Card tricksBy: JL

What is a card trick?

A card trick is a branch of illusion that deals with creating effects using sleight of hand techniques involving playing cards.

Techniques of doing a card trick

Some techniques that magicians use are sleight of hand, a false cut, a false deal or a set up. And another big one is the distraction. Some magicians go on about another topic while they set the deck up.

And here is an example of a card trick – Part 1

And here is an example of a card trick – Part 2

Teaching my Trick

The name of my trick is called Kings and Queens.

For the trick, I make the audience think that they are trying to pick cards to find a match in card value. The trick is that I have already set up the matching cards for them.

For this trick I use the following techniques:

Sleight Set Up

False Shuffle

Steps

Before going in front of your audience, you need to set up the deck before performing your trick. To set up the deck, remove the kings and queens from the deck. Place three queens and three kings onto the top of the deck in the same order (king of clubs, queen of clubs, king of hearts, queen of hearts, etc.). Place the remaining king and queen at the bottom of the deck.

Steps

While in front of your audience, perform a false shuffle with your set up deck to appear that you are shuffling the deck to make the cards seem random.

To perform a false shuffle, the bottom and top cards will not be shuffled but it will appear that the complete deck is shuffled.

Steps

Next, start making three piles and ask someone in your audience to tell you when to stop. When you are told to stop, flip over the cards on top and stack them into piles with the cards remaining face up and put them underneath the remaining cards in your deck.

The Kings and Queens will remain together on top of the face up cards in the middle of the deck.

Steps

Next, start making one pile until your audience tells you to stop. This face up card will be another placeholder for the kings and queens in your deck.

Steps

Last, find your face up cards in the deck and place them in a row on the table. Put the card on top of the face up card on the table as well (these are your kings).

Put the top portion of the cards from your remaining deck in front of each face up card (the bottom of these decks are your queens).

Last, flip over the card on top of the face up card to reveal your king, and flip over the bottom card from your remaining deck to reveal your queen.