TED Talks: Lennart Green

Like your uncle at a family party, the rumpled Swedish doctor Lennart Green says, 'Pick a card, any card.' But what he does with those cards is pure magic -- flabbergasting, lightning-fast, how-does-he-do-it? magic.

Swedish card trick maestro Lennart Green has been baffling audiences for years with card tricks that seem barely under control. In 1991 he won the grand prize in close-up card magic from the International Federation of Magic Societies (FISM), sometimes called the 'Olympics of magic.' He might've won it in 1985 also, except his act of seemingly impossible cardplay fooled even the judges.

With his DVD series Green Magic, Green not only showcases his stunning routines, but divulges many of his most closely guarded secrets, including his famous 'Snap Deal' (where cards seem to vanish without a trace as they are dealt). His talents have carried his trickery around the world, including an appearance on NBC's The World's Greatest Magic.

'One cardman who delivered a terrific performance in the contest was Lennart Green, a Swedish physician with an utterly original repertoire. He did not place, because some of the judges, completely fooled by his bizarre methods, jumped to the incorrect conclusion that the spectators who had shuffled the cards during his routine were actually stooges.'
fism.org