Ray Kosby's Raise Rise, an Ambitious effect where the
signed card is left sticking out near the bottom of the
deck and without cover first rise to the middle, then to
the top of the deck.

Understand the sleight for this effect is very difficult to
learn and master. I know of one seasoned card guy
who took him a year to master the move.

Anyone out there does this effect and what's your take
on this.

it can be found in his impossible card magic dvd, looks great, i heard its a bit knacky

I gave up trying after a while, because it just kept getting stuck on my left thumb; either that or the top few cards will fall off when i loosen the grip my thumb has on the deck.

Its good to have long fingers that can stretch far laterally, like Kosby's, you can see in his video that his middle finger is at the top right-hand corner of the deck while his pinky extends past the back of the deck on the outer right side (a bit like a straddle grip but the length of the deck is clipped between the middle and pinky finger). Try it out with a deck of cards and once you get into the position described in the brackets, slide your pinky directly right, past the back of the deck and see if it can stay as far back as when it was forced behind the deck. If you can do it then it'll probably be easier for you than everyone else, but i highly doubt that.

Most people modify the grip to suit thair hand size by raising the deck above the palm but even then its still very difficult and in my opinion very frustrating especially when you see Kosby do it himself, its like automatic.

The ambitious riser move is great for ACR but thats if you

1. can master it
2. can do it continuously without hesitation ( the trick requires you to )
3. can do it with a shaking motion of the hand (that makes its much more difficult)
4. can do it under fire and deceptively
5. can stand making your pinky feel like shit when practising

i'd say most people don't even make it halfway through phase one, so statistically i would not recommend it, it really depends on hand anatomy and some level of crazy preseverance, and added to that, although Ray is a good teacher, he doesn't in my opinion go into enough detail regarding the amibtious riser move and so a lot of the testing and experimenting has to be done on your part.

Of course it isn't a total waste getting his impossible card magic dvd, there are other tricks in there that deserve attention, like his version of the reset effect and his choice of oil and water and a number of others that do require the ambitious riser move, but not as frequently as his ACR routine (you just need to be able to pass phase one) like venus fly trap, and a mentalism effect with cards (i forgot the name).

BTW, unless your using this to impress other magicians with your skill, learning Ray Kosby's ACR with the ambitious riser is quite a waste when showing lay-people. Understanding is the prime pre-requisite of appreciation and lay-people will not appreciate that fact that you took a crazy amount of time and effort to perfect and perform an effect that can be done with much less difficulty - with gimmicks.
If you think about it, the trick kinda reminds you of something like the rising card deck, or escalator from Geaton Bloom.
So unless your planning on using borrowed decks (which is unlikely also because the ambitious riser works best with new and good quality cards) there is no forseeable point in learning it at all from a logical standpoint.
Of course a lot of people learn things solely to get bragging rights and that should be enough incentive to learn it and yes, i'd think it would be pretty damn cool if i could do it too, but i've tried and failed and i don't intend to try it again.

Don't get me wrong, you will get reactions with this, especially if you can do it as good as Kosby does it, i just think that the effort and the result don't really add up, however, that is probably just an excuse i make for my own incompetence, so in the end i'd say that you should go for it.

Is this the trick?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dMyz-TBNK1o

Well it sure looks amazing. No idea how it was done. But the effect is really quite straight forward and to require that much practice, it sure sounds a little crazy.

#lumpy, you really got the effect dissected and
explained in detail it's intricacies. Now I can understand
why it has frustrated so many card men. But some will
insist on mastering it as "bragging rights" like what you
said. And yes, the man in the street will not give a heck
if the move takes you years to master, maybe they are
like, eh...ok...the card rise to the top....ok. I'm not sure
if I really want to try and master the sleight, that's my
take.

#chanzain, you can go to:

http://www.mymagic.com/kosby.htm

under Impossible Card Magic and watch
a clip showing Ray doing the effect.

i'm glad that i could be of some help :)

BTW chanzian that video you linked is not raise rise, it may look similar but the method is completely different. If you watched Doublelifter's linked video, you can see that Ray does not use his right hand at all during the raising process

I've been learning this for a long long long long long time... :lol:

And I'm still unable to do it continuously! I'm able to do it one time, then after that cannot liao.. :P But this way, I'm able to switch cards, and after that, excuting a charlier cut bringing the selection to the top, and that ends the trick. Cannot do the illusion of it slowly coming to the top.. Haha.

Lumpy hit the nail on the head. I've always love the posts Lumpy posted, great deal of information.. :D This effect is not worth the practice.. Rather be practising some other stuffs like gambling sleights. :rolleyes: