Resources

There are so many more tricks out there and the internet is so helpful in finding them. These tricks can range from the fairly simple to the ridiculously insane. Here's a list of a few of the websites that I find useful. Check back frequently as I'll continually add to this list.

About - This site is useful in finding information on how to do just about anything. User generated content sites offer a wide variety of topics. There's always going to be someone who is an expert in something obscure. Some of the entries are better written than others.

Ellusionist- This site focuses on all sorts of magic tricks at a varying levels of difficulty. There are some magic dvds and props for sale as well.

Free Magic Blog - Another generated site. This site has a variety of "how-to" videos and links to other sites

The Slap Trick

Difficulty: Easy

Skills Required: Sleight of Hand

Description: A volunteer picks a card from a fanned deck, replaces it, and cuts the deck. The magician picks out several cards, puts them in the volunteer's closed fist, slaps the cards, and the remaining card is the volunteer's selected card.

The Trick:



The Explanation:







Hints:

There isn't much to this trick besides sneaking a peek at your marked card. The best way I found to do it works like this: put your hands at your sides after the volunteer picks his car. This will allay any suspicion that you are peeking. If others are with the volunteer, have him show the card to them. This will allow you to take a peek. When peeking, all you have to do is slightly bend the top half of the deck so you can glance at the corner. Since the suit and value are listed, you can quickly glance before anyone notices.

The Windmill Trick

Difficulty: Easy

Skills Required: Counting, Memory

Description: A volunteer selects a card from one of four piles of four cards. When the cards are placed face down, he magically selects his chosen card.

The Trick:



The Explanation:





Hints:

This trick requires picking up the cards and placing them in the same order. For practice I thought we could do this trick together. I've selected a card and it is somewhere in Pile 3. Make note of the order in which I pick up the cards (A, B, C, D) from the piles in the following order: top left, top right, bottom left, and bottom right. Note that when I deal the cards I always deal them one pile at a time in the order of top, right, left, and bottom

 

Note the positions of the cards in the new piles. All of the top cards are in the first pile, all of the right side cards are in another, etc. Also note that the top card from Pile 1 is on the top, Pile 2's card is on the right, Pile three's card is on the left and Pile four's card is on the bottom.  

Now I'm going to tell you that my selected card is in the new pile 3. Do you know which one it is? If you wanted to end the trick here you could announce it to your audience, but it wouldn't be as climactic. So pick up the cards again in the very same order. All you have to do now is remember when you picked the card up.

When you deal them out again, you should use that same order we have used previously. Where is the card now?




No Cheating....




Are you sure?

Did you figure out that the card was the ace of clubs and that it was on the right hand side of Pile 3? When you are finishing this trick remember to ask the volunteer to pick 2 piles, then 1 pile, then 2 cards and finally 1. Reveal that card to them. Remember: don't tell them what you are going to do with the selected piles or cards. You are going to force the card based on whether or not the volunteer picked correctly. Keep it if the card is there. Toss it if it is not.

The Talking Deck

Difficulty: Easy

Skills Required: Counting, Math

Description: The magician selects a card at random and has the deck tell him where in the deck it is.

The Trick:



The Explanation:



Notes: When the revealed cards are put on the bottom of the deck, it becomes the 33rd card. Finding the sum of the top cards in the three piles after having each pile numerically count to ten will always you to the 33rd card.

History of Cards & Tricks

Although it is not known for sure, it is believed that playing cards originated in China during the 9th century CE. These cards had four suits: coins, strings of coins (which may have been misinterpreted as sticks), myriads (of coins or of strings), and tens of myriads (where a myriad is 10000). These cards were marked with the numerals of 2–9 in the first three suits and numerals 1–9 in the "tens of myriads". It is possible that these cards may have been used as paper currency or as ante. If this were true they were both the tools of gaming and the stakes being played for like the modern trading card games.

Playing cards first entered Europe in the late 14th century, but had a very different design from Chinese playing cards. It is academically accepted that the Mamelukes of Egypt introduced their cards to Europe. A pack of Mameluke cards consisted of four suits (polo sticks, coins, swords, cups) of 13 cards like modern playing cards.

It was once believed that playing cards were based on the Tarot's minor arcana. Three of the Tarot suits (coins, cups, and swords) are shared with the Mameluke deck and the Tarot's fourth suit, the wand, looks very similar to the polo stick suit used in a Mameluke deck. This similarity lead to the belief that playing cards were based on the more well-known Tarot.

Because of the Tarot's use in divination (more commonly known as fortune telling), it (and the playing card by association) became linked with the Romani people, who practiced various forms of divination. This lead to the belief that playing cards originated with the Romani people, who brought the Tarot cards and playing cards to Europe.

There are two faults to this theory. First, there is no known connection between the Tarot and the Romani people. Both existed separate from each other for quite some time and popular culture reinforced the connection between the two. It is theorized that Tarot cards originated from the ‘Saracen’ region in the 1400's. Additionally, the word Tarot is believed by some scholars to be derived from the Arabic word "turuq" which means "four ways".

The second fault has to do with the period of time when the Romani were first documented in Europe. There was no evidence for the Romani people in Europe until forty years after playing cards first appeared. The first documented evidence of playing cards in Europe predates the appearance of the Romani by forty years with a ban on their use in 1367, Bern, Switzerland by the clergy. It is a common belief that this ban was because of the cards' purported connection to witchcraft and the tarot, but in actuality it was a response to their use in gambling. However, the power of the church did little to stop the spread of playing cards amongst royalty and the very wealthy.

King Charles VI of France had a deck of playing cards made for him. In one of his diaries, Charles notes the playing cards were used for "diversion". Royalty were many of the first users of playing cards because they were so expensive. Since the printing press had not yet been invented, the cards had to be painstakingly painted by hand.

Elizabeth I of England was particularly enthralled and in 1602 paid an Italian magician 200 crowns to perform card tricks such as "telling of any card that is thought, or changing one card from another though it be held by any man never so hard under his hand". Likely these tricks relied on the cards being marked. A person would use the same deck for years. Cards would become marked over time, but would not be replaced because of the prohibitive price.

Card tricks became a staple of many stage magicians once playing cards could be mass produced. As playing cards became cheaper to produce, audiences became more exposed to card tricks and were more discriminating about things such as marked cards. In response card tricks became more complicated. With the popularity of magic in the 19th and early 20th century, great magicians like Harry Houdini and Howard Thurston included many tricks in their acts.

The look of the modern deck took shape when the cards arrived in the United States in the 1800's. Their look was changed due to their popularity. Around this time the Joker was first seen in decks and were used in American card games. The other change was in the use of indexes (the small numbers and letters at the top-left and bottom-right of playing cards). These were invented to make it easier to sort through decks of cards.

The modern deck is numerologically similar to the calendar with 52 cards , each representing a year. If the Jack is valued at eleven, the Queen is twelve and King is thirteen, there are three hundred and sixty four pips. One Joker could represent the 'missing pip' to make up the missing day in a calendar year. For a time, there was only one Joker in a playing card deck. When the second Joker was later added, it could be seen as representing the missing day in a leap year. The four suits of a present-day deck are believed to represent love (hearts), wealth (diamonds), knowledge (cloverleaf), and death (spade).

At one time the most common ways to learn card tricks was either through a book of tricks or being shown by someone who knew how. Unfortunately books varied in quality and learning through another person was limited to what they knew how to do. With the advent of the internet, access to information on a variety of tricks and detailed videos making learning tricks convenient and easy.

References:

http://www.trickmagic.com/history_of_playing_cards.htm Accessed July, 10, 2010.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Playing_card Accessed July 10, 2010.

http://www.wopc.co.uk/magic/index.html Accessed July 10, 2010.

http://www.wopc.co.uk/magic/theory.html Accessed July 10, 2010.

http://www.tradgames.org.uk/games/playing-cards.htm Accessed July 10, 2010.

http://library.thinkquest.org/04oct/00804/tarot-cards-frameset.htm Accessed July 10, 2010.

http://library.thinkquest.org/04oct/00804/history-playing-cards-frameset.htm Accessed July 10, 2010.

Note: Blogger's link function does not allow the option of opening a link in a new tab or window when the link is right-clicked. Instead, please left-click the link and manually select "open in a new tab" or "open in a new window". Sorry for the inconvenience.

Hints and Tricks

1. Practice

First off, I can't repeat this one piece of advice often enough: practice, practice, practice. When I first started performing card tricks, I would quickly learn a new trick, practice it until I got it to work and then rush off to show my friends. Inevitably, I'd often mess up the trick up embarrass myself because I hadn't practiced it until I was comfortable. Trust me, practice each trick a lot. Practice in front of a mirror. Practice what you are going to say. Practice in front of an audience of young siblings, stuffed toys, or army men. You can't practice enough.

2. Feedback is your friend

Having a close friend give constructive feedback will help you become a better performer. Notice I used the term "constructive". That means the feedback is meant to help you improve. Comments like "Wow, that was good" or "By the hammer of Thor, did that ever suck!" don't help at all. The feedback should evaluate three things: 1. What was done well, 2. What needs improvement, 3. How to improve the trick. It's helpful to remember feedback is meant to help you.

3. Limber up

Before performing it's a good idea to to make sure you feel loose. If you are performing formally, that means you'll have to stretch your fingers, hands, and arms. You should also warm up your voice. This need not be a complicated activity. A quick search online will teach you some basic warm-up techniques.

In many cases, you won't have time to prepare. There are times that friends will want to see a trick and you might have to oblige them. In this case make sure you are not wearing restrictive clothing, quickly give your arms a shake, and go for it. If you have practiced enough, your body should be able to perform one or two tricks without a problem.

4. It's all about misdirecting the audience

In most magic tricks, the magician gets the audience to pay attention to what's going on with one hand while they should be paying attention to what's going on in the other. Your movements need to be natural and smooth. With practice you'll be able to subtly manipulate cards with little effort and look natural.

5. It's as much what you say as what you do

Knowing how to perform the trick will only get you so far. A magician's banter will carry the performance and help you get away with all sorts of shenanigans because the audience is not as focused on the action. If you develop a natural sounding banter, you will be able to direct the audience's attention where you want it. When you practice your tricks you should also practice what you are going to say. If you don't practice your banter, you might stumble over your words and find that your movements are not as smooth because it will feel new and unfamiliar.

6. Start small

Don't try to perform to an audience of twenty on your first try. You need to work your way up to a large audience. First start with one or two friends. It's more difficult to perform in front of a larger crowd because there is less room for error. There are more sets of eyes watching at more angles. Your performance will need to be tight and look natural. As you become experienced, you will be able to perform for larger audiences.

7. Know several tricks before performing

Yes, this does sound rather obvious. It's good to have several tricks under your belt before performing. That way you can perform without having to repeat any tricks and give your audience an opportunity to watch your performance with a more discriminating eye.