MORE ABOUT THE HITMAN

I've had the good fortune to spend time with some great card men and Sal Piacente is the best. His memory work is STAGGERING. If you have not had the pleasure of seeing Sal work, it is difficult to describe what you are missing. The last time I caught up with Sal, he astounded me time and time again with his incredible memory abilities, memorizing cards and sequences, tracking cards though shuffles, and generally doing things with cards that should simply not be possible. Sal is an expert casino gaming consultant, and is sought after by casino's around the world for his expertise. But his expertise in memory work is an area that some may be unaware.

Sal's dedication to and work on memory is phenomenal. I have seen nothing like it, and to spend time with Sal talking about his passion for memory is to witness obsession. Having glimpsed Sal's writing on the subject, I cannot wait until some of his work sees print. It will certainly change the field of memory as a tool for card men, but goes much deeper in it's application in other areas. Cards have been a lifelong passion for me and among the greatest personal highlights for me is to have spent time sessioning with Sal, and in particular witnessing his work with memory. And it was a great pleasure to have had Sal critique a couple of techniques I occasionally use and offer killer tips on improving them. It's a bit of a cliché to say this but when a guy like Sal stops you midway during something you're doing to make a suggestion, it pays to listen. For example, with just a few words, Sal instantly made my false shuffle technique ten times better. So it's been the greatest honor to have recently had Sal write the foreword to my book The Devil's Staircase. When writing the book I knew that Sal was the only person I would ask to write the foreword, and thanks to our shared interest in a bunch of areas including the obvious things like gambling material and cheating themes, as well as run-up shuffles, stack work, estimation and memory work, he agreed. Here's a short excerpt from his foreword: "When I first looked through The Devil’s Staircase, I immediately went to the routines that interested me: gambling, memory, and estimation. There was definitely a lot to offer. I have my own gambling demonstration that utilizes an overhand shuffle to accomplish an effect, but in reality it served two purposes, as it also set up the next effect for me. Greg took it to the next level, as he uses it with a full deck stack. He does stacking routines that clearly mix the cards, but the deck returns to the original order. I found Greg’s explanations here to be clear and easy to understand. Another great utility tool that Greg uses is the “fixed floating key cards” concept which allows the tracking of cards through a subtle faro principle. There are many routines out there that use estimation, but The Devil’s Staircase goes into more detail than any other source I have seen regarding how to get an accurate estimate on a packet of cards. Be sure not to miss his advice about using.... ." ...Well, you'll need to get the book to read the rest of the foreword. I am hugely grateful for Sal's generosity. Sal is a genuine and great guy, with incredible skill, and it is an honor to have him be a part of this project..

If you have an interest in gambling material, casino protection, cheating and scams, check out Sal's website www.salthehitman.com