Card Magic Tricks -Guess the Card

Card manipulation, also called card magic is one of the easiest types of magic. There are many beginner-level card tricks that anybody can learn by practicing some essential sleight-of-hand techniques. There are many techniques used for doing card tricks, such as side flips, passes, false cuts, false shuffles, color change, crimps, or reverses. By using card magic a magician creates impressive effects with playing cards. He makes dexterous hand movements by means of which he manages to deceive spectators.

As opposed to other magic tricks that require a large hall to be performed, card tricks are suited for small rooms, where the magician and the audience are close to each other. The interaction with the audience is direct and the details of the magic are easier to notice. This is why attention is required and the magician should master the technique of focusing the attention of the spectators to certain points, so that specific moves are not noticed.

The sleight-of-hand techniques must be done so easily, that the audience does not notice the details that might reveal how the trick was actually done. In order to correctly perform this technique, the magician needs to have a lot of patience and repeat every move until it is perfect. Besides misleading the audience, by focusing their attention on another point and the sleight-of-hand techniques, there are also other useful techniques that can be used. Talking very rapidly can distract the audience so that they no longer notice certain moves the magician makes.

Nevertheless, there are far easier card tricks that simply use the rules of math. Once you know a specific card succession, you will be able to predict the position of other cards and manage to fascinate the spectators with your capacity to see things others simply don’t see.

In this article, I will show you a simple magic card trick. To do this trick, you will have to use your logic, your attention and memorize the card situated at the bottom of the deck.

Let's see now how to practically do this magic trick. Somebody from the audience chooses a card from the deck and then returns it back to the deck. The magician will then reveal the chosen card. The magician has to move quickly so that the glimpsing of the card at the bottom of the deck should not be noticed by the audience.

1. While preparing the cards, glimpse swiftly (to prevent the audience from noticing this move), the card situated at the bottom of the deck, in this case, the King of Diamonds. Remember this card, because it will be the key card.

2. Spread the cards and let somebody from the audience choose one card.

3. Tell the spectator to remember what card he has chosen. In this case, the chosen card is the Three of Diamonds.

4. Swing-cut the top half of the card deck into the right hand.

5. The top half of the deck (from the right hand) should be placed under the bottom half of the deck (the one you have in the left hand, and at the bottom of which the key card is situated) The chosen card should be placed in between the two half decks so that the key card is right above the chosen card.

6. Spread the cards on the table. If you want to impress the audience, you can simply name the chosen card, without touching it, "it's the Three of Diamonds". The chosen card will be the one right above the key card, in this case, the King of Diamonds.

7. Alternatively you can pick the chosen card out of the deck.

8. Remove it from the deck and show it to the audience. Ask the spectator to confirm that it was the card he had chosen.