At the moment, I mostly Collect and do card magic. I am trying to get into Cardistry and would love to get into table work. Anyone know any great books for Table Work? i.e. second dealing, riffle stacking and so on.
Well, "The Expert at the Card Table" is more than just the name of a pack of cards, y'know...
I personally like the "Indestructible Erdnase" edition and the e-book-only "Erdnaseum" edition. You can carry "Indestructible" anywhere in any weather, and "Erdnaseum" has the complete, unadulterated text of the original with notes at the front indicating errors and offering corrections.
Other than that, you could start easy with "Card Magic for Amateurs and Professionals" by Bill Simon or "The Royal Road to Card Magic" by Hugard and Braue. If you really want to go whole-hog into card magic, the Card College series is expensive but great - the Card College Light/-er/-est series covers tricks requiring no sleight of hand, while the original is all sleight work. If you're already truly experienced, "The Paper Engine" by Aaron Fisher might be good for taking your work to the next level.
If you wanted to tackle more than just card magic, the "Tarbell Course" books are awesome. I hear they made an eight-volumes-in-one book of the entire thing, but I'm betting it wouldn't fit into most backpacks...
Seriously, peruse the book selection over at Dan and Dave. As much as I rail against their playing cards, they have one of the best online selections of magic in print form.
If you want to eschew reading and go with DVDs and downloads, well - there's a lot of material out there for varying skill levels, and you'll never get as much bang for your buck from a DVD as you would from a book of the same price (or sometimes, even less). It's nice to see moves being executed in front of you, but the depth of knowledge is much greater in print. I'd use DVDs mostly for selected magic tricks and categories of magic.
But if you're sticking with cards and can afford it...
There's a series called "Revelations" by Dai Vernon, which I think was shot for Canadian TV and covers much of his studies of "The Expert at the Card Table". Remember, there's a reason why Vernon is known as "The Professor"... D&D sell the set for $179.95.
Another good idea is the video series "The Royal Road to Card Magic" - it's not meant to replace the book, but instead to be used WITH the book, practically chapter by chapter, and provides additional material by R. Paul Wilson. Tannen's sells the five-disc set for $79.95. Like the book, this builds up as you go, utilizing sleights learned in previous chapters and adding to them with new work - you can't simply skim your way through it. It's more like a college math class in that sense, except the math is replaced with sleight of hand card magic.
D&D carries a four-disc set by Giobbi, "Card College 1 & 2", using materials right from the book and performed by Giobbi himself, for $124.95.
Also worth a good, hard look would be the entire "Daniel Garcia Project" series; six discs released as three-disc sets and available individually as well as in downloadable format. (Also NOT cheap, but you can tackle a disc at a time to make it easier on the wallet.) The series goes beyond just card magic, making it a worthwhile investment for the more generalist close-up magicians, minus the tired, old tricks that have been around since before you were born.
Finally, for gambling demonstrations, Steve Forte's "Gambling Protection Series" is still considered one of the best videos out there. Originally produced as a four-videocassette series in the 1980s, it's been combined into a three-disc boxed set with some additional material added. Now, this DOESN'T actually "teach" you the gambling techniques per se, in that he doesn't demonstrate "put your finger here, flick like this, etc.", but the series was created to allow people to spot cheating in actual casino situations. The techniques are displayed in such great detail, it's easy enough to devise how to do it on your own. D&D described it as trying to learn golf by watching six hours of Tiger Woods playing shot from several different angles. If you were already a golfer, yes, you'd learn quite a lot - not recommended for beginners, HIGLY recommended for experienced sleight-of-hand workers. D&D is out of it right now but HOPC has it for $99.95. This is also available as a book, but without all that wonderful 1980s VHS-quality video showing you the moves in action.
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