The final explanation doesn't entirely follow with "more effort than it is worth". There should be three decks - each with one card removed - and you cop the "proper" deck with the chosen card removed. Don't want an attentive observer to realize three cards are missing from the deck and not just their chosen card. It would be more difficult to hide two additional decks of cards but it gives the trickee one less way of spotting the trick.
I'm heavily interested in trying to 'spot' magic tricks. So I'm always looking for the sleight of hand or what contraption could have been built to 'fake' a trick. P&T are masters of the craft because they really take the "more effort than it would be worth" to heart. The things they do are usually things I'd never have even thought of - or dismissed because I think it would be too difficult!
Which is why some of David Blaine's "tricks" are so amazing to me [0] [1]. Because there is no trick some of the time. He is actually swallowing frogs and keeping them in his esophagus and then regurgitating them back up. Something I intuitively think is impossible, even if I'm aware of 'regurgitation magic'.
David Blane is more about straining the limits of human endurance under strikingly abnormal conditions. His TED talk was interesting, and when he talked at length about how various stunts had the risk of brain damage ... you could tell.
Penn & Teller's bee trick was a similar thing. In one of Penn's books, he explains that the actual trick wasn't to not get stung, but to be stung hundreds or thousands of times without giving any indication that it was happening. His body ended up having a pretty massive reaction to all the stings, so much so that skin on his scrotum peeled off.
I'm heavily interested in trying to 'spot' magic tricks. So I'm always looking for the sleight of hand or what contraption could have been built to 'fake' a trick. P&T are masters of the craft because they really take the "more effort than it would be worth" to heart. The things they do are usually things I'd never have even thought of - or dismissed because I think it would be too difficult!
Which is why some of David Blaine's "tricks" are so amazing to me [0] [1]. Because there is no trick some of the time. He is actually swallowing frogs and keeping them in his esophagus and then regurgitating them back up. Something I intuitively think is impossible, even if I'm aware of 'regurgitation magic'.
[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g0fylxoxC_o
[1] Explanation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YPE928xUKL4