Thanks to edgy illusionists and street magicians like Criss Angel, magic isn’t just for dorks anymore!
When it comes to being awesome at a party, acoustic guitars, Napoleon Dynamite quotes, and Texas Hold ‘Em are out. Magic tricks, my friend, are back in. And when it comes to portable, practical, party-friendly magic, card tricks have always been the obvious choice.
But unless you happen to be the aforementioned Mister “Mindfreak” Criss Angel himself, you may doubt your ability to pull off impressive card tricks. Especially in the liquored-up haze of a party setting, the delicacy, concentration, and slight of hand needed to perform most card tricks convincingly is a near-impossibility for the average Joe.
Sure, you could learn some of those dumbed-down card tricks that rely on transparent counting schemes and patterns, but unless you’re at a fourth grade pizza party (or maybe a California sorority house) those particular card tricks aren’t going to fool anybody.
Thankfully, the simplest variation of the classic “pick a card, any card” trick–where the magician mysteriously guesses an audience member’s card without ever seeing it–can be pulled off by almost anybody. All you really need to perform this classic “telepathy” card trick is a little bit of subtlety and basic counting skills.
In case you’ve never watched television in your life, the “pick a card, any card” genre of card tricks goes something like this:
The magician spreads the deck of cards face-out in his hand. He invites an audience member to “pick a card, any card.” The audience member takes a card, memorizes it, and gives it back to the magician, who replaces it in a “random” position in the deck. The magician of course, never sees what the card is, hence the “magic” effect when he picks the correct card back out of the deck and asks–very dramatically–“is this your card?”
So how is it done? This particular card trick is one part preparation and nine parts presentation.
The preparation involves counting out some of the cards beforehand. In theory, you can set aside any number of cards to be counted. The optimum number for most people is between 10 and 20. You need to have enough cards that it isn’t obvious that these cards are “special.” (These cards will stand out subtly in the deck, so if its only one or two cards, you’ll make yourself obvious.)
But you also need the number of pre-counted cards to be few enough that the pacing of the trick flows along nicely, as you’ll have to count out the cards in front of the audience at the end of the trick. If you decided to count out 40 cards, you’ll be giving the audience a chance to think too much about your card trick, and they may begin to see the cheap “magic” behind the trick.
Once you have your “special” cards counted out, you need to have them slightly lower than the other cards in the deck when you present the deck, face-out, to your special audience member. It’s very important that the height difference between the two segments of the deck is very subtle. It should be noticable only to you, the magician.
You can even have some false “special” cards set at different heights to make the whole thing look randomized. If you do this, just make sure to remember which cards you’ve actually counted and which are just for show.
Once you’ve had the audience member pick a random card and allowed them time to memorize it and show it to the other audience members, take it back from them but don’t look at it. Do not let them put the card back into the deck themselves.
Once you have the “magic” card, slip it between the “special” counted cards and the rest of the deck. This is the part that will require some practice and suave. You can’t make it obvious that you’re putting the card in a special location; it has to look like you’re simply slipping it into a random spot in the deck. Maybe tell a joke or say something “magical” when you slip it back in to take the audience’s attention away from what your hands are doing.
Then, put the deck back together, bang it on the table, flip it over twice, whatever. Just don’t shuffle it.
Once you’ve done all of this, you simply count off your pre-chosen number of cards; the next card will be the “magic”card. For example, if you counted off 15 special cards, the 16th card will be the “magic” one that the audience member has chosen.
The main thing to remember is speed. Hone your ability to perform every step of this card trick fast. Arrange the deck fast. Count the cards fast. Move your hands fast. Speed is the key to making sure nobody catches on.
That being said, there are, of course, more than a few ways to f*** up these types of card tricks.
One of the easiest ways for “pick a card, any card” card tricks to fail happens when the special audience member chooses his special card from the special pre-counted segment of cards. This is easy to fix. When you’re counting off the cards, simply count one less. If you counted off 15 cards to begin with, the “magic” card will generally be the 16th. But, if the audience member chose his or her card from the “special” section, the “magic” card will end up being the 15th.
And if the trick simply doesn’t work out, you can always use the classic (and lame) cover-up. When the audience member glares at you and says, “No, that’s not my card,” you simply smile and respond with, “Yes, I knew it wouldn’t be your card! Isn’t that amazing?”
You’ll sound like a douche, but at least you’ll be a douche with a bad joke instead of a douche who can’t do card tricks.
