Magic Tricks Using a Deck of Cards
A deck of cards is one of the most useful tools in a magician’s bag of tricks, as it can be used for a ton of different magic tricks. Card magic is very popular with all types of audiences, as it’s engaging, quick, and baffling; it’s also a favorite of magicians as its simple to practice, portable, and requires no elaborate equipment or any set-up or preparation. There are hundreds of different magic tricks that use a deck of cards and we’ll highlight some of the most popular ones below. Be forewarned, though, we’re not going to reveal any secrets so you’ll have to look elsewhere for magic tips or instructions.
The Color Card Prediction and Rising Card trick are two of the most popular, and both are quite easy to learn. In the Color Card Prediction trick, spectators are asked to pick a card from the deck; when they do they discover that they selected the only red-backed card in a deck of 51 other cards with blue backs (or vice versa). The Rising Card trick is exactly as it sounds, with spectators picking a card and putting it back in the deck. The magician taps the deck with his finger and the selected card comes rising out.
The Dealing a Royal Flush trick is a favorite with poker fans or gamblers who play online slots, video poker, and other casino games. The magician deals hands for himself as well as various spectators, with the dealer somehow always managing to get the very best hand in poker, a royal flush. The Simple Monte is a take-off on another gambling game, as a spectator is shown just three cards and ask to memorize them. When the middle one is selected the spectator is asked what it is, only to find it’s a completely different card when revealed.
Mind Reader is another classic card magic trick, with a spectator asked to shuffle the deck and memorize the card on the bottom, and put the deck back into the card box. The magician then tells the spectator the card they memorized without ever opening the box of cards. The Killer Prediction is a similar mind reading trick, as the magician first produces a sealed envelope and says there’s a message inside, then asks the spectator to flip through a deck of cards until they feel like stopping. When they stop the envelope is opened and the message picks the exact last card the spectator dealt on the table.
Profanity and Magic: The appropriate use of language when performing
Many magicians, will tell you that swearing when performing magic is completely unprofessional. However, if you watch some of the videos we produce for Magic Secrets, you may notice that, the language used can be of an adult nature and on occasion contains profanity. Does this mean that we think its acceptable to swear when performing magic?
Our society has branded particular words as being profane. The use of these words is acceptable by some and not by others. Because some people can be offended by hearing the use of these words, avoiding using them altogether is a sure way of avoiding offending your audience. Today though, many societies have evolved to the state that people use many of these words in their everyday lives. Many people have grown somewhat accustomed to hearing words that in the past would have been considered taboo. As such, rarely in today’s society does swearing on its own cause serious offense.
That being said, the appropriate use of profanity is very situational and if you do swear during performance, you have to be sure that you are not going to offend your audience by doing so. Sometimes the use of particular words can enhance a performance. For example, spectators love the ‘magician in trouble’ premise. A worried look followed by an expletive can convey to the spectators that you really in trouble and may even add to the humour of the situation depending on how you present it.
Whilst it may be acceptable to swear in front of people you know well or in casual performances down the pub, there are some situations (such as performing for children) where you would never swear at all – without exception. You have to be mature about your language use and use your initiative when deciding on the words you are using.
If you are in any doubt about causing offense, simply avoid the use of profanity altogether.
Alan Rorrison’s Sim Card Surprise
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All you need is two identical sim cards still in their credit-card size sim card holders, Remove one of the sim cards from its holder and your set to go.
In the video, recorded live in The Crown pub in Alva, Scotland. Alan Rorrison exposes the magic secrets to this great fun trick. After the explanation, stay tuned as there are some highlights of Alan destroying John Harrower at pool.
It makes a great youtube or television trick. If you decide to perform this for a live audience, be sure to practice this plenty as you could expose the method easily if you don’t watch your angles!
Learn To Do Magic
Okay, you you want to learn to do magic. It’s a prospect that appeals to many of us. Why wouldn’t you want to be able to do the impossible?
For all magicians, when they first learn how to do magic, it is a life changing experience. They get to discover a new world of mystery and wonder. It’s a hobby thats not only fun, but the possibilities are infinite. There’s always something new to learn, some new sleight to try or a new gimmick to play with.
Also, learning to do magic can help you gain access to many pathways in life that you would otherwise miss out on. For example, if you are introverted being able to perform magic tricks is a great way to bridge the social gap and allow you to express yourself, meet new people and make new friends.
There has never been a better time to learn to do magic.
Thanks to the internet, learning magic has never been more accessible. At one time you could only read about magic in books and those books were few and far between. Today you have video and this makes learning magic faster and more fun. At Magic Secrets, all our products are in digital download format so theres’s no waiting and you can start learning magic today.
Like we say, there’s has never been a better time to start learning magic. Have a browse of our downloads section and learn to do magic today!
Easy Magic Tricks To Do At Home – The 10 Card Shuffle
Here is one of our easy magic tricks to do at home. All you need is any regular deck of cards.
Easy Magic Tricks To Do At Home – The 10 Card Shuffle
The magician removes the top 10 cards from the top of the deck and shows them to be in a random order. The magician deals the first card face down on the table and the second card is ‘ducked’ to the bottom of the packet in his hand. The third card is dealt to the table and the fourth is once again ‘ducked’ to the bottom of the pack. The magician continues this pattern until all the cards are on the table.
Pick up the cards and look through them. Tell your audience that the reason the trick hasn’t worked was because you forgot to say the magic words.
When you perform the same alternating dealing and ducking patter, turn the cards face up. The cards will now be in perfect order ace through to 10!
The Magic Secrets: All you need to do for this trick is to pre-arrange the top ten cards of your deck. The suits do not matter but remove one of each value from ace through to 10. Set up the cards in the following order:
8, 3, 5, Ace, 9, 10, 4, 6, 7, 2
… and thats it! The trick is self-working from here on in.
Now that you have learned one of our easy magic tricks to do at home, why not try it out?!
Easy Card Tricks To Learn
The following is two easy card tricks to learn and perform. There is no difficult sleight of hand so you will be able to perform these card tricks with little practice. Both these tricks make use of a “force”. A force is where you apparently give the spectator a free choice of a card, however the card that they are going to select has been predetermined by yourself. For both examples, I am going to use the Ace of Spades as our “force card”, but you can use any card of your choosing.
Before you begin you need to need to prepare a prediction. This could be as simple as writing the name of your force card on a piece of paper. You could put this prediction inside a sealed envelope or at the other end of the room. Either way, do not let the audience see what your prediction is at this point. By doing this, they don’t know what’s coming up and this builds excitement and suspense. If you were to say “you are going to pick the ace of spades” before the trick begins, the element of surprise is ruined.
Easy Card Tricks To Learn – Cut Deeper Force Trick
Start with the ace of spades face down on the top of the deck. Invite the spectator to cut the cards a few cards down, but instruct to cut off no more than half of the cards. When they do this, turn the packet face up and place it back on the deck.
Now, invite the spectator to cut the cards a second time. This time, instruct them that they need to cut deeper than they cut the first time. When the spectator does this, once again invert the packet of cards that they have cut and return it to the cop of the deck.
You are now in a situation where you have a few cards face up on top of an otherwise face down deck. Spread the cards and deal off the first face down card that you arrive at and tell the spectator that, that in order to keep things as random as possible, they have had the freedom to cut the cards twice. Say we are going to look at the first face down card and that this is going to be their selection. This card, although apparently a random choice, will always be the card that you forced them to pick!
Now all you have to do is reveal your prediction and take your applause.
Easy Card Tricks To Learn – The 5 to 15 Force Trick
Our second in our selection of easy card tricks to learn is the 5 to 15 force trick. This one plays out in exactly the same way as the previous one, except the force itself is different. Prepare your prediction as before and place your force card on top of the deck. Ask a spectator to name a number between 5 and 15. When they do, in the act of giving the spectator an example of what to do, we are going to sneakily place our force card at the position that they named!
Tell the spectator that you want them to deal down to the number that they chose and demonstrate this form them. So for example, if they named “7″ you would deal 7 cards to the table and turn over the 7th card and say that this would be their selection. Pick up the cards that you have dealt and place them back on top of the deck. Hand the deck to the spectator and have them turn over the card at the position that they previously named. This will always be the original top card of the deck, your force card!
Once again, reveal your prediction and take your applause. Now that you have a selection of easy card tricks to learn, practice them and go out and perform them for your friends!
Magic Secrets Finally Revealed
“Magic secrets finally revealed” is the common name (shortened title) for a documentary television show exposing methods in conjuring. The correct title is “Breaking the Magician’s Code: Magic’s Biggest Secrets Finally Revealed”. However, in this article, for short well shall refer to it as the former.
The title makes reference to the “magicians code” which is the promise by working magicians not to reveal the methods behind their tricks or else risk being blackballed by fellow conjurors.
Magic secrets finally revealed was first broadcast in 1997 on Fox network in the US and Sky and ITV in the UK. New series was broadcast more than a decked later.
The original shows featured a magician known only as “The masked magician”. This was later revealed to be Val Valentino. On the show, he performed large-scale illusions and a handful of smaller scale close-up tricks before revealing the magic secrets behind the trick.
The tone of these documentaries were very disrespectful to conjurors. Instead of painting a picture of magicians being skilful entertainers, this show tried to paint the picture that they were nothing more than conmen.
Many magicians objected strongly to the content of these shows and at the time that Magic Secrets Finally revealed was first broadcast, revealing magic tricks was considered highly controversial. As such, Val Valentino wore a mask to avoid being identified by fellow magicians.
In total there were 18 episodes of Magic Secrets Finally Revealed
Easy To Learn Card Tricks
The following is a selection of easy to learn card tricks that you should be able to perform even if you have never performed a magic trick before in your life.
Easy To Learn Card Tricks – The Three Amigos
Remove all four jacks from a deck of cards and place one, face down on top of the pack. Start the effect by first presenting the other three jacks. Tell an anecdote about how these jacks are the best of friends who couldnt stand being apart. One day they were lost in the desert and the best way to seek help was to split up and go in different directions. The first one to get help was to come and get the others, so off they went in their different directions. Get the spectator to place one Jack on top of the pack , one Jack anywhere in the middle and the last Jack on the bottom of the pack.
You should now confirm to the spectator that the jacks are now well separated. Ask the spectator to cut the pack. Now deal the cards one at a time face up onto the table. You will find that three jacks are now together near the centre of the table. You can conclude your story that the friends were good to their word and lived happily ever after.
Easy To Learn Card Tricks – The 21 Card Trick
This is a classic mathematical trick that works every time. Its so easy to learn and perform that you don’t ever have to worry about getting it wrong!
Begin by removing any 21 cards from a 52-card deck. Lay out the cards out, 3 across and 7 down. In this trick its important that you deal cards row by row, not column by column. Have someone silently pick one of the cards and tell you what column its in. (There are only 3 columns)
Push each column together each column and place this group of cards in the selected column between the other two groups of cards. (For example, if the spectator secretly chose the Queen of Spades and then told us their card was in the middle column. You would pick up the columns and would make sure the selected column was placed so that it was in the middle of the deck.)
Lay out the cards again in the same way, 3 across and 7 down (row by row). Ask the spectator where the card is now. Pick up the columns again (second time), like before making sure the column with their card is in the middle of the deck.
Lay them out again, the same way as before and ask the spectator which column the card is in now for the third and final time.
Pick up the columns again, like before making sure the column with their card is in the middle of the deck. Their cards will always be the eleventh card.
Now you’ve know some easy to learn card tricks you can perform them for your friends!
Simple Magic Tricks For Kids
Magic For Kids
Childrens magic is a genre of magic that has the sole intention of entertaining children. When performing simple magic tricks for kids at parties, churches, schools or libraries, you should be wary that your audience is not as developed mentally as an adult audience so you should adapt your routines to suit the audience. It is often said that intelligent people are the easiest to fool because they don’t expect a magician to use a simple gimmick. On the other hand, a child is hard to fool because they watch closely but do not listen to the magicians attempts to misdirect them.
Why perform simple magic tricks for kids?
When referring to “simple” in this context, I am not referring to the method, I am referring to the effect. The effect itself must be simple. When performing, you have to be aware that children may not fully understand the concept of the trick if the trick is too complicated. This is why you need to keep simple the magic tricks when performing for kids. The child needs to be able to describe in one sentence what happened in the trick. (for example, “the ball changed colour”, “the rabbit vanished” etc). Climaxes that are too complicated may not be so easily understood and therefore the effect is lost.
Similarly, multi-phase tricks with climaxes in quick succession may not be as suited to children as some others. Perhaps one of the exceptions to this is a “cups and balls” routine, which seems to be universally popular.
Cups and Balls – one of many simple magic tricks for kids (and adults)
Paul Daniels popularised the saying “KISS A TIT” – keep it simple stupid and think it through. This perhaps applies more when performing magic for children more than in any other situation.
Children don’t have the same social filters that adults do, children will have no delay in pointing out any error or inconsistency that you make during your performance so be careful to be well rehearsed when you are performing simple magic tricks for kids.