Fast Jack

I recently had the pleasure of seeing a recorded lecture online by John Farrell. John "Fast Jack" Farrell is the real deal. If you have not heard of him or seen this lecture yet, and you have any interest in crooked gambling or sleight of hand in a gambling context, then I hope I can offer a few reasons that you should track down this lecture and pick it up. For $30 you will spend 3 hours in John's company learning about what it takes to be a real card and dice cheat. You will NOT find this level of information anywhere else. Over the years I’ve seen plenty of debate about what works and what doesn’t, what’s important and what isn’t, but often opinions are too heavily influenced or too quickly dismissed by personal experience of very specific conditions. Farrell is a living example of what it takes to be a successful ...er...operator! Magician, Tom Gaudette accompanies John “Fast Jack” Farrell, his purpose as John puts it to activate his memory. Tom provides prompts throughout the lecture, including at the very beginning where Farrell explains that much of the work he is sharing is no longer in use today, and he provides a few examples as to why. Tom does a great job of helping extract extra details within John’s descriptions. Tom also mentions that thanks are owed to Gary Plants for his part in making this happen, so thank you Gary. Folks here know that moves are only a small part of a successful play in any gambling scenario, but there is a reason that much of the material available on gambling techniques focuses on individual moves rather than on the big picture of how everything comes together: because it is much easier to describe one small aspect than exactly how the whole thing works. For those seeking an insight into how all of the separate parts come together you’ll need to study this lecture over and over to piece everything together in the right order. For astute viewers though, this lecture contains a TON of information in great detail. I think that this IS a teaching lecture. Along with his book, the work is all there for anyone to extract. Here's a very small snippet of what it covers: Farrell describes the basic mechanics of a run-up with a few interesting examples of its application, moving through overhand techniques in Poker and Hold’em, through Gin and other games including a faro run-up technique, and some bits on false shuffles and cuts, hops, crimps, and so forth. After some info on using strippers, he moves onto cold decks, then dice where he goes into a lot of detail including tailoring of his custom suits, aprons, magnet holdouts, surface preparation, running private games, using the stick/cane, and along the way shares not only choreography of moves but also of entire plays albeit sometimes in a roundabout way, along with some great stories. I quite like the fact it’s not always put together in an order that those without prior knowledge would easily understand, and that some work is necessary. For example, if you look at the run-up near the start, you'll see how he goes straight into the “move” rather than the surrounding context and necessary set-up required to use the play successfully. This is because Farrell shares the information in a way that makes sense to him, and also because he is essentially lecturing biographically, by beginning with the first thing he was taught. While he skips huge chunks of information sometimes during his explanations, he does eventually divulge almost everything across many small and almost incidental remarks throughout the lecture while covering a range of topics. If it seems like he finishes on a topic before explaining important parts, he generally covers other relevant information at a later point in the lecture.

If you've read any discussions about run-ups(well, about almost any gambling related move or technique) then chances are you've heard from the pedants who dismiss any information as largely useless due to the lack of any of the necessary "real work" on how to actually put the move to use, things such as how to procure the necessary cards without detection in the first place, when to do the run-up in the context of play, etc. Well, if you're interested to hear the full work on the run-up including how the cards make their way to the bottom in the first place, then you'll find details at 11:30, 12:20, 12:55, 20:45. How about when to actually do the move in the context of what is happening during a game? see 12:31, 1:34:56. What about the different roles each crew member plays, see 33:50, 134:30, 135:10, 135:40. Beating the cut, (15:10), signalling (11:50, 35:02, 43:30), bypassing anti-cheating precautions (19:45, 32:00, 139:52), cleaning up (136:15), the importance of being natural, reading people and of avoiding suspicion (23:25, 54:28, 57:38, 142:30) and so forth.

The pattern of the lecture is small snippets of information, spread across several hours, ....but make no mistake, all of the information is there. Of course John goes on to cover essential things such as the importance of knowing how to play well legitimately, when and why to use cards with work, distraction techniques, who set up the games and dozens of other things, which as I said, provide most of the whole picture, provided you take time to put it all together in the right order. Farrell often tips only one or two examples of a concept or gambit, or explains examples that only pertain to specific conditions but a lot can be taken by taking those small parts and putting them together or applying them to other conditions. John Farrell is around eighty years old. If you were to focus on his technical handling too closely, well.... you would certainly learn a few things, but you might miss the more important things that clearly illustrate why he was such a successful operator for fifty years. I thoroughly enjoyed the format, his stories and the wealth of detailed information that you simply won’t find anywhere else. Thank you John "Fast Jack" Farrell.