MagicPuzzles.org

Cast Keys II - Nob Yoshigahara

This is puzzle legend Nob Yoshigahara’s improvement of a very old puzzle.  It seems like he improved the handle of one of the keys, making it harder to solve.

I got this from my wife for my birthday, along with a picture puzzle book.  I was able to solve it in about 5 minutes.  However, it was a very enjoyable puzzle, with multiple steps that each required a little innovation.  Or maybe I just like it because it’s a disentanglement puzzle I can actually solve.

Me and Lee Krasnow

I attended Pacific Puzzleworks‘ open house on 6/5/10.  It’s Lee Krasnow’s studio.  He’s known for his fine craftsmanship of interlocking puzzles.

Krasnow had a bunch of puzzles on a table for people to play with.  There were items from his boxed sets of laser cut puzzles (see here and here); a couple of Pennyhedrons; his Corner Cube; something that I think was the Merkaba; and even a puzzle box prototype.  I worked on the Corner Cube for a while and couldn’t get it to come apart, even after he explained what the basic mechanism was.  I eventually gave up and had him show me.  It seemed like the other attendees were random people as opposed to collectors.  There was at least one other artist’s open house nearby, so I assume it was a joint event.

It turns out that Krasnow is actually related to one of my wife’s high school buddies.  He said he still owed her a cabinet.  I guess he does have other woodworking activities that bring in money.

He said that while he enjoys making the puzzles and interacting with the public like he was during the open house, he actually didn’t like being a salesperson that much.  That explains why it took almost a month for him to reply to my email when I first tried contacting him in ‘07.  He is currently selling puzzles through Cubic Dissection.  As of this writing, one of his Pennyhedrons is still for sale.

I was hoping he might have one of his puzzle boxes for sale, but they’re probably long since discontinued, and would probably be out of my price range anyway.  He did have his laser-cut puzzle sets for sale, as well as several Pennyhedrons of different quality levels.  The Pennyhedrons are rated as “A”, “B” or “C” based on how many minute flaws there are in the wood.  The price is pretty dependent on quality; they are $150, $100 or $60, respectively.  Krasnow himself prefers the “B” and “C” because you can actually play with it without worrying too much about it.  I got myself a “C”, and I can’t see anything wrong with it.  He had actually mislabeled his price sign; I think the prices were for a different version of the puzzle.  However, he was a great guy and honored the lower price ($45) on his sign.  He made sure to correct it right afterward, though.

Pennyhedron - Stewart Coffin

The Pennyhedron is a two-piece interlocking puzzle by Stewart Coffin.  It’s harder than you’d think.  See Cubic Dissection for a thorough discussion of the puzzle, but beware the spoilers.  I was not able to disassemble the model that Krasnow had on the table for everyone to play with.  The one I bought was packaged with the 2 parts separate, so it wasn’t too hard to get after that.  A very elegant puzzle.

The puzzle itself isn’t cheap.  I think Krasnow’s construction is clearly top-notch, though.  All the glue joints are reinforced with 3 metal dowels.  The fit is fantastic.

Me and Michael Ammar

I went to the Michael Ammar lecture on 2/25/10 in San Francisco.  Michael Ammar is one of the top students of the late Dai Vernon, and one of the greatest living close-up magicians.  He is known for having a huge repetoire.  Here’s what he covered in the first half:

1. Topit vanishes (performance only)
2. His award-winning cups and balls routine (performance only)
3. Bill to lemon (performance only)
4. Topit work
5. Bottle production from silk, followed by coin in bottle
6. Torn and restored card, followed by torn and restored with corner reversed (the Albo card)
7. Cell phone production from folded envelope
8. Broken and restored cell phone screen
9. Lightning round: Ammar covered a number of concepts briefly, including his “Little Hand” trick and the silk penetrating the cup.  “The Little Hand” actually is more of a gag than a trick, but it’s really funny.  Both seem to be easy and rely on gimmicks, but, as he pointed out, were the two most memorable tricks in the lecture.

I left after the first half like I did for the Wilson lecture since it was a 45 minute drive home.  Ammar brought Jeff Kaylor along (I thought it was his son at first) to demonstrate “The Kaylor Option” in the second half.  From Kaylor’s description in The Magic Cafe, it’s sort of like a topit accessible from between two buttons of a dress shirt.

What was really cool is that Ammar appeared later in David Letterman’s “closeup magic week.“    3 of the 4 effects he performed were right out of the lecture: the silk penetrating the cup; a cell phone penetrating into a balloon (his handling of Daniel Garcia and Daniel White’s “Pressure”); a cell phone vanish using the topit; and “The Little Hand.”

The lecture was very enjoyable, and Ammar covered quite a range of different methods.

My wife was commenting that I haven’t posted anything about magic in a long time.  I’ve probably bought more magic stuff than puzzles because my average magic trick or DVD costs less than my average puzzle. I thought that I should only review DVD or tricks that I actually have performed for laymen. I’m just an amateur, so I haven’t done much performing, and I’ve been on temporary magic hiatus since my second kid came along. Then I realized I reviewed the Tommy Wonder DVDs, and I haven’t done any of those tricks. So here we go.

Me & Gregory Wilson

I went to Gregory Wilson’s lecture on 5/13/10. One thing I was very pleased with immediately is that Wilson is very entertaining and likable. Even if he didn’t know the cups and balls from a cup of Joe, he would still be the hit of the party because of his comedy.

Wilson is a 2 time FISM medalist in close-up cards: tied for 3rd place in 2000, and tied for 2nd place in 2003.  FISM is the Olympics of magic, and is held once every 3 years.  I assume that close-up cards must be one of, if not the most hotly contested categories, since it has by far the most practitioners.

While Wilson obviously has some serious chops, his comedy combined with his already strong misdirection means he could pull off some pretty amazing switches even if he had to handle everything with a pair of chopsticks.

Also, while he won the FISM for cards, Wilson is primarily known for his contributions to impromptu magic with everyday objects like rings, napkins, and particularly coins and pens.  In this context, even cards and half dollars are out – how many non-magicians normally carry such items around with them?  Some spectator manipulation is used for watch steals and to load objects onto the spectator.  See his “Off the Cuff” DVD for more details.

The lecture covered some impromptu material and some of his marketed items, but surprisingly no hard-core card magic.  I assume that’s because there are few attendees really interested in the last.

Here are the items that Wilson covered in the first half of his lecture:

“Chip on Shoulder“: a routine where a chip continually winds up on the spectator’s shoulder.  Like paper balls over the head, it only fools the one spectator, but is entertaining for the others.  A good example of how Wilson loads items onto a spectator – and he does it over and over again.

“Pitch and Ditch” and “All Around Vanish“: two masterpieces of coin magic.  Both are complete vanishes without the use of a topit, coat jacket or sleeves.  From his “Off the Cuff” DVD.  Watching Wilson do these even after I know exactly what he’s doing reminds me of how good the techniques are.  I really got to get off my butt and learn them.

Watch Steal: Wilson demonstrated how this is all about misdirection and spectator management

Coin from Head: this is an old move used in a few of Wilson’s routines.  Done right, it looks as if the coin fell from the sky.

Pointless: Wilson demonstrated his marketed effect where the pen tip keeps transitioning from one side to the other.  He blended seamlessly into his legendary ReCap routine, from his “Off the Cuff” and “On the Spot” DVDs, which only requires a normal “Bic” -style pen.

Hundy 500: a marketed effect where five one dollar bills  instantly change to five hundreds.

Foreign Affair: a marketed effect where a one dollar bill changes into various foreign bills and finally a $100 bill that can be handed out.   The gimmick is made out of Tyvek so should last basically forever.

Pit Stop: another classic move of hiding items temporarily in the armpit, primarily associated with the cups and balls.  Wilson demonstrated some of his applications.

Sobriety Test: this is the bounce no-bounce ball trick.  Wilson demonstrated his patter and premise for this trick, which provides a logical reason for introducing a rubber ball.

I didn’t stay for the second half because it was a 45 minute drive home and I’m usually too tired the next day.  Lectures tend to have most of the meat in the first, longer “half” before the break, since the audience is more alert.

Overall, it was a very entertaining lecture with great tricks.  Gregory Wilson is The Man.

Carta Blanca - David & Vachon

This is Carta Blanca, puzzle #6 of 7 in Family Games‘ “Sacred Myths and Legends” series.  The series is designed by Yvan David (one of Family Games’ founders) and Francois Vachon.  Up to this point, I’ve been pretty happy with #1 (DaVinci’s Secret: The Clue) and #4 (The Enigmatic Temple), which are both secret-opening puzzles.  I didn’t like #2 (The Equation), and decided to avoid #5 (Pillars of Atlantis) for that reason, since neither are secret-opening puzzles.

This one is a puzzle box.  After Brian Pletcher’s glowing review, I was eager to get my hands on one of these.  However, I started running into some serious quality issues.

#1 came broken.  I was able to get a look at the mechanism and still wasn’t sure how it worked.  I returned in and got #2, which I broke after a little tugging.  I didn’t think that would happen given the mechanism.  It should be able to resist a lot of opening force when it is not solved, but it has a mechanical weakness.  I contacted Brian Pletcher to get the solution, which I tried on #3.  #3 doesn’t appear to be broken, but I can’t open it either.  I think my best chance is to fix #2.

With this many problems, I really wish it had been made by the Karakuri Creation group or someone like Eric Fuller or Kathleen Malcomson.  Sure, it would have cost $100 instead of $30, but it would have WORKED.

Another problem with the box is the nature of the solution.  I can’t say much about it without revealing the solution.  For more discussion (warning – solutions of Carta Blanca, as well as one of Simon Nightingale’s puzzles, are revealed) click here.

Eureka Bottle 3 - Wils

As I’ve explained before, I enjoy bottle puzzles.  They’re part disentanglement puzzle and part disentanglement puzzle, with a little bit of the impossible object aspect.  This one also has a hidden mechanism.  Eureka! Puzzles in Belgium manufactures 5 different puzzle bottles.  I had #s 1, 2 and 4 (not necessarily manufactured by Eureka!).  This one is #3, designed by Jo Wils.  It’s supposed to be the hardest of the 5 bottles by far, given their difficulty ratings.  This one is a “4″, the other ones I own are all “2,” and bottle #5 is a “1.”

Don’t confuse Eureka! Puzzles in Belgium, which is a manufacturer and wholesaler, with Eureka! Puzzles, a very nice puzzle store in Brookline, MA frequented by puzzle blogger Brian Pletcher.  Curiously, though, I bought the puzzle online from the Brookline store.

I was able to get the concept of the puzzle fairly quickly, but it took some fiddling to get it to work.  It required a lot more fiddling to get it back together again.  It’s one of those puzzles that you don’t feel like trying again because it was so hard to get back to its original state.

I’m looking forward to getting bottle #5 sometime.  The only place I’ve been able to see it so far is in Game Mania, an Italian puzzle store.  I suppose I could order it from them, but it seems a little odd to have to pay twice as much for shipping as for the puzzle itself.  I guess I could order some puzzle locks to make it worthwhile.

Octagon Puzzle Box - Kamei

This is the “Octagon Puzzle Box.”  It’s a Bits and Pieces reproduction of “Pile of Disks” by Akio Kamei, who is the biggest name in trick puzzle boxes.  I was very fortunate to be able to win this in auction on eBay, for probably only around twice its original price (since it’s no longer available).  It has a clever mechanism and solution.  It was very satisfying, being neither too easy or too difficult.

I had Rainer Popp’s T2 trick lock at some point.  It was a very interesting puzzle, but it was frustrating and I wasn’t able to solve it.  It was pretty pricey, so I sold it during one of Cubic Dissection’s auctions.  My curiosity was definitely raised when I saw that Popp had come out with T3 and T4 for sale at Grand Illusions, particularly since Jonas Bengtsson had praised them so highly on his blog.  Since they were both pretty expensive, I thought I would ask Jonas if I could borrow them from him.  He was very generous and offered to ship them to me immediately.  I thought he should get something out of it, so we wound up loaning each other puzzles.  It took a few months, since I contacted him at the beginning of the year, but he was apprehensive of me mailing him wood puzzles when the weather was so cold in Sweden.

Here’s what I borrowed from Jonas:

All Hail the Queen - Marcel Gillen

This is one of Marcel Gillen’s series of take-apart/secret opening chess pieces.  I have “All Hail the King” so I was excited to read on Jonas’ blog that I could get “All Hail the Queen” from Oy Sloyd Ab, a Finnish company.  I tried contacting them, but they sold out.  The solution is identical to “All Hail the King.”

Trick Lock T3 - Rainer Popp

Trick Lock T4 - Rainer Popp

These are the 3rd and 4th locks in a series made by Rainer Popp.  The 2nd-4th locks can be purchased from Grand Illusions, located in England.  The first Popp made for himself as is not for sale, as far as I can tell.  Apparently it is even more difficult to solve than the 2nd-4th locks.  I was not able to solve the 2nd-4th locks and had to resort to looking at the solutions.  Fortunately, Popp provides detailed instructions with his locks, sometimes including exploded diagrams for disassembly.

There are 5 steps to opening each of T3 and T4.  However, for both locks, the first step is obvious, and there is one step that is the real secret to opening the lock.  They both have unusual mechanisms.  Both are definitely the crème de la crème of take-apart puzzles, both in terms of mechanisma and quality.  They are priced as such: at Grand Illusions, they sell for £160 (T2, stainless steel version), £118 (T3), and £199 (T4).  It looks like T5 will soon be available.  Look for a review on Jonas’ blog as soon as he can get it.

Cube Bi-Section - Bill Darrah

This is a pretty cool interlocking puzzle I bought from Harry Nelson at his Bay Area Puzzle Party.  The object is to assemble the 2 pieces into a cube (not fully filled in, of course).  I generally shy away from interlocking puzzles after my early experience with Triple Cross, a “standard” 6 piece burr.  I figured that 2 or 3 pieces is actually doable.  I worked on it on and off a few times and finally got it after spending a total of about 15 minutes on it, which is ideal for me.  Most of my coworkers were able to slam it out in just a few minutes.  It took me longer to work through what has to happen to solve it and to see the trick.  I think it’s an ideal puzzle to hand out at parties because of its difficulty (not trivial, but not too hard either) and durability.

I think the designer, Bill Darrah, may have been at the Bay Area Puzzle Party, based on his profile picture at Puzzlewood.  I didn’t know who he was at the time, though.

I read Brian Pletcher’s previous posts about the local New York and Beverly, MA puzzle parties.  It turns out that there is also a Bay Area puzzle party, hosted by Harry Nelson or Stan Isaacs.  This year, Nelson hosted.  I heard out about it from an email from Nick Baxter, so I was all psyched up to try and acquire new puzzles.

Mapquest totally failed me about half the drive over, so I pulled the GPS out of the trunk to take me  the rest of the way.  I knew I was at the right place immediately by the burr made out of 4×4’s on Nelson’s porch:

Burr at the front of Harry Nelson's house

Here’s me with the man himself:

Me & Harry Nelson

Here’s a picture of some of his puzzle collection:

Wall of puzzles at Harry Nelson's home

I started with Nelson’s puzzle retrospective.  There was one puzzle from each of 9 decades that Nelson has been involved with puzzles.  He first got interested in puzzles early in life, so the puzzles from the first few decades were favorites that were invented by other people.  Most were mathematical.

I tried my hand at most of them but only got one.  Nelson’s grandson tried to give me some pointers on the chess puzzle, but I still couldn’t get it.  I got stuck on this one for a long time without figuring it out:

Treasure Hunter puzzle

It’s like Rush Hour in that you have to get the treasure pieces out of the opening at the right.  However, you have to push all the pieces with your action figure piece.  The green spots are immobile, and the yellow pieces only move horizontally or vertically, as indicated.  3 pieces were easy; the fourth stumped me.

I wound up buying a copy of both Treasure Hunter and Rush Hour from Nelson, along with a 2 piece interlocking puzzle called Cube Bi-Section.  They were only $10 each!  Nelson invented Treasure Hunter and is the American agent for Rush Hour, which was invented by Nob Yoshigahara.  He explained that being the agent means that he’s the guy collecting royalties for American sales.

Meanwhile, my coworker Mike Butler, who lived nearby and who I had invited along, arrived.  He spent almost 2 hours trying to get together Nelson’s “Gravity Well” puzzle.

Mike Butler w/ Gravity Well

He finally succumbed to looking at the instructions, and it wasn’t easy even then.  I recall having one of these at some point as a kid.  I was finally able to get it back together, but I don’t remember how I did it and I never wanted to futz with it again.

While Mike was working on the Gravity Well, I started talking with game designer Nicholas Cravotta.  I played a round of his game “Zenith” against him.  Obviously, he kicked my a**.

Nicholas Cravotta

It was a pretty cool game.  You take turns playing triangular pieces in the board.  The game comes with 4 different boards; the one we played on looks like the box cover.  You can only put pieces on the white spots.  If you have at least one of 3 pieces that form a triangle, you can add a piece on top of the 3 pieces on the level above.  The winner is the last person that can make a legal move.  Cravatta and his wife are responsible for BlueMatter games.  They also make Dizios (sort of like dominos) and CrossWise.  Their games are available through MindWare.

After getting defeated by Cravotta, I also got a chance to talk briefly with puzzle designer Scott Kim, and ThinkFun’s Inventor Relations person Tanya Thompson.

Nicholas Cravatta, Scott Kim & Tanya Thompson

Scott Kim and John Langdon are perhaps the biggest names in ambigrams.  Ambigrams are words that are are written in such a way that can be read as a different word if rotated, read in a mirror etc.  See the links for plenty of great examples.  Langdon is responsible for the Ambigrams in Dan Brown’s “Angels and Demons,” and Brown used Langdon’s last name for Robert Langdon, the symbologist main character in “The DaVinci Code,” “Angels and Demons,” and “The Lost Symbol.”

ThinkFun makes commercial puzzles.  They are probably best known for “Rush Hour.”

Afterward, I had a brief talk with puzzle designer Jason Smith of Puzzle Forge.   He is a designer of twisty puzzles (like “Rubik’s cube”).  He also brought quite a few twisty puzzles from other designers to show.

Jason Smith

Mike and I finished off the evening at another table full of interlocking puzzles.  I saw one that I had trouble getting to come apart.  I remembered a thread on a puzzle forum about one of Stephen Chin’s puzzles that flew apart when you spun it.  That happened with this puzzle too, so I panicked and started to try and put it together.

Exploding puzzle

It was made of 6 identical pieces.  It was pretty easy to figure out how they went together.  Getting the last pieces in without it falling apart was much harder, though I finally got it.  For that reason, I think of this almost as a dexterity puzzle.  The puzzle looked like it was actually machined out of plastic, which must have been tricky.

Exploding puzzle solved

Ex puzzle prototyper George Miller was there.  He was younger looking than the  picture I had seen of him had led me to believe.  We tried Vesa Timonen’s “Flat Tire,” which he manufactured.  It’s a quick, fun take-apart puzzle.  Unfortunately, it was the only secret opening (my primary interest) puzzle I was able to find.

George Miller

Finally, I tackled two of Bram Cohen’s 3×3x3 cube packing puzzles.  Cohen, I found out later via Wikipedia, is the creator of BitTorrent.  His 3×3x3 packing puzzles have from 3 to 12 parts.  He tried to create the most difficult puzzle given each number of parts.  The easiest ones are the 3 and 12 piece puzzles, the latter because 9 of the pieces are 1×1x1 cubes.  I was able to get the 3 piece one, but I had to break down and have him show me the 12 piece solution.  Mike tried Cohen’s Pinwheel, which was manufactured by Jerry MacFarland.

Bram Cohen

Mike and I had a great time, and we look forward to the next Bay Area puzzle party.