Over the years I’ve seen many card tricks, some have been easy card tricks, some not so easy and more often than not these card tricks involve slide of hand. Slide of hand is a very impressive skill to master, but for some, it can take many hours of practice. If you are looking for a simple card trick that will leave your audience baffled and awed, then The High Stakes Poker Game Trick is the perfect card trick for you.
The coolest thing about this card trick is that you can actually perform the trick with a brand new deck of cards! My proudest moment was taking a brand new deck out of the wrapper and showing all my friends this trick. They couldn’t believe their eyes! Now if you don’t have a new deck handy it’s completely fine, all you have to do is set up the cards like they are in a new deck.
How to Set Up the High Stakes Poker Game Card Trick:
If you have a brand new deck of cards, then take the cards out of the pack, get rid of the jokers and the other extra cards and then you are ready to begin the trick. If your deck is not new, separate the cards by suit. Once you have a pile for each suit, put the cards in order from 2 to Ace by each individual suit.
When you are done putting the cards in order you should have four piles (one for each suit) and you should be able to see the 2 facing you (the Ace will be on the bottom of the pile when you can see the cards, but the Ace will be on the top when the cards are face down). Once you have your four piles, put the piles in this order: Hearts – Diamonds – Clubs – Spades. When you are done, the card you should see on the very bottom of the deck is the two of spades.
Performing the High Stakes Poker Game Card Trick:
Once you have your deck, you are ready to begin the trick. Have your audience circle around you, but leave enough room on the surface in front of you for seven different piles of cards. Begin the trick by cutting the deck one (1) time yourself. After that, have one of your audience members cut the deck six (6) more times. **Be sure to state that the deck shouldn’t be cut in the same place twice. (When cutting the deck, don’t create separate piles for each cut, instead: each time you cut the deck, the cards from below should be brought to the top so that after each individual cut you still have one single deck)
After the deck is cut seven times you are ready to deal. The name of the game is 5 card poker. When interacting with your audience during the card trick, tell them they are at a high stakes poker game that consists of 6 very wealthy individuals and the dealer (you). Begin by dealing to your left, deal the first six cards off the top of the deck (deal in an arc as if you had six poker players sitting at a table with you) and then deal yourself. On the second round of dealing, deal the six poker players, but then skip yourself (I usually say that the dealer is drunk so he skips himself on accident but you can make up any story that you like). At this point, each player should have two cards and the dealer should have one.
Deal around for the third time to all six players and then deal yourself. On the fourth time around, deal all six players but skip yourself (the dealer) again. At this point all six players should have four cards and the dealer should have two. Deal the fifth and final card to each player and deal yourself one more. At the end of dealing, each player should have five cards and the dealer should have three.
This is where the fun part comes in! You have six high stakes poker players involved in your card trick, so use your imagination and come up with a brilliant story for each! The point is for each wealthy man or woman to bet all of his/her possessions on this one particular hand. (for example: The first man owns the entire McDonald’s Franchise, after seeing his cards he bets every single restaurant down to every last French fry on this hand.)
Okay, so have those stories in the back of your mind. Start with the pile of cards to your left and pick them up. Now if the trick worked correctly, you should have a full house. So pick up the cards and hold them facing yourself like you are playing the hand, tell your audience the story about this particular player and at the end say he’s betting every bit of this and that and he has…a full house. Then lay down the cards for the audience to see.
Then pick up the second hand. You’ll notice…it’s a full house! (see where this is going!) Each of the six hands will consist of a full house. So six stories you’ll tell and six times you’ll lay down a full house for each audience member to see. After you tell each and every story, you’ll have six full houses laying in front of you and the dealer will still have his/her three cards face down. At this point you say, the dealer, being drunk (or being whatever else you may come up with) takes a look at his/her hand and decides to trade them all in. So throw the dealer cards to the side (which should be three of a kind-but don’t show the audience this) and then deal yourself five more cards. If everything works correctly, you should deal yourself a straight flush (sometimes even a royal flush)! The dealer wins!
Now this is a great card trick because you can’t really explain how it works. Putting the cards in that particular order, no matter where you cut the deck(as long as it is only cut seven times), you’ll end up with this outcome (actually…you’ll almost always end up with this outcome-once in a while the cards will get messed up because of the changing of suits. For example: your straight flush might go: Q,K,A,2,3-but this rarely happens and can’t really be controlled.) If you perform this simple card trick several times, you’ll notice that the cards within the full houses and the cards dealt to the dealer always change. It’s a fantastic free card trick for those who want to show off their magic skills without having to spend hours practicing slide of hand! Practice it a few times on your own then show your friends and family just how great you can be at card tricks!
