Who doesn’t enjoy card game tricks? From the youngest to the old, the nimble shuffling of the deck, the intriguing puzzle and watching the audience go “How did he do that?”, the whole premise makes for a thrilling time. You could hire a professional magician who is bound to have several tricks up his sleeve or you could showcase them yourself! Feeling a little skeptical? Try these classic tricks to win over your party guests. To get them right, don’t forget the two classic Ps of card magic – practice and perseverance.
1. Pick the hidden card
This is one of the simplest tricks to master that doesn’t test your mathematics skills. Whew! Before you perform this trick, you should secretly know what number and suit the bottom card belong to. Let's assume this card is the Ace of Spades. Now spread the cards face down and invite a guest to pick a card. Ask them to make a note of it without showing you. Take that card and carefully put it as the last card, with the second last card being the Ace of Spades. Make a show of shuffling but make sure do that in such a way these two cards remain in sequence. Spread out the cards and the next card after the Ace of Spades will be the secret card. That’s an ace trick, isn’t it?
2. Floating card trick
It’s exactly what it sounds like. You, yes you, the beginner with zero magic skills can make a card float. How? Read on.
Take two identical cards (from two different decks) and cut a small rectangular shaped tab in the first card. This tab should be pulled out neatly. Now apply glue to the back of the second card and place it on top of the first card so the hole is covered. But remember to keep the tab in an upright position without any glue on it. Let it dry for a while. Once it's completely dry, place the card in your hand so that the tab side is hidden in your palm and the other side outside.
Now you’re ready to show it off!
Do a bit of mumble jumble and adjust the tab your hand so that it is right in between the fleshy part of your middle finger and ring finger. With the tab getting a boost (and invisible to your guest’s eyes), it will propel the card 90 degrees and give the illusion of floating! Press the card to your thumb (which will press down the tab) and smoothly show your guests that it has no string added. They will be amazed!
3. The reversed card trick
Your guest picks out a card and keeps it back. You spread the deck and it has mysteriously reversed itself. How did this happen? It’s all in the hands.
Grab a deck with all cards face down (with their back design up and suit like King of Hearts facing down) except for the last card. Spread the deck with your hands and ask your guest to pick one. Make sure, you do not reveal that the last card is reversed. Do some small talk to divert and casually close the deck and turn it around. Now all the cards are face up except for the first card which you had secretly reversed before. It will seem to the audience that all cards are face down when in reality only the first one is face down while all others are reverse. Take the selected card and place it on the deck. Casually lift the first one (which was a decoy reverse card) and spread the card. There will be only one card in reverse – the one picked by the guest!
4. The mind reading trick
Here’s how this works. You ask a guest to pick and card. You say you are reading their mind and you guess the card with a number, say 5. Your guest will say it is wrong. You will insist that’s the number you read. Then you show them that each card has a unique number written behind them like 2, 3,5, 10 etc. You ask them which card they picked. They say 2 of Diamond. You pick up 2 of diamond from the pile and voila! It has number 5 at the back just like you predicted! How is this done? Read on.
There is a bit of preparation involved with this. From two decks of cards, choose the same 10 or 12 cards. You will now have two groups of the same kind of cards. On one set, write random numbers at the back with a marker like 3 or 22 or 44 and on the other set write only one number, say 5. Remember the first 12 cards are the random ones while the next 12 hidden in the bottom of the deck have only 5 written on them. You spread the first twelve cards face up and ask them to think of one. You read their mind and say you are seeing the number 5 in their mind. They will say you are wrong. Then you will proceed to show the first three or four cards and show them that its random. Ask them which card they thought of. Suppose they say, King of Spades, simply lift up the whole set of cards and pick up the King of Spades from the bottom lot where all cards have number 5. Show it to them and watch them being stunned as to how you did it.
Card tricks are clever, innovative and hard to decipher, making it the ideal entertainment for your parties. But bear in mind that practice makes the card magician perfect so don’t forget to practice in front of your family or close friends before you show off your tricks. Most importantly, remember the golden rule of magic. Keep it simple, keep it tight and never repeat a magic trick!