doubt that one exists.


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## Ollie (May 29, 2013)

AvGalen said:


> I am quite fast at match-the-scramble, but I cannot always do a sub 1 for 333. There is of course no way I could do a 444-match-the-scramble in 1 minute and neither could he.



Sorry, I wasn't being clear, I meant regular BLD 

I wonder if the secret in how he does it lies in the fact that he's doing a match-the-scramble solve rather than solving it from a random position? It's probably a good idea for misdirection (in magic terms)


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## labirint (May 29, 2013)

scottishcuber said:


> Recently, the other scandal is from Maxim Chechnev on Ukraine's Got Talent. Thread:
> 
> http://www.speedsolving.com/forum/showthread.php?42170-Maxim-Chechnev-on-quot-Ukraine-s-Got-Talent-quot-show-Final&p=857936#post857936



Hey, guys! Could you explain me the following:

Why did you create such a big scandal from "Ukraine's got talents", some of you even suggested banning Maxim on WCA, but here most of you justify Derren and discuss about "how tricky he is that he managed to cheat"?


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## AvGalen (May 29, 2013)

labirint said:


> Hey, guys! Could you explain me the following:
> 
> Why did you create such a big scandal from "Ukraine's got talents", some of you even suggested banning Maxim on WCA, but here most of you justify Derren and discuss about "how tricky he is that he managed to cheat"?


Derren Brown doesn't pretend to have talent (for cubing). Everyone knows he is putting on a show.
Maxim is the equivalent of a singer on a talent show that is playbacking/lipsynching.


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## stoic (May 29, 2013)

labirint said:


> Hey, guys! Could you explain me the following:
> 
> Why did you create such a big scandal from "Ukraine's got talents", some of you even suggested banning Maxim on WCA, but here most of you justify Derren and discuss about "how tricky he is that he managed to cheat"?



Derren Brown explains at the start of all his shows that he uses a mixture of magic, misdirection, trickery and showmanship in his performance. This wasn't done in the Ukraine show.


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## Ollie (May 29, 2013)

labirint said:


> Hey, guys! Could you explain me the following:
> 
> Why did you create such a big scandal from "Ukraine's got talents", some of you even suggested banning Maxim on WCA, but here most of you justify Derren and discuss about "how tricky he is that he managed to cheat"?



Because:

1. Derren Brown isn't a speedcuber, nor does he represent speedcubing, unlike Maxim.
2. Maxim actually *lies* about his BLD abilities on the show. He claims to be using techniques that he is not using, and because of his he is making it seem that 11x11x11 BLD can be done in a matter of minutes by almost anyone. 11BLD will not be accomplished for years, yet.

We're not defending him or attacking him yet. We don't know enough about the trick, it's just a rumour. We're speculating.


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## labirint (May 29, 2013)

Thank you all. I guess I misunderstood the idea of the first post in this thread. Anyway, to make the situation more clear, could anyone give me a link to the show we're talking about?


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## stoic (May 29, 2013)

labirint said:


> Thank you all. I guess I misunderstood the idea of the first post in this thread. Anyway, to make the situation more clear, could anyone give me a link to the show we're talking about?



I don't know if there is any video, but there's a blog about it here.

Doesn't mention anything about 4x4 or BLD though.


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## BillyRain (May 29, 2013)

ellwd said:


> I don't know if there is any video, but there's a blog about it here.
> 
> Doesn't mention anything about 4x4 or BLD though.



Does mention rubik's cubes though (spelled wrongly).

I'd imagine there wont be a video until the show is released on DVD.


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## A Leman (May 29, 2013)

These things really irk me. I realize that he is a magician that acts like he memorizes specially shuffled deck of cards in <20 seconds and now 4BLD in less than a minute. It's really entertaining for the audience, but If I end up in his audience somehow, then I would challenge him to beat me at either one because both of his "tricks" are not going to be reproduced on a random state.


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## KongShou (May 29, 2013)

A Leman said:


> These things really irk me. I realize that he is a magician that acts like he memorizes specially shuffled deck of cards in <20 seconds and now 4BLD in less than a minute. It's really entertaining for the ignorant, but If I end up in his audience somehow, then I would challenge him to beat me at either one because both of his "tricks" are not going to be reproduced on a random state.



A good magician can remember a set of cards within 20 seconds. That is real. His 4BLD, however, isn't. If you challenge him you will definitely lose, looking stupid. As they are the master of cheating and deception, it's their job.


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## A Leman (May 29, 2013)

KongShou said:


> A good magician can remember a set of cards within 20 seconds. That is real. His 4BLD, however, isn't. If you challenge him you will definitely lose, looking stupid. As they are the master of cheating and deception, it's their job.



And this is what everyone is worried about happening with BLD! No, the only people that can memorize a deck of cards that fast at the moment in the world are Simon Reinhard and possibly Wang Feng. They may like magic, but that is a fallacy that performers have tricked you into believing. Btw, the current official WR is 21.19 sec, but magicians magically do it all the time with pre-made decks. There is a ridiculous amount of effort involved in this that performers fake all the time. 

http://www.world-memory-statistics.com/discipline.php?id=spdcards


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## KongShou (May 29, 2013)

A Leman said:


> And this is what everyone is worried about happening with BLD! No, the only people that can memorize a deck of cards that fast at the moment in the world are Simon Reinhard and possibly Wang Feng. They may like magic, but that is a fallacy that performers have tricked you into believing. Btw, the current official WR is 21.19 sec, but magicians magically do it all the time with pre-made decks. There is a ridiculous amount of effort involved in this that performers fake all the time.
> 
> http://www.world-memory-statistics.com/discipline.php?id=spdcards



Ok fair enough, sorry


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## A Leman (May 29, 2013)

KongShou said:


> Ok fair enough, sorry



With that said, Darren could probably still beat me at memory events. I respect that he is a very talented and practiced mnemonist and is capable of doing these tricks properly. I would still like to see what he is capable of without the smoke and mirrors, but the high road does not sell tickets as well.


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## Stefan (May 29, 2013)

AvGalen said:


> No, as you say yourself his confessed way of working is misdirection and trickerty. So he is not misinforming the public about genuine blind solving.





Ollie said:


> I'm not bothered how he does it unless he claims to use a memory technique similar to ours.



Watch this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CTUQzO9VjJY
He's not just doing the trick, he claims to use the "techniques" of photographic memory (many people believe that exists) and photoreading (there are "non-magician" books about it, check amazon), so even despite his disclaimer at the start of his show (which isn't included in the above video!), people might believe he's not using trickery but legitimate techniques here. And he might do the same with the cube.



KongShou said:


> A good magician can remember a set of cards within 20 seconds.



Sets don't have an order, so that might not be what you meant.


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## AvGalen (May 29, 2013)

Stefan said:


> Watch this:
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CTUQzO9VjJY
> He's not just doing the trick, he claims to use the "techniques" of photographic memory (many people believe that exists) and photoreading (there are "non-magician" books about it, check amazon), so even despite his disclaimer at the start of his show (which isn't included in the above video!), people might believe he's not using trickery but legitimate techniques here. And he might do the same with the cube.
> 
> ...


So basically he is saying at the beginning of the show "I am going to trick you", then later in the show he says "I am now going to do x by using y". There is no reason to trust him at this moment because that could be a misdirection like he actually said he would use. If a magician says "these are ordinary rings" I am certainly not going to believe him! (and there IS a rabbit in his sleeves)


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## Mike Hughey (May 29, 2013)

Stefan said:


> He's not just doing the trick, he claims to use the "techniques" of photographic memory (many people believe that exists) and photoreading (there are "non-magician" books about it, check amazon), so even despite his disclaimer at the start of his show (which isn't included in the above video!), people might believe he's not using trickery but legitimate techniques here. And he might do the same with the cube.


"It took me just under 20 minutes to do that - to learn that dictionary."

Yeah, right. How did you turn the pages that fast? Or maybe it works on the closed book? Wow, that's a powerful technique.

I guess this is what makes what Derren's doing a little better than what Maxim did, or than what Mythbusters did - his lies are just obvious if you look for them, so at least intelligent people will be able to tell he's fooling them. But of course, the problem is unintelligent people.

"I'm lying about everything. Even that."


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## Stefan (May 29, 2013)

AvGalen said:


> So basically he is saying at the beginning of the show "I am going to trick you", then later in the show he says "I am now going to do x by using y". There is no reason to trust him at this moment because that could be a misdirection like he actually said he would use. If a magician says "these are ordinary rings" I am certainly not going to believe him! (and there IS a rabbit in his sleeves)



Sure. And yet, I'm sure many people *will* believe it. Just because he does use trickery in general, doesn't mean he uses trickery all the time in every feat. He could for example include some non-tricked blindcubing in his show. And again: many people will be persuaded by the terms photographic memory and photoreading because they think those are real (and if they were, they could be legitimate explanations).


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## Kirjava (May 29, 2013)

He's honest about his dishonesty.


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## Stefan (May 29, 2013)

Mike Hughey said:


> "It took me just under 20 minutes to do that - to learn that dictionary."
> 
> Yeah, right. How did you turn the pages that fast?



Huh? That seems rather easy, and not fast at all. How long do you think it would take you to do it?



Mike Hughey said:


> his lies are just obvious if you look for them



They're not obvious. Flipping through the book that "fast" shouldn't be a problem for anyone, and if you check http://www.photoreading.com/ you will for example read _"the Ferrari-style of reading called PhotoReading. It blasts printed materials to the brain at phenomenal rates, a page a second. You actually "mentally photograph" the page at 25,000 words a minute."_


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## Kirjava (May 29, 2013)

Worth a shufti


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## AvGalen (May 29, 2013)

Stefan said:


> Huh? That seems rather easy, and not fast at all. How long do you think it would take you to do it?
> 
> 
> 
> They're not obvious. Flipping through the book that "fast" shouldn't be a problem for anyone, and if you check http://www.photoreading.com/ you will for example read _"the Ferrari-style of reading called PhotoReading. It blasts printed materials to the brain at phenomenal rates, a page a second. You actually "mentally photograph" the page at 25,000 words a minute."_



I would have difficulty flipping pages in a physical dictionary for 20 minutes, and sustaining a "1 page per second" rate also seems hard.


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## BillyRain (May 29, 2013)

AvGalen said:


> I would have difficulty flipping pages in a physical dictionary for 20 minutes, and sustaining a "1 page per second" rate also seems hard.



Really? I would imagine that not being too much of a challenge. 

Also I'm sure he probably used a rubber thimble thing.


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## AvGalen (May 29, 2013)

BillyRain said:


> Really? I would imagine that not being too much of a challenge.
> 
> Also I'm sure he probably used a rubber thimble thing.


Maybe our definition of flipping is different, but to flip a page so far that I could read the next left and right page it seems impossible for me to do that for 20 minutes with 1 flip per second (not even close actually)

I had to laugh at "rubber thimble thing". I could guess what it means but just to be sure I used an image search (that gave some relevant images), but wikipedia disagreed with what a thimble actually is and actually said it would protect you from papercuts


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## Stefan (May 29, 2013)

AvGalen said:


> I would have difficulty flipping pages in a physical dictionary for 20 minutes, and sustaining a "1 page per second" rate also seems hard.



I don't know about that particular book, but I just tried one I have and got through 400 pages in 2.5 minutes. And I had no practice.



Kirjava said:


> Worth a shufti



Nice, didn't know about that book. I should first finally finish reading his "Tricks of the Mind", though...


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## Mike Hughey (May 29, 2013)

Maybe I'm just doubtful because my parents had an Oxford English Dictionary at home when I was growing up. It was a miniaturized version (small print - came with a magnifying glass), in two volumes. I remember the pages being impossibly thin, so you had to be quite careful to turn the pages to keep from ripping them. And there were so many pages! Here's what my parents had: http://www.amazon.com/Compact-Editi...060&sr=8-6&keywords=oxford+english+dictionary

I looked up on Amazon what I presume to be the one Darren used: http://www.amazon.com/Oxford-Americ...060&sr=8-1&keywords=oxford+english+dictionary
2096 pages. That means over 1000 pages to turn. That would in fact be almost a page turn per second. If you had to be careful (to not rip the pages), and you had to open it fully (so you could "photograph" the page), and you had to get a clear enough view to not miss any words, I would think this would be pretty difficult. But I suppose after looking at the numbers, it is theoretically possible. I guess I was fooled because I'm quite sure I never could have pulled it off on my parents' old copy.


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## Mike Hughey (May 29, 2013)

Stefan said:


> You actually "mentally photograph" the page at 25,000 words a minute."



Makes you wonder why we don't do 3-5 BLD just like speedsolving: 15 second inspection time, pull the blindfold on, then start the timer. All you need is 6 mental photographs - why would that take more than 15 seconds?


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## Ollie (May 29, 2013)

Stefan said:


> I don't know about that particular book, but I just tried one I have and got through 400 pages in 2.5 minutes. And I had no practice.
> 
> 
> 
> Nice, didn't know about that book. I should first finally finish reading his "Tricks of the Mind", though...



Tricks of the Mind is amazing. In fact it has something in it about 'photoreading' (basically an anecdote where he went to a class that apparently taught it and that it was utter _p_ollocks.) But I learnt quite a lot of my BLD memo stuff from the section on memory, currently reading the bits about NLP at the moment 

There is a lot of stuff in his acts that he actually goes away and practices meticulously, but there's also stuff that is mostly showmanship. If there is a video of the trick it'll be pretty damn interesting to try and suss out.


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## qqwref (May 29, 2013)

At least if someone says "ah, but I saw Derren Brown do 4BLD in a minute" you can respond "sure, but he's a magician, and I'm doing it without any tricks". I think Maxim's gimmicks and cheats would be harder to explain away, since you'd have to convince the other person that he really was using tricks, and that you aren't just jealous or something.

Derren Brown certainly does do some interesting stuff, though. I'd be interested to learn how much is clever trickery and how much actually could be applied to real scenarios (even if the second part is only a few %).


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## Stefan (May 29, 2013)

Mike Hughey said:


> Makes you wonder why we don't do 3-5 BLD just like speedsolving: 15 second inspection time, pull the blindfold on, then start the timer. All you need is 6 mental photographs - why would that take more than 15 seconds?



25,000 words a minute btw isn't even the most excessive claim I've seen. I hope this link works. It reports about someone who could alledgedly read 416,250 words per minute, and it's in a speed reading book of Tony Buzan, who unfortunately is fairly famous and respected, and he says it's also mentioned in a book of Dominic O'Brien, an eight time world memory champion.


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## Mike Hughey (May 29, 2013)

Stefan said:


> It reports about someone who could alledgedly read 416,250 words per minute, and it's in a speed reading book of Tony Buzan, who unfortunately is fairly famous and respected, and he claims it's also mentioned in a book of Dominic O'Brien, an eight time world memory champion.



Silly - all you need to do is fit 416,250 words on a single page, and you should be able to read them in a single second, right? 

My father claims he thinks he had photographic memory when he was young, before he got shocked during a thunderstorm in his teens. He says he always assumed photographic memory worked like you're describing - where you could look at a page and instantly recall a mental image of it. But what he could do wasn't like that - he would have to look at a page for a while (many seconds - even a minute), but when he was done, he could recall where things were on the page (and find a word on it, for instance, and tell you where it was) by looking at it in his mind. Of course, there's no way to test this, so I don't know if he could really do it, but it's what he claimed.


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## ben1996123 (May 29, 2013)

I saw one of his live shows not too long ago and he did 3x3 match the scramble BLD there with like 5 seconds of "memo" and 20 seconds of solving. after the show finished, I asked him how long it takes him to solve a cube sighted and he said about 1 minute using the beginners method. L.O.L. !


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## Stefan (May 29, 2013)

Here's someone else doing a similar trick:
http://vimeo.com/5623552
It's very easy to see how he did it, he didn't even bother trying to hide it.


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## KongShou (May 29, 2013)

ben1996123 said:


> I saw one of his live shows not too long ago and he did 3x3 match the scramble BLD there with like 5 seconds of "memo" and 20 seconds of solving. after the show finished, I asked him how long it takes him to solve a cube sighted and he said about 1 minute using the beginners method. L.O.L. !



U talked to him? I would like to meet him, his awesome!


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## Eric Limeback (May 29, 2013)

MaeLSTRoM said:


> I mean, if the TV show want you to do a BLD solve, theres a likelihood that you'll set it up so that people can see you get the success, which is all they care about. Saying "O I failed but it was close" doesn't cut it for the media.



I can attest to this....a couple years ago I did a blindsolve on a TV news station...DNF'd by a flipped edge during the commercial break but they told me to fix it and just go with it for TVs sake...felt real bad


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## illucid (May 29, 2013)

MaeLSTRoM said:


> It also depends on how the act works, if he is allowed some time to look at the cube beforehand, that could possibly be long enough for the scramble to be generated, and then if he knew at least some form of notation, it could then be read out in less than a minute once he has placed on the blindfold.
> 
> I suppose we'd get more of a chance of figuring it out if there is a video somewhere, but I doubt that one exists.



He could be using a specially prepared cube with sensors in the core to detect turns and broadcast them offstage (I'm sure the technology exists to do this if it hasn't already been done). Or they just image process the cube as it's placed on a table with a computer turning out the solution. Then the moves could be read back to him through a hidden speaker.


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## qqwref (May 29, 2013)

Stefan said:


> Here's someone else doing a similar trick:
> http://vimeo.com/5623552
> It's very easy to see how he did it, he didn't even bother trying to hide it.


You know, I think it would be cool to have something in our community where we keep track of magic tricks involving the cube - not to promote the people who do them, but to explain how they're done and create a clearer distinction between magic tricks and real cubing skill. Perhaps people could do a writeup on the wiki. For example in that video I see three techniques we can easily explain:
- having a cube with one side covered in wrong stickers, so that it can look "scrambled" and then be thrown in the air and caught with that side down to appear solved
- having the competitor scramble a cube, but then replacing it with one the magician knows the solution to
- putting a cube down on top of stickers, so that one side can be restickered in a known way, which can then be used to make a multi-cube design or something.

EDIT: And I shouldn't forget wearing a blindfold and then looking under it to solve a cube with a normal method. I saw a magician do this once.


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## AvGalen (May 29, 2013)

illucid said:


> He could be using a specially prepared cube with sensors in the core to detect turns and broadcast them offstage (I'm sure the technology exists to do this if it hasn't already been done). Or they just image process the cube as it's placed on a table with a computer turning out the solution. Then the moves could be read back to him through a hidden speaker.


You are overthinking it. Just look at the explanation of qqwref for the video that Stefan posted



Stefan said:


> Here's someone else doing a similar trick:
> http://vimeo.com/5623552
> It's very easy to see how he did it, he didn't even bother trying to hide it.


Excellent performance. Really high speed so people don't get time to think, but making it look slow so people can follow what is happening nicely. Such simple tricks with nice effects will trick most people


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## cmhardw (May 29, 2013)

qqwref said:


> You know, I think it would be cool to have something in our community where we keep track of magic tricks involving the cube - not to promote the people who do them, but to explain how they're done and create a clearer distinction between magic tricks and real cubing skill.



I used the trick detailed here by Jaap on a group of kids at the math learning center I used to work at. They had already seen me do a real blindsolve beforehand, though, so I guess there was a little less "magic" to it as they probably knew I was using some kind of trick since it was so different from how I normally did BLD solves.

This one uses the math of the cube for a _really_ cool simulated BLD solve.


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## Stefan (May 30, 2013)

Ah well, now that qq explained everything already, let me just add what I meant with him not trying to hide it. At 0:42 you see the board with the cubes close-up, and all four cubes in the back row, which he'll then use for his first two tricks, are identical.

Here's another video of him doing it, also using the same scramble (around 1:32).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TxsHDRMvMTU


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## BillyRain (May 30, 2013)

AvGalen said:


> Maybe our definition of flipping is different, but to flip a page so far that I could read the next left and right page it seems impossible for me to do that for 20 minutes with 1 flip per second (not even close actually)
> 
> I had to laugh at "rubber thimble thing". I could guess what it means but just to be sure I used an image search (that gave some relevant images), but wikipedia disagreed with what a thimble actually is and actually said it would protect you from papercuts



LMAO!


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## mcplums (Aug 7, 2013)

*Derren Brown's rubik's cube trick in his Infamous tour*

Hello chaps,

I just came back from Derren's Infamous live tour, and at the end he does a truly incredibly rubiks cube trick. I am wondering if anyone else has seen it? What are your opinions on whether he faked it?

What he did was:

1) received two scrambled 3x3 cubes from the audience
2) looked at them for max five seconds each
3) took one of his choice, and then behind his back, arranged it such that it was identically scrambled to the other cube, which he did in about 30 secs. 

Im new to speedcubing, but it seems to be that pulling this off is overwhelmingly difficult. What technique is there which allows you to scramble a solved cube to a specific state of scramble? Is that possible?


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## Mikel (Aug 7, 2013)

Just from reading "Derren's Infamous live tour" and that he used a trick with a Rubik's Cube leads me to believe it was fake. Also, to be able to memorize two cubes in a maximum of 5 seconds each is faster than any good blindfold solver memorizes.


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## mcplums (Aug 7, 2013)

Mikel said:


> Just from reading "Derren's Infamous live tour" and that he used a trick with a Rubik's Cube leads me to believe it was fake. Also, to be able to memorize two cubes in a maximum of 5 seconds each is faster than any good blindfold solver memorizes.



Agreed. I think it is fairly obviously fake. The memorisation and solve would both appear to be world record breaking times. 

Also, I recall that the solve was behind his back while he was facing the audience, so we couldnt even see the cube. Why not, if he was truly solving it?


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## jayefbe (Aug 7, 2013)

They likely planted someone in the audience who performs a specific scramble on each cube.


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## Stefan (Aug 7, 2013)

I'd say the world's top blindcubers today could in rare cases actually do it or at least come close, but Derren isn't one of them. The much better explanation is of course that he cheated.


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## qqwref (Aug 7, 2013)

To do this you'd have to either (a) memorize both cubes and combine the cycles somehow, or (b) memorize the cycles of the difference between the cubes, by looking at one cube while constantly checking the other one to determine where every piece goes. Then you'd execute like in normal blindsolving. It's certainly possible for real (and it'd be fun to see someone try it) but nobody is going to be doing it with 5 seconds of memo. You still have to find and process two cubes' worth of information.

Derren's a magician, of course, and not a world-class BLD solver, so it's certainly some kind of trick. I would think it would be something like this:
1) One of the cubes is set to a preset position, probably by planting someone in the audience or by replacing the scrambled cube with a hidden one as it is being brought to him.
2) Either the other cube is also set to a preset position (with Derren knowing the moves to get from one to the other), or, while he is fiddling around behind his back he replaces the other cube with a hidden cube that was already in the first cube's position.


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## immortalchaos29 (Aug 7, 2013)

It's Derren Brown. The guy is particularly known for his mind games. This is of course just a magician's trick and I'm sure he wouldn't deny it either as he tends to be fairly loose with revealing his own tricks.


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## chris410 (Aug 7, 2013)

qqwref said:


> Derren's a magician, of course, and not a world-class BLD solver, so it's certainly some kind of trick. I would think it would be something like this:
> 1) Replacing the scrambled cube with a hidden one as it is being brought to him.



I have a few friends who are magicians and agree with this analysis.


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## Stefan (Aug 7, 2013)

immortalchaos29 said:


> he tends to be fairly loose with revealing his own tricks.



Do you have an example for that?



chris410 said:


> I have a few friends who are magicians and agree with this analysis.



This is ambiguous. Do *you* agree or do *your friends*?

In the first case, I don't see the relevance of your magician friends, and in the second case, I'm surprised that they read qq's analysis and gave you feedback so quickly (or were they with you?).


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## Noahaha (Aug 7, 2013)

I wouldn't call it cheating. It's a magic show, not <country>'s got talent.


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## immortalchaos29 (Aug 7, 2013)

Stefan said:


> Do you have an example for that?



Sure. Check out his vids on youtube. Somewhere in-between half and 3/4 of all of his vids he reveals the trick at the end. Of course these are all usually psychological games, rather than the traditional magic trick as this Rubik's cube trick seems to be.


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## JasonK (Aug 7, 2013)

Noahaha said:


> I wouldn't call it cheating. It's a magic show, not <country>'s got talent.



This. There's no deception - people understand that when they go to a magic show they're going to see trickery and illusion. I would hardly call it cheating.


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## Carrot (Aug 7, 2013)

Maybe there would occour some cube swaps during the trick  (they do that a lot in card tricks, except then they do it with cards and not cubes, duh)


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## Dene (Aug 7, 2013)

I don't think anyone is accusing him of cheating; merely saying that what he does is not genuinely doing what he is acting as if he is doing, i.e. it is "fake".


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## Kirjava (Aug 7, 2013)

Dene said:


> I don't think anyone is accusing him of cheating



Did you read the title of the thread?


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## ~Adam~ (Aug 7, 2013)

immortalchaos29 said:


> Somewhere in-between half and 3/4 of all of his vids he reveals the trick at the end.



I think I remember hearing either James Randi or Banachek saying that when Darren Brown shows you the 'trick' that isn't the trick he used.


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## Dene (Aug 7, 2013)

Kirjava said:


> Did you read the title of the thread?



I was referring specifically to the most recent developments, which I thought was clear enough. Although I know people often don't read the dates when they read threads so perhaps it would have been a good idea for me to make that clear.


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## pipkiksass (Aug 7, 2013)

Okso Derren Brown is very open about the fact that what he does is NOT magic, but showmanship. What he is also clear on is that he does not use 'plants', patsies, or stooges, i.e. people placed in the audience or pre-defined scrambles. 

Knowing how good his memory is (he can memorise the order of four decks of cards as quickly as you our I could count them), I'd like to believe that he's learnt how to commute cubies, and had the image of the two cubes in his mind.

The man travels the world learning obscure skills, and has an infinite amount of spare time. Whatever the explanation is, I'm pretty sure it's not a panted cube, that would be his most underwhelming trick ever!


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## Kirjava (Aug 7, 2013)

Dene said:


> I was referring specifically to the most recent developments, which I thought was clear enough. Although I know people often don't read the dates when they read threads so perhaps it would have been a good idea for me to make that clear.



Did you read the OP? 'Recent developments' are the same thing as it.


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## ~Adam~ (Aug 7, 2013)

pipkiksass said:


> What he is also clear on is that he does not use 'plants', patsies, or stooges, i.e. people placed in the audience or pre-defined scrambles.



This not true. In some of his shows he puts the no patsies disclaimer and others he doesn't.

The show when he gambled a large amount of money on a single number on a roulette wheel was all fake.
Fake casino, fake 'live' tape and the 'mark' was a patsie.



pipkiksass said:


> The man travels the world learning obscure skills, and has an *FINITE* amount of spare time.



Fixed


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## AvGalen (Aug 7, 2013)

pipkiksass said:


> Okso Derren Brown is very open about the fact that what he does is NOT magic, but showmanship. What he is also clear on is that he does not use 'plants', patsies, or stooges, i.e. people placed in the audience or pre-defined scrambles.
> 
> Knowing how good his memory is (he can memorise the order of four decks of cards as quickly as you our I could count them), I'd like to believe that he's learnt how to commute cubies, and had the image of the two cubes in his mind.
> 
> The man travels the world learning obscure skills, and has an infinite amount of spare time. Whatever the explanation is, I'm pretty sure it's not a panted cube, that would be his most underwhelming trick ever!


I think he has you under his spell. on the count of three you will wake up: One, Two, Th....coffeetime


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## Dene (Aug 7, 2013)

Kirjava said:


> Did you read the OP? 'Recent developments' are the same thing as it.



Not since it was posted some months ago XD .


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## Kaozty (Aug 7, 2013)

not a problem at all.
this is just a performance
not an official solve.


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## RicardoRix (Aug 7, 2013)

use to love Derren Brown. I think a lot of his tricks are genuine great mind-game feats, but his not adverse to play low and dirty.

When playing 13 simultaneous chess grandmasters \ masters, he reflected the play of one player to one of the other players. He does explain this at the end. So he should win and lose half of the games and even without even knowing how to play chess properly just memorisation - very clever, but what he doesn't tell you is how he won the 13th game...

For the predicting the lottery numbers trick - this was a truly unimaginative and crap camera trick. Where the 6 balls on a stand were swapped when you weren't looking. In fact it was a camera pointing a separate 'staged' stand just like the original. This was done 'live' and youtube proof can show you just how the one of the balls magically pops up at the exact moment the camera 'switch' occurs. The original live 6 balls weren't quite placed perfectly.

Cheap camera tricks aside, some of his other tricks are very impressive, lord knows how he does some of them. One of them was getting another person to memorise enough facts to win an international pub quiz by himself. And the hypnotise sleep after about 10 seconds on a public phone is pretty good too.


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## Kirjava (Aug 7, 2013)

Dene said:


> Not since it was posted some months ago XD .



Worth doing if you're wanting to use the phrase "recent developments".


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## pipkiksass (Aug 7, 2013)

RicardoRix said:


> what he doesn't tell you is how he won the 13th game...



He does actually - he picked the statistically weakest player, and played against him himself. 

All opinions aside, I'd like to believe that latest cubing shenanigan is in some way a clever trick. Having a pre-scrambled cube in the audience, and another identically scrambled cube about his person, just seems a bit obvious and cheap. 

As for 'infinite' amount of spare time - I pretty much stand by that. Clearly he's not immortal, and has to sleep, but anyone who has enough time to travel to India for 3 months to learn how to put a nail between your nostril and the top of your palate has a LOT of spare time!!!


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## RicardoRix (Aug 7, 2013)

pipkiksass said:


> He does actually - he picked the statistically weakest player, and played against him himself.



Yeah, he's not going to win that game in the conventional normal sense. You could play even the weakest chess master a 10,000 times and you're still not gonna win a single game.


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## pipkiksass (Aug 7, 2013)

RicardoRix said:


> Yeah, he's not going to win that game in the conventional normal sense. You could play even the weakest chess master a 10,000 times and you're still not gonna win a single game.



Disagree, I once drew a game with a master, and I only played him about 6 times. And I'm at best average at chess. I'd have no chance against a grand master. 

The players he played weren't all masters even, only 4 I believe. The guy he beat barely had a 2000 ranking, which makes him an 'expert', not a master/GM/etc.. A 2000 ranking is beatable, it's a very good competition standard, but that guy would never win a single game against a GM.

Not saying he beat him legitimately, just that beating him legitimately would be possible, with a little coaching.


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## qqwref (Aug 7, 2013)

pipkiksass said:


> Knowing how good his memory is (he can memorise the order of four decks of cards as quickly as you our I could count them),


Can he, though, or is it a trick? Remember that he's a magician and thus deception is what he does for a living - you can only trust what you see, and sometimes (in some TV magic shows) not even that. AFAIK he hasn't competed in the World Memory Championships (that is, under controlled circumstances). I just checked and the records are something like one deck in 21 seconds and 7 decks in 10 minutes, so I'd be very skeptical of the kind of results Derren claims.



pipkiksass said:


> As for 'infinite' amount of spare time - I pretty much stand by that. Clearly he's not immortal, and has to sleep, but anyone who has enough time to travel to India for 3 months to learn how to put a nail between your nostril and the top of your palate has a LOT of spare time!!!


Or he just has a career that can be put on hold without getting him fired, and enough money to live on while he does


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## RicardoRix (Aug 7, 2013)

yeah, same for the BLD rubiks cube, "with a little coaching".


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## ~Adam~ (Aug 7, 2013)

The player he beat legit in the chess game was just the organiser of a chess club. No other information was given about him. Don't know where you are getting all this extra information.

Pik, you may want to look up the definition of infinite.

Derren is supposed to be good at memorising cards.
He sat down at a blackjack table when he was just starting out and a friend of mine was dealing.
Apparently he sat down at the table after memorising the 4 1/2 ish decks that came out of the shoe, then got quite upset when my friend started shuffling like he was meant to.

It seems that Derren had learnt how blackjack works but didn't know casino procedure.


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## pipkiksass (Aug 7, 2013)

cube-o-holic said:


> The player he beat legit in the chess game was just the organiser of a chess club. No other information was given about him. Don't know where you are getting all this extra information.
> 
> Pik, you may want to look up the definition of infinite.
> 
> ...



The 9th player was president of the King's College London chess club, there was an article on the Chess England website about it at the time. A quick google gives his rating as c.2000 at the time of the trick.

I know what infinite means, I'm not a moron. I more than clarified this in my last post, if you've still confused I can go into more detail if required?

I didn't think blackjack decks were shuffled - isn't that why counting systems work?


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## ~Adam~ (Aug 7, 2013)

Ah, fair enough. I didn't consider anyone had done the background research off their own back.



pipkiksass said:


> As for 'infinite' amount of spare time - I pretty much stand by that.


I don't think infinite is a sensible word to use for something that can't possibly be infinite.

Most blackjack tables in the UK use automatic shufflers which make card counting impossible.
In the casino I used to work in the BJ tables had 6 decks of cards with a cutting card separating out the last 1/4 of the cards to make counting cards potentially less profitable.

Counting cards is actually quite easy, it just doesn't work very well and isn't easy to disguise.
You are essentially waiting until there is a large percentage of high cards left in the shoe (card storage box) so you are more likely to win. Then bet big for the last few hands before the cards are shuffled.
The only way it can really work is for a counter to bet the minimum for hours until the perfect shoe comes along, then calls over the high stakes player subtly. But the odds are very rarely in your favour for very long.


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## pipkiksass (Aug 7, 2013)

cube-o-holic said:


> Ah, fair enough. I didn't consider anyone had done the background research off their own back.



In the age of google, there's no excuse for making unsubstantiated claims!



cube-o-holic said:


> I don't think infinite is a sensible word to use for something that can't possibly be infinite.



It's just casual hyperbole, and I'll stand by it to the death!



cube-o-holic said:


> The only way it can really work is for a counter to bet the minimum for hours until the perfect shoe comes along, then calls over the high stakes player subtly. But the odds are very rarely in your favour for very long.



Or multiple counters on multiple tables. Are those rules just in place in the UK?


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## ~Adam~ (Aug 7, 2013)

pipkiksass said:


> In the age of google, there's no excuse for making unsubstantiated claims!





cube-o-holic said:


> The player he beat legit in the chess game was just the organiser of a chess club. No other information was given about him.



What unsubstantiated claim are you referring to?


Multiple counters with a single high roller would be fairly easy to spot.
'This guy is betting the house max for the last 3 hands of a shoe, winning then just standing around waiting'

Automatic shufflers mean that there's no down time resulting in greater profits. They are fairly standard across the globe by now.

Leaving a 1/4 to 1/3 of cards at the back of a shoe could be cut down a bit but you NEED to leave at least 1 deck at the back of a shoe or you could run out of cards mid hand.
When our high rollers were playing we were asked to leave 1/2 the cards behind the cutting card but mainly because our managers didn't understand basic statistics.
Every shoe dealt table needs the cards to be shuffled.


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## pipkiksass (Aug 7, 2013)

cube-o-holic said:


> The player he beat legit in the chess game was just the organiser of a chess club. No other information was given about him. Don't know where you are getting all this extra information.





cube-o-holic said:


> What unsubstantiated claim are you referring to?



No need to get defensive, I was just stating that my own claim _was_ substantiated re: the above. 

I'm genuinely interested in the rules on blackjack dealing though, thanks for the info. I always thought it was as simple as 4 decks into shoe; play cards until they run out; shuffle & repeat. Now I'm starting to wonder if it EVER worked like that?!


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## Ollie (Aug 7, 2013)

Not sure if true, but: 



ben1996123 said:


> I saw one of his live shows not too long ago and he did 3x3 match the scramble BLD there with like 5 seconds of "memo" and 20 seconds of solving. after the show finished, I asked him how long it takes him to solve a cube sighted and he said about 1 minute using the beginners method. L.O.L. !


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## Stefan (Aug 7, 2013)

immortalchaos29 said:


> Stefan said:
> 
> 
> > Do you have an example for that?
> ...



So your answer is _"no"_. You don't have an example.


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## qqwref (Aug 7, 2013)

pipkiksass said:


> I didn't think blackjack decks were shuffled - isn't that why counting systems work?


Nope, you've got the wrong idea of how counting works. Just to add to what cube-o-holic has been saying - essentially they have some number of decks (often 4, 6, or 8) that they shuffle together and then deal from without shuffling until they run out of cards. Counting relies on the principle that some cards are better for the player and others are better for the dealer (specifically, high cards are good for the player). So you keep track of a number that tells you how good your chances are, and you start that number from 0 when the decks are shuffled. Then, as you see cards dealt out, you mentally adjust that number in a specific way based on the cards you see. Partway through the game, depending on whether the number is high or low, you can tell that the deck is statistically either good or bad for you. Having more decks doesn't really make counting cards much harder, but it does mean you have to pay attention for longer before everything is shuffled again (and reset to zero). But yeah, they could easily just shuffle after every hand.

The gambling scheme cube-o-holic mentions (having a bunch of counters and a high-stakes player) is indeed pretty easy to detect, at least over time. That's not necessarily the only possible scheme though. I could imagine a player hanging out at a table and just betting a bit more when the cards are good and a bit less when they are bad, which could be hard to detect (you'd have to count cards yourself to know if it's based on that or just a result of how the player feels at the time) and may be enough to give him an edge over the house or at least the other players.


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## ~Adam~ (Aug 7, 2013)

pipkiksass said:


> No need to get defensive, I was just stating that my own claim _was_ substantiated re: the above.



I wasn't trying to be defensive, was just curious if there was a misunderstanding.

QQs info is fairly good, I'll just add a little though.
To my knowledge Blackjack isn't played against other players however there are many side bets these days so it's entirely possible.

4 deck shoes are rare because the house edge (percentage the house wins on average) is lower. Also counting cards wouldn't give you very many hands to play when the 'count' is good.

8 deck shoes are good for casinos because the house edge is increased from the fairly typical 6 decks.
It is also good for card counters because you have potentially more time with a high count.

You can count cards and make the house edge negative for yourself but it is extremely obvious and dealers are meant to report it as soon as it occurs.
In order to maximise your returns you need to bet the minimum for the vast majority of the time and then increase your bets as the count gets good but this is not typical gambler behaviour.

Since you are cheating by counting and will be barred from almost every casino on the planet if caught it's a very risky way of making money in this age of communication.


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## Ollie (Aug 7, 2013)

cube-o-holic said:


> Since you are cheating by counting and will be barred from almost every casino on the planet if caught it's a very risky way of making money in this age of communication.



Just an interesting side note - you're not actually cheating by counting, you're just playing the game really well! Casinos just don't like you counting because they lose, as if they don't have enough of an advantage


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## Dene (Aug 7, 2013)

Kirjava said:


> Worth doing if you're wanting to use the phrase "recent developments".



Meh, it was obvious I was referring to what had been posted to bump the thread. If people didn't pick up on that that's their loss.


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## ~Adam~ (Aug 7, 2013)

Apparently it's not cheating, however casinos can stop you from gambling at will and they do share information. Effectively if you are a winning blackjack player because of card counting your skill is useless since you won't be allowed to use it anywhere.


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## Stefan (Aug 7, 2013)

Dene said:


> Meh, it was obvious I was referring to what had been posted to bump the thread.



I don't think anything was _"posted to bump the thread"_. There was a *new* thread that got merged into an old one. Maybe that caused misunderstandings?


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## Kirjava (Aug 7, 2013)

Dene said:


> Meh, it was obvious I was referring to what had been posted to bump the thread.



You used the word "anyone".


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## immortalchaos29 (Aug 8, 2013)

Stefan said:


> So your answer is _"no"_. You don't have an example.



Piano girl, the one where he plays 12 chess grandmasters simultaneously, the one where he predicts the outcomes of the derby races, the one where he makes a guy believe he is in the middle of a zombie apocalypse. These are some of the ones I can think of off the top of my head even though it's been a while. Would you like me to keep going??


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## BillyRain (Aug 8, 2013)

pipkiksass said:


> The man has an infinite amount of spare time



I think you'd find that he is an incredibly busy man.

Source: Worked with him.


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## Stefan (Aug 8, 2013)

immortalchaos29 said:


> Piano girl, the one where he plays 12 chess grandmasters simultaneously, the one where he predicts the outcomes of the derby races, the one where he makes a guy believe he is in the middle of a zombie apocalypse. These are some of the ones I can think of off the top of my head even though it's been a while. Would you like me to keep going??



Piano girl I'm not convinced that's the real explanation, same as with previous tricks. The horse races one is the first I believe, though that one was obvious and more importantly, necessary (because if he hadn't explained it, some of the thousands of people would have, and it would have been embarrassing for him). I still doubt he really reveals the majority (or any, unless necessary) of his tricks like you say, I believe he just offers fake explanations for the gullible. Like here. But I'll check some more when I have time (I do like watching his shows anyway).

Edit: Ok I watched the chess one as well (had watched it before but couldn't remember much):
1) He does reveal that he made them play against each other. Again, this was obvious (though I might be biased since I've known this trick for many years) and more importantly, necessary (as the players certainly would've talked about it and would've found out and it would've been embarrassing for him had he not made it public himself).
2) I don't believe his explanation for the ninth player.
3) He does *not* reveal the in my opinion actual trick, how he got the numbers.


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## immortalchaos29 (Aug 8, 2013)

Stefan said:


> Piano girl I'm not convinced that's the real explanation, same as with previous tricks. The horse races one is the first I believe, though that one was obvious and more importantly, necessary (because if he hadn't explained it, some of the thousands of people would have, and it would have been embarrassing for him). I still doubt he really reveals the majority (or any, unless necessary) of his tricks like you say, I believe he just offers fake explanations for the gullible. Like here. But I'll check some more when I have time (I do like watching his shows anyway).
> 
> Edit: Ok I watched the chess one as well (had watched it before but couldn't remember much):
> 1) He does reveal that he made them play against each other. Again, this was obvious (though I might be biased since I've known this trick for many years) and more importantly, necessary (as the players certainly would've talked about it and would've found out and it would've been embarrassing for him had he not made it public himself).
> ...



Yes I would agree with this analysis. I don't believe his explanation for the ninth player either for even a second. Seems way too difficult to pull off. Also since he could have stretched the truth on that he very well could have done likewise for the others as well. 

Do you have any idea how he could have done piano girl and similar hypnosis tricks if it wasn't how he said? The obvious thought is that it was staged but seems to me like that would be lame enough that if it leaked, he would be taking a huge risk for his reputation.

Still my original comment was meant to try to provide some insight into his personality as a performer. I still believe he wouldn't deny that his Rubik's cube trick was anything but a trick. But I could be wrong; sounds like you've seen a lot more of his stuff than I have.


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## DanielH (Oct 11, 2014)

I know I am bumbing and old thread but I think we can agree on that Derren Brown not is a remarkable good bld solver now. 

His show Infamous was on TV a couple of days ago. In the show he does the "bld solve" with a 3x3 (not the 4x4 as mentioned in the thread) but after watching it I think his method works on 4x4 and all other sizes to. 

He has two scrambled cubes he hands out to the audience and let them scramble. He tells the person who is closet to the stage to put them on the stage when they come back. And when he picks them up both cubes have (magic?) the same scramble. 



Derren picks up the two by audience scrambled cubes. The one to the left has the orange face showing a "block" of three orange and one read sticker, and one white corner and a green edge (and two blue stickers in the dark). The one to the right you can see the white center (with a logo) and two white edge stickers and two green corners and one green edge. He are looking at them and puts them back on the table. 
He does his other stuff (remember books and calculating big numbers) and then with one minute left he turns to the cubes again. Says that he can't solve two cubes behind his back in one minute so he will only do one of them. Picks one of them up and says "not this one" and takes the other one. 



Her is he holding the cube he are "solving" behind is back. We can clearly see the same pattern of the white face and also see the same "block" of orange and red stickers. 
Behind his back he is probably not doing any turns at all. 
He finish of by showing all six sides of both cubes. 














The scramble and the cube seams to be ok, Cube Explorer generated this F U' F' L F D' F' R' D' R' U F R' D' R' U L' R D R U'. (Do with Yellow on top and Red in front) Also the cubes have different scrambles when they are handed out to the audience so if this is correct. 


> No actors or stooges were used in the making of this programme and there has been no prior preparation with any members of the audience.


 I think Derren Browns audience is the worst cube scrambler ever.


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## Hypocrism (Oct 11, 2014)

DanielH said:


> I know I am bumbing and old thread but I think we can agree on that Derren Brown not is a remarkable good bld solver now.
> 
> His show Infamous was on TV a couple of days ago. In the show he does the "bld solve" with a 3x3 (not the 4x4 as mentioned in the thread) but after watching it I think his method works on 4x4 and all other sizes to.
> 
> ...



Honestly I've always thought that he uses stooges and setups to make people think that he's tricking them in a more elaborate way than he actually, which in turn helps him make the main point which is that you shouldn't believe that supernatural things are supernatural (IE: he's promoting active skepticism).

That said, a lot of his stunts are difficult to pull off, even with stooges. It's still very impressive and entertaining in the end.


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