S.A.'s Richard Turner is world's top card shark despite blindness

SAN ANTONIO — Seeing is believing.

But for Richard Turner, a world-renowned card mechanic who is blind, and the wide range of audiences he performs for, that isn't the case.

Turner, 59, lives in San Antonio and is regarded as one of the best-known card mechanics and up-close magicians in the world. He's performed his astonishing sleights of hand for more than 40 years, and his movie-script-like life story, which goes far beyond his skills as a card shark, is the subject of a new feature-length documentary.

Turner's magic touch, candid humor and sheer performance skills can awe just about anyone, from movie stars and Fortune 500 CEOs to friends, troubled teens and some of the best in the magic and gambling industry. His balance of finesse, control and power with a deck of cards is unbelievable, regardless of his lack of vision.

“Richard can do things with a deck of cards no other person on the planet can do,” said Bruce Samboy, former director of iNew York's state division of gambling regulation. “Picking up a deck of cards in front of a guy like that is like going to the driving range with Tiger Woods.”

Richard Turner, 59, is a card mechanic, also known as a card shark, who travels the world showing his skills with playing cards. Turner, who is blind, has practiced with playing cards for over 135,000 hours and started getting interested in cards when he was 7 years-old. A documentary on his life will come out in spring of 2015. less Richard Turner, 59, is a card mechanic, also known as a card shark, who travels the world showing his skills with playing cards. Turner, who is blind, has practiced with playing cards for over 135,000 hours and ... more Photo: CYNTHIA ESPARZA, FOR THE SAN ANTONIO EXPRESS-NEWS Photo: CYNTHIA ESPARZA, FOR THE SAN ANTONIO EXPRESS-NEWS Image 1 of / 12 Caption Close S.A.'s Richard Turner is world's top card shark despite blindness 1 / 12 Back to Gallery

Turner, who has more than 50,000 decks of cards in his home, began his interest in and cheating at cards at age 7 and has put in more than 135,000 hours of practice, he said.

“I'm kind of hyperactive — my wife would say that's putting it mildly — so I have no problem practicing day after day and hour after hour,” Turner said last week. “And the great thing about cards being small is you can practice anywhere and everywhere; standing, talking, walking, riding in the car, in church, shopping. ... If I'm not practicing, I start shaking.”

He employs hundreds of sleights of hand, unique shuffles and tricks.

For example, a partner can specify how many players and which position he wants for a game of poker and which hand he'd like dealt. Turner can deal the cards, hand the cards over to have another person to shuffle and even keep some of the cards, then deal the original hand his partner wanted.

In another crowd favorite, Turner asks a person to choose a number between 1 and 52, and within a split second, he is able to separate the exact number of cards with a finger and throw them on the table.

“Richard is an extraordinary talent. ... He actually lives with a deck of cards and can destroy one in just a few hours,” said Steve Forte, one of the most respected sleight of hand artists in the world, as well as a leading gaming protection researcher and consultant. “Just like in any other field, you meet people that are crème de la crème. ... I've met the best artists from across the world, and I'm talking about the very best card guys on the planet, and there is nobody like Richard.”

Although Turner is blind, most people who see him perform do not know because it is not discussed and he learned through theater classes how to appear as if he is looking directly at someone when speaking based on sound.

Turner contracted a retina degeneration disease when he was 9, and his sight quickly diminished.

“One day I could see the chalkboard, the next day I couldn't,” said Turner, who retained blurry peripheral vision for a few years but eventually lost all functionality of his eyes. “I can see the same thing with my eyes closed as I can when they're open.”

In his late teens, Turner began using drugs and, as he describes it, heading down a dangerous path “mostly because I was feeling sorry for myself” because of losing his sight.

Turner was pulled out of the downward spiral by a karate teacher and a church, and after a few years, he got hooked up with Dai Vernon, who is one of the most well-known and influential magicians in the 20th century.

Turner said that from the late 1960s to 1985, he used his card skills to win hundreds of games, regardless of the pot size.

“I couldn't help it, I had to win every hand,” Turner said. “It wasn't that I cared about the money, it's because I liked the thrill of the adrenaline rush that came with the risk.”

Once he began performing for a living, Turner realized “you can't cheat and entertain because eventually you're going to end up dead.”

He has performed a number of times at the Magic Castle in Hollywood and at Billy Bob's Texas in Fort Worth, and he had a seven-year residency during the 1990s at Fiesta Texas, as well as thousands of other venues across the world. Turner also has a passion to perform for military troops and troubled youths, which he does for free.

Turner was cast for a role in the 2011 award-winning feature film “Tree of Life,” in which he swindled Brad Pitt at a card table.

When he accepted the role, he said the director didn't know he was blind and he worried how he'd break the news on the set.

“When I got on set, I told him: 'I can do anything you want me to do with the cards, you're just going to have to show me where the table is,'” he said.

Now Turner incorporates his card tricks into a motivational speech he gives around the world for audiences from financial firm Morgan Stanley to local schools.

Turner is performing Tuesday at South By Southwest in Austin to promote the documentary on his life, titled “Dealt,” which is scheduled for a 2015 release.

Graham Weston, one of the founders of Rackspace, is executive producer of the film, and Luke Korem of Austin is the director.

“If you were to write a Hollywood script, this would be it, but the difference is that his life actually did happen, he is a real character,” Korem said.

“His life is sort of like the magic that he performs: You can't explain it. ... People are going to be scratching their heads the whole time saying, 'I can't believe this guy exists.'”