As promised, your free magic trick. I hope you’ll enjoy this one!
I found this gem of a trick in a magic book from 1909, so it really has stood the test of time. It is a great trick to perform with a shuffled or even borrowed deck of cards. It’s super easy, and will blow the minds of your audience.
The effect: The magician removes all the Jacks, Queens, Kings and Aces from the deck. He lays them out into their suits (Clubs, Spades, Hearts and Diamonds.) He allows the spectators to stack the piles up in whatever order they want.
Then, without even touching the deck he invites them to give the cards a cut. They go ahead and cut the cards as they like, without any influence from the magician. Now, to make sure it’s really fair, the magician invites them to cut the cards again. And again…and again, until the spectator is absolutely convinced he’s done everything he can to mix up the cards.
Now the magician takes the pack for the first time and slowly deals the cards back into piles of four. He invites the spectator to turn over the cards. Incredibly, all four Jacks, Queens, Kings and Aces are together!
So there’s the effect!
The method is actually almost exactly the same as the effect. You remove all four Jacks, Queens, Kings and Aces from the deck. You should have 16 cards. You lay out the cards in four piles, one for each suit- for example: Jack of Spades, Queen of Spades, King of Spades and Ace of Spades. You do this for all four suits in front of your audience.
Now, you genuinely allow the spectator to stack the four piles as he wishes; no funny moves needed! You should have a deck of 16 cards face down now.
At this point, you hand the spectator the deck and instruct them to give it a single cut. It’s important that they only do a single cut- nothing fancy, otherwise the trick won’t work.
Now you let them carry on making cuts one at a time until they’re happy. They can make as many cuts as they like; 100 or 20, the trick will work either way.
Once they’re done, have them hand you the pack. Now slowly and fairly deal the cards into piles of four. The first card you place down is the first pile, the second card the second pile and so on until you have four piles of one card.
Go ahead and repeat that action until you have four piles of four cards. Now slowly reveal the four piles by turning them over. With no sleight of hand or moves on your part all four piles are comprised entirely of the four Jacks, Queens, Kings and Aces.
What a great trick! Super easy to do and you will most likely end up fooling yourself too as you do it. It really is that easy; a completely self working miracle that works every time.
If you’re having any issues, remember these three important points:
- All four piles must start out in the same order; Jack, Queen, King, Ace.
- Only SINGLE cuts are allowed; I don’t care if you know how to do fancy cuts, stick with the good old fashioned ‘take half the cards and put them on the bottom’ cut.
- When you deal the cards out at the end, make sure you deal across one by one rather than dealing a pile of four, than another pile of four etc.
If you have any other questions about this effect feel free to drop me an email at benji@thedailymagician.com.
Enjoy your free magic!