The Experts at the Card Table

The Experts at the Card Table, by David Ben and E. S. Andrews, is a 2015 publication by Magicana, which reorders and reorganizes the “Card Table Artifice” section of The Expert at the Card Table.

While this is not a reprint of the original, Ben does use the words of Erdnase, but in a new, reorganized arrangement—a system that Ben calls the “Erdnase System of Advantage Play.”

Ben believes that Edwin S. Andrews is in fact, S. W. Erdnase and has credited Andrews as the co-author, complete with a biographical sketch on the dust jacket, which we have included in the slide show above.

Ben has also replaced the famed, Marshall D. Smith illustrations with over 750 photographs, of Ben demonstrating the card technique, which is spread, story-board style over this unusually-sized, 10" x 10”, hardcover format.

There are two versions: a regular one, with hardcover and dust jacket; and a special edition version (limited to 104 copies), which includes a slipcase to house the volume, two tipped-in photos and a playing card. One of the photos sits in the front of the book under a sheet of vellum. The other photo holds one of the 104 cards (from two Tally Ho decks). These were the same cards used in the photographs of the publication.

MODERN variants of ERDNASE