The forcing matrix spawned something neat…
Thanks to John Bannon for naming this. I was using the descriptive (but boring) name, Diagonal Grid Force, and then he suggested the Backslash Force. Yes, please!
I’d been playing around with a forcing matrix when I started looking for a way to force an object rather than numbers. I first put letters instead of numbers in the grid, trying to come up with a way to force a word, but had no success.
Then I started looking at placing objects in the matrix and trying to see if I could force four objects that when put together would be “something” — for example, bread, bologna, mayo, cheese = sandwich, with that being the prediction — and in messing around, trying one thing after another, I discovered the Backslash Force.
Lay out a grid of cards (or anything, really) where the number of rows and columns are equal, and if you then eliminate row/column pairs, the last card left will be one of the top-left to bottom-right diagonal cards.
Let’s see it in action.
Lay out the cards face down and ask someone to specify a row or column, one through four. Let’s say they choose two, so you’ll pick up (eliminate) all the cards in row two and column two, as seen marked in this next picture.
Now they can choose row/column one, three, or four. Let’s say they choose four, so you’ll remove all the cards in the fourth column and row, as marked in the next picture.
This last time they can choose row/column one or three, and if they choose one, you’ll remove the cards marked in the next picture — the last of the cards from the first column and row.
That will leave you just one card, and it’s one of the diagonal force cards.
Try it again removing row & column cards until you’re convinced that one of those force cards will be left each time. 😉
Four Duplicate Forces?
In the initial picture above you’ll see a bunch of fish cards, and four boots. When I remove the cards in a row/column, I just show some of the cards that were eliminated, and just never show the duplicate force card. (When I pick them up, I make sure the force card is on or near the bottom when I turn them face up.) I don’t make a big deal of it, but just keep moving toward the end of the trick. Nobody has called me out on it yet. 😉
One other idea I had was inspired by Reflecta-Thot in Larry Becker’s World of Super Mentalism — write words on the cards, and on the force cards write synonyms for your force word. For example:
Money
Cash
Currency
Moolah
And then after they’ve chosen the final word, you can read their mind and tell them they are thinking of something many people want, that they’re thinking of money. In this case you can actually show all of the eliminated cards if you like.
The Origin
So far I haven’t found anything that describes the Backslash Force, although some things come close. There’s something in Water’s MM&M that I’ve been pointed to, but once you look at the details it’s not the same thing.
It is, of course, based on the Matrix Force, but where you end up is completely different between the two.
However, I discovered this thousands of years after people started doing magic, so it’s quite possible I’m not the first to find it. It was fun figuring it out, laying in bed one night trying to fall asleep, and then getting so excited at what I imagined that I had to grab my phone, draw some squares, start erasing them and finding out that yes, what I was thinking actually worked!
It took me a while to actually go to sleep after that. 🙂
The Backslash force isn’t something you’ll use all the time, but play with it a bit just to have it in the back of your mind when you’re looking for a method in the future.
