Thursday 31 October 2013

ROLL THOSE DICE - a mental magic dice trick for you


If you have been following the Wolf Creek series of books written under the house name of Ford Fargo and published by Western Fictioneers Library you may have seen that I write the character of Doctor Logan Munro, the town doctor.When I heard that Giovanni Gelati at High Noon Press was looking out for new western characters I was keen to send a new character off on an adventure. But I decided he wouldn't be a medical doctor this time. I was fooling around with some dice on my desk as I thought about this and suddenly, Doc Marcus Quigley popped into my mind.


Marcus Quigley is an itinerant dentist, gambler and sometime bounty hunter. He is on a quest to find the killer of an old friend. His first adventure was DEAD IN THE SADDLE, and each short story ebook takes you a little further along the trail. But each episode is a mystery and things are never quite what they seem.

In The SHOOTER, for example (a play on the name of a shooter in the game of craps) he performs a dice trick. He is an expert on dice. And just so that you can demonstrate that you too are a dice mechanic, here is a little mental magic trick for you to amaze your friends and family.


Ask him or her to roll all three dice. You then ask him or her to do few simple pieces of arithmetic without showing you the dice, but then you  instantly reveal the numbers they rolled.




Method – ask them to use the pad and pencil. Ask them to:

·      multiply the number on the first die by 2                 [12]
·      add 5 to this total                                                     [17]
·      multiply this total by 5                                             [85]
·      add the number of the second die to this total          [87]
·      multiply by 10                                                        [870]
·      add the third die number to this total                      [875]
·      subtract 125 from this total                                     [750]

Secret – Ask them their total. You then simply subtract 125 from that total and you get a three digit number. Each number will represent one number of the dice they rolled, in the correct order.

With the dice I rolled in the photograph as an example,  6, 2 and 5, you will see the calculations in brackets beside each step. So you subtract 125 from that to get 625 and you reveal the dice as “six, two and five.”

Then take a bow!

12 comments:

  1. I have to use this, of course. :) I'm a Dr. Munro fan--who wouldn't be??? I have a couple Quigley stories on my Kindle and once I get this deadline book done, I look forward to reading them.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks, Jacquie. Ah, the bittersweet deadline! I have one in three days time for my latest medical book. But first, a medicinal trip to the movies is called for.

      Delete
    2. Good luck with your deadline, Keith. Mine seems to be a breach birth and is taking longer than expected.

      Delete
    3. Thanks, Jacquie. It will mean burning the midnight oil, I think. Good luck with the breach! Logan would use the Mauriceau–Smellie–Veit manoeuvre if it was early enough.

      Delete
  2. Keith, you bear watching. In addition to physician, medical historian, and novelist, now we find out you also apparently have mad skills at sleight of hand. Had you been around in the Old West, I have no doubt even Doc Holliday would have kept his distance. ;-)

    I'm so glad to see you blogging on your own blog! Your "The Doctor's Bag" entries on the Western Fictoneers blog never fail to inform and entertain (if sometimes in gruesome ways ;-) ). Can't wait to see what you come up with next over here.

    I need to hike over to Amazon and check out Marcus Quigley. I've so enjoyed the way you mix mystery and suspense into your other westerns, and I'll bet Quigley is another winner. :-)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Gosh, Kathleen, that is flattery, to be compared to Doc Holliday!

      Yes, signs of a mis-spent youth, I fear. Yet what I don't tell people is that I am the worst bagpipe player in the world. (Oops, I've let the cat out of the bag now - hey, maybe that's why my playing is so bad?) My detective character with my other hat on is a bagpipe playing Inspector in the Hebridean Constabulary.

      That's kind of you. Dead in the Saddle starts it off.

      Delete
  3. Keith! Glad you have your own blog now--that is fantabulous! Please be sure to spread the word all over FB so people will be able to find you. This is a wonderful post--who knew? My son will love this--he has a degree in math and will find this fascinating. I'm like Jacquie, I'll have to figure out a way to use this in a story somewhere now. I love your Dr. Logan Munro in the WC series. I have some of your other books, too--the one on King Arthur (which is just fascinating) and the one on back pain. I might have to make a whole shelf for KEITH SOUTER/CLAY MORE books.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks, Cheryl. You are way to kind. Like Logan I'm better at surgery than carpentry so I'd be hopeless at putting up a shelf for those books. Thank heavens for ebooks!

      Delete
  4. I'm glad to see you have your own western blog. I'm looking forward to reading more of your interesting posts. :-)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks, Jo. I'm keen to hit the trail and raise some dust!

      Delete
  5. Keith, your array of skills is truly amazing. Who'd thunk you are a dice mechanic as well. I really like Dr.'s Quigley and Munro.
    The best to you.
    Jerry

    ReplyDelete
  6. Thanks, Jerry. I think I'm more a Jack of all trades, but master of none. I appreciate your comments.

    ReplyDelete