WHO IS THE HITMAN?
A while ago I met one of the great card guys, Sal 'The Hitman' Piacente. Sal was passing through town after attending a large Asia Pacific gaming conference. Sal performed a set of amazing card magic and spent a couple of hours discussing the various techniques he uses and talked a little about his work as a casino consultant. Having stumbled across some of his work around ten years ago, I was already somewhat familiar with some of the routines he performed at the beginning of his set which included a pseudo memory demonstration: naming removed cards, his ace cutting routine using riffle add-ons and packet estimation. I have performed his ace cutting routine for years. What struck me most was the casual and effortless manner with which he performed his set. He often appeared to be improvising and this caught me off guard. Despite having seen all of the material before, it felt great to be taken in just a little, by his almost nonchalant approach to delivering what was essentially a well structured and tightly honed set. A set I am certain he has performed in the exact manner thousands of times before. This was a great lesson in the power of a well structured set and the first of many lessons Sal shared over the next two hours. Sal performed a range of poker, hold'em, and bridge demonstrations and routines, and discussed important techniques and tips on signal play, shuffle tracking, switching cards and other cheating strategies. Sal also shared tips on handling cards in a natural way, and avoiding many of the common tells displayed by magicians when handling cards. He also showed a range of clips exposing various cheating techniques including recent trending scams, and showed plenty of examples revealing the ploys of real cheats at work. Most enjoyable for me was Sals work with memory and recall techniques, which he expertly demonstrated in a variety of ways. Sal tipped a ton of real methods and provided plenty of sources and reference material to follow up with on various techniques. Sal also mentioned the possibility of releasing a book one day, which I can tell you I would buy without hesitation and sight unseen. There are very few people with Sal's in depth knowledge on combining card techniques used for cheating and magic. I know the book will be brilliant. More thoughts on Sal's work to follow. Thanks Sal for generously sharing your wisdom and experience.
