There is a moment, usually around table four or five of a walk-around evening, when my opener starts to feel like a recording. I say the same opening line, I make the same gesture, I see the same look of curiosity on a new face, and somewhere in the back of my mind a small voice says: here we go again.
That voice is the enemy. Not because the feeling is wrong — repetition is repetition, and there is no way to make the twelfth rendition of the same effect feel like the first. But because that voice changes my delivery in ways I cannot always detect. A fractional loss of enthusiasm. A tiny shortcut in the patter. A moment of genuine surprise that I used to feel but now merely perform. The audience at table five is not responsible for the fact that I was already at tables one through four. They deserve the same performer who showed up fresh at the beginning of the evening.
My solution is simple, perhaps deceptively simple: I change my opener every three tables.
How I Discovered the Three-Table Cycle
The three-table cycle was not the result of careful analysis. It was the result of desperation.
I was doing walk-around at a private event in Linz — a birthday celebration for a pharmaceutical executive, about eighty guests spread across a rooftop terrace. The organizer had asked for two hours of close-up magic, which I estimated would mean roughly fifteen to eighteen tables.
For the first five tables, I opened with the same card effect. By the sixth table, I was visibly coasting. I could feel it in my hands, which were moving with mechanical precision rather than expressive intention. I could feel it in my voice, which had settled into a rehearsed cadence. And I could feel it in the reactions, which were good — the effect was strong — but not great. Something was missing, and I knew the missing ingredient was me.
At table six, I made a snap decision. I put the cards in my pocket and opened with a completely different effect — a mentalism piece that I usually saved for the middle of a set. The effect was not as visually striking as my usual opener, but something remarkable happened. I woke up. The change in material jolted me out of the pattern. I had to think differently, engage differently, read the group differently. My energy shifted, and the audience responded.
Three tables later, I switched again. Cards came back, but with a different opening effect than the one I had been using earlier. Fresh again. Alert again. Present again.
By the end of the evening, I had rotated through three different openers, switching every three tables. It was the best walk-around performance I had given in months, and the only variable that had changed was the opener rotation.
Why Three Tables, Specifically
Three is not a magic number. It is a practical one. Two tables is too few — you barely settle into an opener before switching, and the first rendition is often the weakest as you warm up. Four or more is too many — by the fourth repetition, the staleness starts creeping in. Three gives you one warm-up performance, one where you are fully in the groove, and one where you are still sharp but ready for the change.
Three also matches the natural rhythm of most walk-around evenings. At a typical corporate event, I might work twelve to fifteen tables in ninety minutes. Three rotations of three gives me nine tables with three openers, and then the remaining tables get whichever opener feels most appropriate for the group. The rotation keeps me fresh for the bulk of the evening, and by the final stretch, I have enough residual energy from the variety to carry me through.
But there is another reason three works, and it has to do with something I read in Darwin Ortiz’s Strong Magic about the relationship between variety and impact. Ortiz argues that variety within a set prevents the audience from developing what he calls a “pattern expectation” — the sense that they know what is coming next because they have seen a pattern. While he is writing about variety within a single performance, the principle applies across an evening. If neighboring tables are watching you — and at a cocktail event, they often are — rotating your opener prevents the “I saw what he did over there” effect that diminishes anticipation.
The Three Openers in My Current Rotation
I am not going to describe the specific effects in detail — that crosses a line I do not cross. But I will describe the categories.
Opener A is a card-based effect that is highly visual. Something happens that is immediate, impossible, and does not require any setup conversation. It takes about forty-five seconds and produces a visible reaction. This is my default first opener because it works cold — no preamble needed, no audience warm-up required. When I am approaching a table that does not know me yet, Opener A is my handshake.
Opener B is a mentalism-adjacent piece that involves a brief interaction with one person. It requires a question, a moment of thought, and a revelation that feels personal rather than flashy. It takes about a minute and produces a quieter but often deeper reaction. This opener works best with smaller groups and more intimate settings. It is also the opener that re-engages my brain most effectively because the improvisational element — responding to what the participant actually says — prevents autopilot.
Opener C is a borrowed-object effect. I ask for a coin, a phone, or a ring, and something unexpected happens with it. This opener works brilliantly because it immediately involves the audience in a way the other two do not. The object is theirs, the impossibility happens with their property, and the investment is automatic. It takes about sixty seconds and requires slightly more audience management, which keeps me alert.
Each opener leads naturally into my core effects. The transition from any of the three into the middle of my set is smooth because I have practiced the bridges — the connecting sentences, the gestures, the moments where one effect ends and the next begins. The audience does not know I have three openers. They see one opening, one middle, one close. The rotation is invisible to them and transformative for me.
The Psychological Dimension
There is a psychological principle at work here that extends beyond magic. It relates to what the productivity author Ali Abdaal calls the Play principle — the idea that engagement and energy come from novelty, variety, and the feeling of exploration. When you do the same thing repeatedly, even if you are good at it, the brain begins to disengage. It categorizes the activity as known, predictable, safe. And “safe” is the neurological opposite of “alert.”
By rotating my opener, I introduce just enough novelty to keep my brain in exploration mode rather than execution mode. Each time I switch, there is a micro-adjustment: different hand positions, different opening line, different energy level, different audience reading. Those micro-adjustments accumulate into a fundamentally different state of presence.
This is also why I do not just rotate randomly. The sequence matters. If I start the evening with Opener A (visual, card-based, high energy), I switch to Opener B (mentalism, conversational, lower energy) at table four. The shift is not just in material but in mode. I go from performing at the audience to performing with them. My brain switches gears, and that gear change is itself energizing.
At table seven, I switch to Opener C (borrowed object, interactive, medium energy). Another gear change, another mode, another set of skills engaged. By the time I cycle back to Opener A at table ten, it feels fresh again. Not brand new — I am under no illusion about that. But fresh enough. Reset enough. The staleness has dissipated during the six tables where I was doing something different.
The Side Benefit: Reading Rooms Better
An unexpected benefit of the three-opener rotation is that it has made me better at reading rooms. When you only have one opener, every table gets the same approach regardless of context. When you have three, you start asking yourself: which one fits this group?
That question forces observation. Is this a high-energy table that wants spectacle? Opener A. Is this a thoughtful couple having a quiet conversation? Opener B. Is this a group that is already watching me, curious about what I will do with them? Opener C, because it involves them immediately.
The decision happens in seconds, but it is a decision. And making that decision means I am engaged with the audience before I have even arrived at their table. I am reading body language, assessing energy, choosing my approach. By the time I open my mouth, I have already done ten seconds of active audience assessment, which means my performance is tailored to them from the very first moment.
Compare this to the single-opener approach, where I would walk to every table with the same plan regardless of who was sitting there. The magic was the same, but the connection was weaker because I was not responding to the specific humans in front of me. I was delivering a product. The rotation turned product delivery into responsive performance.
When to Break the Rule
Rules are useful precisely because they can be broken intentionally. There are evenings when I do not rotate. If the event is small — five or six tables — I might use the same opener throughout because the risk of staleness is low. If the venue is noisy and chaotic, I default to my most reliable visual opener because it cuts through noise better than the others. If I am performing in a language where one of my openers is verbally heavy and I am not sure of my fluency with this particular audience, I drop it from the rotation.
The point of the three-table rule is not rigidity. It is awareness. The rule forces me to pay attention to my own energy levels and make deliberate choices about how I am performing, rather than coasting on the comfortable default. Even on nights when I break the rule, I am breaking it consciously — which means I am still engaged with the question the rule was designed to address.
The Larger Principle
This extends well beyond magic. Any professional who does repetitive work — sales calls, presentations, client meetings, workshops — faces the same enemy: the automation that comes from doing the same thing too many times in a row. The quality of your tenth presentation is almost always lower than the quality of your first, not because you are less skilled but because you are less present.
Introducing deliberate variety — even small variations — is a way to force yourself back into the moment. A different opening slide. A different anecdote in the first minute. A different question to the room. The content barely changes, but your engagement with it changes dramatically.
I change my opener every three tables because the audience at table ten deserves the same performer that table one got. They do not know about the nine tables before them. They only know what they see. And what they see is either a person who is fully alive in this moment, or a person who is going through the motions.
The rotation is how I stay alive.