Magic Tricks Revealed: The Amazing Genius Magician

by: George Hutton

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Date: Sat, 20 Mar 2010 Time: 9:48 PM - 0 comments

This is a great card trick that only requires a bit of mental math skills. But don't worry, you won't be doing anything like calculus in your head or anything. You'll quickly be able to convince any crowd that you are a genius, and can win blackjack anytime you like simply by counting cards.

This is how the trick will appear to your audience. You can create a long winded metaphor about memory skills, or Las Vegas card counting experts or something. Perhaps you visited a secret induction ceremony with psychic CIA agents or something. Anything outlandish that will help to engage your audience.

They will naturally want you do give a demonstration of your magnificent skills, and you are naturally more than happy to comply. You pull out a regular deck of cards, and explain that you will ask an audience member to go through the deck and remove on card. Tell them you will only need two passes through the deck, and you'll know their card. They choose a card, keep it, and sit back down. You flip through casually once, and again a second time, and then tell them their card like it's no big deal.

Here's the secret. As you flip through the deck, begin to add together the face values of the cards. But as soon as you get over ten, start over again. So if you have a 3, 5, 7 and 9, you will add them together like follows: 3 and 5 is eight, and seven puts it at fifteen, so you'd count that only as five. The next is 9,and 9 and 5 is thirteen, so you your count would be three. Go through the entire deck this way.

When you are finished, the number you have will be the number of their card. So if you end up with the number three, then their card is a three. Then you need to go through the deck once more to identify the suit of their card. Once you announce this, most people will be stunned. But this trick does look deceptively simply. Since they are unlikely to know this top secret math trick, they'll never be able to reproduce your amazing results. It's actually good for if somebody in the audience claims they can do it. Simply give them the deck, and let try. When they fail, it will only make you look better.

Obviously, this trick will take some practice. You'll need to spend a few minutes at home going through a deck and adding up all the numbers as described above. You'll be amazed, however, how quickly you pick this up. And a side benefit to being able to do this trick quickly and easily in front of others, you'll skyrocket your ability to do simple math in your head. That in and of itself is a great skill to have, and can be used in many other tricks to quickly amaze your friends. Have fun.