I received my copy of this effect, about a week ago. Within a day, I took it out, and showed it to two friends-one of them being a magic bartender. Both were incredulous, and were quite 'blown away' by the last revelation. Tom Stein, the bartender, is familiar with the hindu shuffle-but was still taken in by the rest of the trick. I'll add, that I did a quick version for him, and did not use Johnny Thompson's tabled hindu shuffle.
The routine itself, is quite friendly to perform-the sleights, to me, are more subtleties than anything else. What requires greater care I think, are the spreads, and shuffles-this so as to keep one card at the bottom of the deck from flashing. Tiny but CRITICAL detail.
Thompson's table hindu shuffle IS deceptive-and gave me something new to work on. In the final phase, the deck gets riffled, and one joker gets tossed in, and trapped by the cards. This too, is worth practicing, to be able to get it everytime.
One potential draw back in this routine, is that two versions of one card are used. Care needs be taken that they don't wind up next to eachother in the final spread. The end notes address this, along with controlling the other two selected cards as well.
Overall, I'm thrilled to have this effect, which Johhny Thompson has apparently used for years. It's user friendly,
visually startling, humorous, and looks impossible.The routine starts out with shuffles, cuts-and gets much simpler by the third phase-minimal even. Gauging the responses of the two people I've shown this to so far, I believe this to be an effect that any magician will be glad to have.