Vencislav Penev (TheMagicPRO) Exposed

[Mark]

Vencislav is a guy with decent card handlings who nowadays is gaining video views by performing my tricks. Now, I don't think there is anything wrong with that (although I just wouldn't suggest anyone to do just that), but the fact that he's lying about his performances being clean and impromptu is bothering me a lot. On top of that, whenever someone calls him out on that fact, he simply won't admit it. Instead, he even adds statements like "unmastered" and "its a hard trick" while it's obviously gimmicked and very easy the ways he does them.

An example:

Originally Posted by TheMagicPRO

i am not sure that is exactly like his,but no gimmicks or dups are involved! clean and is impromptu!

He compliments me on my works a lot which makes it kind of difficult for me to write anything bad about him, but I simply can't agree with these actions. Apart that it seems like he doesn't have any respect for the techniques behind these original effects and the time and thoughts I put in those and just fakes them for the views, like the forum rules state: "For magicians it's okay to lie to their spectators when performing, but there is no need to lie outside of actual performances".

I know this thread will get this guy some views too, but this should stop.

[LittleLead]

I told you about this guy a while ago Mark, He blocked me lolzz

[TheMisdirectingHand]

I guess it's another Will...

[Albert]

Geez... I mean, if I was him and I wanted to copy Mark through dupes and such, I would have at LEAST not copied the Joker. He also made a huge mistake of showing the sides of the cards as he dribbled to seemingly "pick" a card. You can clearly see he used a special card through the huge sudden clump of cards falling right before he stopped.

All I can do is shake my head at people like him *shake shake shake...*

[la0o9]

i'm not good enough to see through what you did yet so idk if the 2 videos are really the same or not... so i can't say anything, but coming from the creator's mouth, i think he is just lazy for trying to gain subbers by copying another person... that never works out well in the world of magic

[Kevo]

OK...I will brake this trough.He is my best friend in card magic and in life too.Mark, he really respects you and your work and maybe he wants to be like you.Venci(thats how I call him) performed me some of your works live for me (APEX, MTL, DL Deluxe, Tipical) and I couldnt figure out how he was doing it.I was sure that he is not useing gimmicks because he was doing it with my own deck.I've just asked him at least to tell me a hint about APEX, but he refused...his words were:"I've watched it every day for several hours for about two weeks to understand it, why don you try to do so? And also I'm not sure if this is the correct technique " That maybe doesn't really matter...Anyways, I had a conversation with him about "Confidential" and I asked him "Well why did you picked the joker, like in the original video?" He told me that its free choice.I do not know if he lies to me (he often does, but I always know lol )

So I will just say sorry to you Mark from Venci (he doesnt really use forums) I will see him soon today and I will tell him about this thread, maybe he will make an account and clear the things up

[Albert]

Originally Posted by Kevo

OK...I will brake this trough.He is my best friend in card magic and in life too.Mark, he really respects you and your work and maybe he wants to be like you.Venci(thats how I call him) performed me some of your works live for me (APEX, MTL, DL Deluxe, Tipical) and I couldnt figure out how he was doing it.I was sure that he is not useing gimmicks because he was doing it with my own deck.I've just asked him at least to tell me a hint about APEX, but he refused...his words were:"I've watched it every day for several hours for about two weeks to understand it, why don you try to do so? And also I'm not sure if this is the correct technique " That maybe doesn't really matter...Anyways, I had a conversation with him about "Confidential" and I asked him "Well why did you picked the joker, like in the original video?" He told me that its free choice.I do not know if he lies to me (he often does, but I always know lol )

So I will just say sorry to you Mark from Venci (he doesnt really use forums) I will see him soon today and I will tell him about this thread, maybe he will make an account and clear the things up

Even though assuming everything you say is true, I can't say his performance of confidential was clean at all, as I have explained previously.

Just the mere fact that he is claiming that some of Mark's tricks he performed was gimmickless is insulting when it indeed uses gimmicks. As a fellow magician, it is just rude in my opinion to lie about something you did. I don't see much wrong in performing other people's tricks, however.

[TheMisdirectingHand]

Also, in just about every gimmicked version of Confidential *cough* MBI *cough* the Joker is always seemingly forced...

[Kevo]

I'm sorry that I am taking a role of a secretary (lol) but he refuses to make an account(his english is not the best, nor mine but still I'm a little bit better).He asked me to quote him for you guys: "I am very insulted and disappointed from you guys, I can't believe that you can talk like that.Call me fake, call me lier, wathever you want.I know what I do, and by the way I can upload gimmick or ungimmick, wathever I want, do not judge me!I am sorry for my behaviour but I know what I do and how much did I practiced.Why do you mess with me?I really respect Mark and love his tricks.They look like real magic - thats why I upload them!I don't care about the subscribers and the views!To show you my respect I have deleted the video!Thanks everyone for the time and attention to read this!Have a nice day! -Venci (TheMagicPRO) "

ok so thats what he wanted to say

Edit:The edit is about gramatical mistakes that I have noticed later

[Albert]

I'm not very clear on why he should be insulted. I didn't see all of his uploads on Mark's tricks and so I don't know if some are gimmicked or not. Regardless, It's quite narcissistic of him to tell us not to judge him. I know you are his friend Kevo and I understand that. But it's a good thing he is getting criticized now rather than later. Lying itself in magic outside of performances is a bad thing.

I do truly hope that he has learned something valuable through this in a good way.

[Mark]

Thank you for fulfilling the role of his secretary, Kevo. I would've preferred it if Vencislav would've signed up himself (we would've understood him anyways, no matter how bad his English would be) but this works too.

However, if he doesn't want to be judged, he shouldn't upload those videos and allow people to give feedback to them. And being the inventor of those effects, I think I have all the rights to judge him on it and to make this forum thread about it.

I hope he understands that I get kind of annoyed by people commenting things like "Almost as good as Mark 0.01 % away of being MarkHilkeMeijer :P" and "great performance Mark should be proud! " to a video in which he faked another one of my effects ('Jumpgate' in this case). If you look at the video description and tags you find a whole lot of false advertising: "Original impromptu and clean sandwich effect by MarkHilkemeijer, great trick. I work on this effect a long time,its a hard trick. Hope you like the performance!". How could I possibly support that if it's simply not true in his case?

He has enough skills to know better than that. Sure he may know clean ways to copy those effects, but in the videos he doesn't show those and he kind of confessed by saying he could upload either clean and gimmicked performances. Sure, he could, but as long as he lies about it, I won't support it.

This is what I posted months ago to his 'On Top Of The World' attempt and I believe it should've made a difference, yet it apparently didn't:

Originally Posted by TheMagicPRO

thanks mark you are right... i really like your tricks and this also is awesome and i try to make same effect, i know its not exactly how is done...your performance is awesome and i cant figured out ... thats why i try to make effect with my point of your performance... and i dont how you control the cards, control , pass , shift.

Tell him that if he continues lying about his performances being clean and impromptu, this won't stop and he will be having a bad name.. thanks to himself. He could as well just delete those statements (he doesn't even have to say that it's dirty and gimmicked, and at 'Tipical' he didn't say it was clean or impromptu either so I guess he knows how).

There is no need to delete the videos, and I personally believe having those videos deleted and being upset about this isn't the right way to deal with it.

[Kevo]

Okay, Venci told me that he won't do videos with DarkSleightZ tricks anymore.Just letting you know

[Albert]

Originally Posted by Kevo

Okay, Venci told me that he won't do videos with DarkSleightZ tricks anymore.Just letting you know

Although I'm not Mark, I think he may be misunderstanding something. I think what we wanted to get across was that he just shouldn't lie about the tricks he perform. If it's gimmicked, then just say it. I don't see particularly anything wrong with posting your take or variation on a trick. Just refrain from giving misleading info. Please do tell him that Kevo

[Mark]

Originally Posted by Albert

Although I'm not Mark, I think he may be misunderstanding something. I think what we wanted to get across was that he just shouldn't lie about the tricks he perform. If it's gimmicked, then just say it. I don't see particularly anything wrong with posting your take or variation on a trick. Just refrain from giving misleading info. Please do tell him that Kevo

No no, if it's gimmicked, then just don't say that it's clean. You don't have to say that it's dirty if it is.
But you're right, that's all I wanted to say.

[Kieran Oloughlin]

I curious.
DO not take this in any wrong way, but how do you know he is not using your method? I do not know the guy or watched many of his videos but how do you know he is using gimmicksor dups?

[Albert]

Originally Posted by Kieran Oloughlin

I curious.
DO not take this in any wrong way, but how do you know he is not using your method? I do not know the guy or watched many of his videos but how do you know he is using gimmicksor dups?

I have only personally watched jumpgate, MTL, and confidential. I don't know the complete methods for jumpgate so I cant really say anything about that. Same with MTL. But as for confidential, if you have some experience using special or gimmick cards, it can be quite noticeable. I won't mention which cards though.

Also, a person who really understands a move can see through one's handling of the move. For example, you would generally know when which fingers should be moving where, where rests or pauses may be, etc. This is more so if you have practically mastered the move. So, a person who just learned a move may not catch a professional performing the move.

[TheMisdirectingHand]

Personally, not all of us know if someone is using gimmicks to perform any of Mark's effect. Then again, Mark is the one calling them out.

[Mark]

Originally Posted by Albert

Also, a person who really understands a move can see through one's handling of the move. For example, you would generally know when which fingers should be moving where, where rests or pauses may be, etc. This is more so if you have practically mastered the move. So, a person who just learned a move may not catch a professional performing the move.

+1

(Un)fortunately, that's the same reason why many magicians can't spot my moves. However, in my case they are missing things and in Venci's case there is absolutely no space or finger positioning to perform the actual sleights, nor sleights that actually come close.

On top of that, you can see where the cards are coming from. If a selection is coming from a position it couldn't have been located at (f.i. from the top and there was absolutely no control to the top as the magician kept it all uncovered), you can tell that it's a dup.

[Kevo]

Originally Posted by Albert

Although I'm not Mark, I think he may be misunderstanding something. I think what we wanted to get across was that he just shouldn't lie about the tricks he perform. If it's gimmicked, then just say it. I don't see particularly anything wrong with posting your take or variation on a trick. Just refrain from giving misleading info. Please do tell him that Kevo

I have informed him, no worries

EDIT:He finaly made an account in the forum.I think it wont be necessary to be a secretary anymore

[KGaborMagic]

There are lots of other people doing this.

I understood a few things about the MTL, and this guy even do the finger placement wrong.
Plus he says that his version is impromptu and Mark's is gimmicked.