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Favorite Card Trick

Cain

Straussian
Cain
Joined
May 31, 2002
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Argh, this board is dying. Here's the type of thread that usually generates responses, and hopefully invigorates interest. Favorite card trick.

I say "Red Hot Mama"

Effect (generic).

Spectator chooses a card from a blue-backed deck. She remembers and returns the card to its home. After a few inspired shuffles and cuts, the magician informs the spectator that her card will make itself known. A red-backed card is revealed as the magician thumbs through the deck. The performer shows that's it's the only of it's kind. Oddly -- nay, magically -- the card matches the spectator's suit and color. (The card may "blush" or "burns up", or whatever stupid, implausible, highly subjective and imaginary subjective patter one devises.)

The magician casts the card aside and says this miracle could not possibly occur two times in a row (or choose your story line). Another card is randomly chosen, shown to be blue backed, and returned to the deck. The deck is again given a few shuffles and cuts. As before the magician thumbs through the cards, but this time a red card does not reveal itself. Weird. The performer cautiously picks up the previous red card, the one sitting in plain sight the whole time. The front is the same as the second chosen card.

This is a great effect because it has two transformations. Mouths widen when an identical red card pops out of the seemingly all blue deck. "How did that get there?" they wonder? "How did you have my exact card on reserve. All of them are different, right?" You can place that card into a spectator's hands, and so when the face unexpectedly changes people will typically laugh and scream while running away. Children will ask if you're a witch.
 
My favorite card tricks have three basic qualities:

1) They can be performed with a regular (or better yet, borrowed) deck of cards, and don't need a trick deck.
2) They can be performed impromptu, with no setting up or with a set-up that can be implemented on the fly in a nonobvious manner.
3) They require little or no sleight-of-hand ability.

The mechanics of the tricks are simple, and the patter is usually brisk. Sometimes I tell the truth, and sometimes I lie, but everything I say seems reasonable. Sometimes when you falsely tell people what you are doing--when in reality you are doing something entirely different in plain view--people will believe what you say and ignore what they see, as long as what you say seems reasonable.

A couple of my favorite card tricks have a lot of punch to them because the spectator fools himself.

In one of the tricks, the spectator makes a number of "free choices," only to find that he is left with his chosen card. The technique involves using the "magician's choice," but to disguise it so that it is a little harder to detect. This trick never fails to evoke an expression of astonishment. One great thing about this trick is that professionals typically would use sleight-of-hand at one point in the trick, but there is a way to achieve the same effect without using any such technical skill.

In another trick (of which I have previously written), several spectators cooperate to select a card, each exercising his or her own individual free will in the process. Actually, the selection is an elaborate force, but the spectators will swear up and down that the card was freely chosen and there is no way anyone could have known in advance what card would be chosen. Eventually the "freely chosen" card is revealed to be the one appearing in a prediction made before the start of the trick. One thing that can be fun about this trick is to plant the idea in the mind of the spectators that "everyone else is in on it except you" (which is untrue--none of them is in on it).
 
I do "Red Hot Mama", although I don't remember it being called that. I think I got it from Frank Garcia's "Super Subtle Card Mysteries".

My current favorite card trick goes something like this:

I thumb through the deck and pull out three cards which I hold as a "prediction". The rest of the deck is given to a spectator who is asked to start dealing the cards, one at a time, turning them face up. At any point , when ever they please, they are told to deal one card face down onto the three cards I am holding.
I turn the card they dealt into my hand over to reaveal it; say it's the Queen Of Spades. I then reveal that the three other cards in my hand are the three other queens.

It can be done with a borrowed deck with no set up, but it does use a bit of sleight-of-hand.
 
I've been reading Penn & Teller's "How to Play in Traffic" and enjoyed trying out the Gideon Bible card trick on my wife. Lots of ideas for similar card tricks!
 
Brown, I unconditionally agree with your first two assertions, and see how my thread can be read two ways: What's your favorite trick to perform versus what's your favorite trick to watch.

Those already familiar with magic, I think, are more likely to appreciate more demanding conditions (borrowed, shuffled decks). Still, at least in my experience, those tricks do not get the biggest reactions.

For instance, some spectators seem far more impressed by
Brainwave decks than the Invisible Deck.

To explain for those unfamiliar. With either trick a deck (inside a box) is held in plain view and the spectator is asked to name any card aloud. So suppose an audience member cries out "four of clubs". Under Brainwave the cards are fanned (all red, say) when one face up card emerges -- the four of clubs! But it doesn't end there: the magician turns the four over to reveal that it is in fact blue, an impossible feat of mentalism. With the invisible deck the magician flips through the cards (face up) and comes across a single face-down card. She slowly turns it over to reveal that it's the four of clubs(!) -- the one and only card going in the opposite direction.

If reflected upon a spectator might come to the conclusion that it really makes no difference that the four of clubs was red. For all he knows it could be written across the face "Hey Jim, I knew you would pick this card 7/25/04." Plus the Invisible Deck has that element of anticipation. One card is upside down, but is it really the selected card?

These particular tricks also highlight a problem with my ambiguous initial question: Invisible decks cannot be scrutinized, and they're one-trick ponies (therefore limiting). An ordinary deck with ordinary cards makes itself available for routines. I initially wanted to know what -- in isolation -- is your favorite trick.

Peter, that's a charming trick. I reproduced the effect to great effect moments ago (though your methodology is probably much better than mine. Check PM).
 
too few card tricks are easy any more, ive lost count of how many times, when i was doing magic tricks, i fouled up and i still managed to pull off the oldest trick in the book. the old pick a card routine is funny when you get 52 decks of one kind of card and color, then stack it so you can get it. you just have to remember wich of the 52 decks your using.
 
This one is horribly banal in it's execution, but a real puzzler to those around you.

Deck is shuffled. You say you will predict the first 3 top cards. You put the deck under a book or magazine at a nearby table, and few minutes later you write down your prediction on a piece of paper which you give to someone else.

The book is lifted, and wallah: your prediction of the first 3 cards is correct. Everyone is thoroughly baffled.
 
Mark Wilson's course on magic has a really good card trick. Basically, the effect is this:

You hold in your hand a single oversized playing card. This oversized card is out in plain view the entire time, but its face is hidden from the spectator. You have the cards of the deck dealt off one by one. The spectator says "stop" at whatever card he wishes, and is allowed to change his mind and stop at a different card if he wishes.

When the spectator settles on a chosen card, the chosen card and the oversized playing card are turned over simultaneously. They are the same card!

The deck can be examined. It is not a trick deck, all of the cards are different, and all the cards can be accounted for. And the oversized card is not a trick card. The performer somehow seemed to know that spectator would select a card that matched the oversized card.

There is some set-up associated with the trick, but it is minimal and can be done "on the fly." Although Wilson might not recommend it, it should be possible to repeat the trick immediately with a different oversized card, using a little misdirection to cover the set-up.
 
Brown said:
Mark Wilson's course on magic has a really good card trick.
Click to expand...

I lent my copy of Mark Wilson's Course On Magic to a friend who moved away and kept it. I really think it is one of the best books on magic that I ever read, and I would love to get another copy for my daughter who is now getting into it. Does anyone know where I can get a copy?

Edited to add - I just googled it and found it at amazon.com.
 
For this trick you are actually going to need to prepare a hookup to your body, in this case I have the invisible elastic going around this button here, I just have it wrapped around, and I have it running to the back of the card so that it is connected. And you are going to want to place this card on the bottom of the pack, so that the thread is at the top running to your button, and you just flip it over, and you are ready to go. What you are going to do is it is a force, where you going to force this card on them, you are going to do something called a Hindu shuffle where you take packets of cards off at the top and when you do it really fast it looks like you are shuffling them, and when they say stop, you are going to show them that bottom card the king of hearts, and then you place it down on the deck, since the threads are still running from the back to the button, you will then turn it around, so now it is on top, and then you are going to come up underneath it, and then you are going to hook the thread that is running from the card to the button, you are going to take it and place it between your two fingers, as you come up you are just going to hold the deck loosely and you are just going to allow it to raise over the deck and that is the basic handling of it.
expertvillage.com/videos/magic-tricks-telekinesis-float-card-explained
 
Strange to see this thread again after so long. But since I missed it 2-1/2 years ago:

My favorite card trick to watch would have to depend on who's doing it. David Williamson,Tom Mullica and many others could be more entertaining with the 21 card trick than many people are with truly amazing stuff. Henry Evans does some entertaining stuff that's worth watching just to be fooled, but would be more entertaining if done by a different performer. The list could go on.

For the last few years, my favorite trick to perform if the audience is mostly other magicians is the Invisible Deck- but using a normal deck. A 2nd would be Monkey in the Middle, but having the card just named without spreading the deck face up to see the cards.

My favorite totally impromptu is probably Vernon's 'Why Am I Here'.

There's nothing wrong with limiting yourself to impromptu tricks, particularly if you only perform for friends or informally. But if you perform professionally (of semi-pro), why limit your options? The effect, presentation and other performance factors should all take priority over a limit on methods, particularly when a set up or gaffs may be the best way to reach the effect you want.
 
I never know anyone to carry a deck. I don't understand why sleight of hand is a bad thing either.

My critera:
1. Appears to be impromptu. It usually in reality isn't. I use various pre arrangements that I can set up with someone else's deck.

2. Appears to use no sleight of hand. Usually it does.

3. Deck appears to be normal.

4. It appears to happen in their hands.

I have done card calling, ambitious card, two card switches, impossible locations from a distance etc
 
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Cain said:
Favorite card trick.

I say "Red Hot Mama"
Click to expand...

I use this one as an opener most of the time.

Other favorites:
-Twisting the Aces.
-Time Machine. By Steve Freeman from Card College.
-Discrepancy City Prediction (John Bannon).
-Vice-Versa (Ed Marlo). Essentially Marlo's handling with a Paul Green variation.
-Invisible Card (Paul Cummins).

There are others but these are my standards when asked to do do a card trick.
 
Here's a completely new card trick for you guys...

A trick not many people have seen, I made it about 8 years ago.
w w w . thearts300 . blogspot . com
 
It's awful hard to pick just one, so I'll pick two.

Tommy Wonder's version of Wild Card -- absolutely kills.

Almost any card warp -- very magical
 
Trickster's trick is fine, but the author's claim to have invented it is specious. It's like someone claiming to have invented meatloaf because he puts an extra teaspoon of brown sugar in the sauce. It is also described as if the method is sufficient for creation of a good effect; it is not.

Ref marplots: Nearly anything performed by Tommy Wonder will absolutely kill; he is a perfect demonstration of what I said about Trickster's linked trick. Very few people could either routine an effect like Wonder did and fewer could present it like him. If you are fortunate enough to have the BoW, then contrast Wonder's explanation of this effect with the explanation in the linked trick. The mechanics of the method, once made clear, are very much secondary to the presentational aspects described.

As for card warp, I'll agree it is very magical and has been one of my staples for years, though I did have one (exactly one) acquaintance who had absolutely no interest in magic who thought the trick was interesting then sat down and back engineered the method in about ten minutes. I'll accept a large part of the blame for presenting it poorly, but I think a large part was that was simply the type of person he was.

Finally, I think Curry's extraterrestrial effect (wink wink) gets more visceral reactions than probably any other card trick I know.
 
Garrette said:
As for card warp, I'll agree it is very magical and has been one of my staples for years, though I did have one (exactly one) acquaintance who had absolutely no interest in magic who thought the trick was interesting then sat down and back engineered the method in about ten minutes. I'll accept a large part of the blame for presenting it poorly, but I think a large part was that was simply the type of person he was.
Click to expand...

That used to bother me until I realized the puzzle aspects were what drew me to magic in the first place. The spectator you mentioned probably got more out of it than the spectator that just oohed and awed. I still kind of "collect" puzzles for that reason and I really enjoy back-engineering effects from demos.

As far as OOTW, I can't seem to keep the interest up through all the dealing. And what you said about Tommy Wonder, the essential ingredient for me is how he justifies what he's doing. Too often, I go for an unmotivated "wow factor" instead of the "little bit of theater" that makes for really good magic. What really sold me on his Wild Card is the story he tells.

That last is why box-style stage magic puts me off. "Why are we cutting this woman in half again?"

One other thing about TW. Unlike the modern trend of "simple and clean" to drive an effect, he starts with what he want's the audience to feel and then constructs the most intricate "backstage" to achieve it. He was not afraid of complex when it served the performance.

(Anyone who doesn't know his work can see a performance of Wild Card here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q5kxUuO5JZo)
 
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marplots said:
That last is why box-style stage magic puts me off. "Why are we cutting this woman in half again?"
Click to expand...
Me too. There's nothing worse than going to see a magic show and while everyone else is saying "how did he do that?" I'm thinking "Why did he do that?"

As for card tricks. As soon as I bought my iTouch I developed a card trick, where the spectator picks a random card, signs it and puts it in the deck. I shuffle the deck and hold the iTouch over the top of the deck explaining that Apple have added a secret scanner. Then the picture of a playing card appears on the screen, Then I explain it also has a mini printer too, at which point I swipe the picture off the screen and the players signed card is in the hand I swiped across the screen... It gets a really good reaction.

Sorry, I've left parts out of my description for obvious reasons. :)
 
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