theory11 — Magic Tricks & the World's Finest Playing Cards

Impromptu Card Tricks

The Budding Artist

The Budding Artist

Apr 25, 2020
29
5
Hello,
I constantly get asked to preform a single card trick with a deck of cards. I’ve been preforming magic for a year and have lost that magically feeling of being fooled by simple tricks. What are some tricks you love with a borrowed deck? Thanks!
 
My go-to when handed a deck of cards is any variation of a joker sandwich routine, which can often lead into other routines if necessary. In response to your comment about losing the magical feeling of being fooled, remember that the spectator (assuming it's a layman) does not care or even usually see the behind the scenes work that magicians love. Focus on presentation and audience management and a simple effect in your eyes can blow the minds out of people.
 
The Budding Artist said:
Hello,
I constantly get asked to preform a single card trick with a deck of cards. I’ve been preforming magic for a year and have lost that magically feeling of being fooled by simple tricks. What are some tricks you love with a borrowed deck? Thanks!
Click to expand...

I think lots of us have had similar experiences at some point where some tricks seem too simple and possibly boring for us….so we ramp up the difficulty adding knuckle busting sleights and intricate routines. For me, after doing that for a bit I noticed that it didn’t matter to general audiences how difficult my material was...I just had to be entertaining. I went back to simpler (safer) material for general audiences and save the stuff I personally enjoy for other hobbyists or magi.

But to answer your question; In the hands I like finding a card with a hot shot cut, or card to impossible location…mouth🤮/wallet/pocket. With a table I do like a few versions of Triumph…clap trap is fun for groups too. I haven’t done any version of the biddle trick in a while but maybe you would like that.
 
The Budding Artist said:
Hello,
I constantly get asked to preform a single card trick with a deck of cards. I’ve been preforming magic for a year and have lost that magically feeling of being fooled by simple tricks. What are some tricks you love with a borrowed deck? Thanks!
Click to expand...

Hello my man!, You could try something else like coins. If everyone is asking for a card trick, try something else like rubberbands or something.
 
  • Like
Reactions: JoshL8
I do a routine that is a combination of The Princess Card Trick (attributed to Nikola) and The Three Hours (Aronson, Rioboo), that is completely impromptu and can be done with a borrowed, potentially incomplete deck. If this sounds appealing you can message me for more information.

Scott.
 
If I'm going to perform a card trick (Which is pretty rare these days) it's usually FASDIU.

I used to do a trick called PreCannibal Cards I believe. I learned it at my magic club in Fresno and then RealityOne helped me locate the name of it. I also used to do a couple routines by Tony Chang, though I can't recall the names - One where the deck seems to be all double-backers, then you convert them to normal cards, and I would go from that to another one where the Joker transforms into a selected card and then back into a Joker.

Card To *location* always gets a good reaction when done well. ie: Card to Mouth, Card Under Glass, Card to Pocket, etc.

When I'm just messing about with card tricks I'll usually just jazz it with a combination of culls, top control, bottom control, palm, and multiple lifts/turnovers. One of my old go-tos was having a card selected and stealing it out of the deck, then "revealing" the wrong card and when they said it wasn't right I'd ask what card they actually get and then say, "No, that's impossible, what card did you really select?" There's a bit of back and forth on that vein for a moment, then I say, "No, it can't be that card, because I always take that one out of the deck. See? It's in my pocket" and reveal it from the pocket.

Oh! And another routine that's fun is by Greg Wilson. I believe it's called Revolver (not to be confused with the color change of the same name). However you will have to make some adjustments from the instructions as I recall them being incorrect - if you follow the video exactly, the trick doesn't work, but you can figure it out.
 
There are thousands of card tricks, ranging across all styles and genres of magic, and ranging in method from self working mathematical principles to extremely difficult sleights.

A good card trick, whether accomplished by dexterity or subtlety, is a thing of beauty and astonishment. And the more I've learned about magic the more I've come to appreciate the method as well as the effect.

In terms of my own trickery, I rely almost solely on self-working ruses and only the most basic of sleights. But even within that severe limitation there's still a few hundred strong, direct and devilish tricks that can be done.

Some of my favourite virtually self-working tricks are:
Pre-prefiguration, the Circus card trick, the Piano card trick, Gemini Twins, A Swindle of Sorts, Automatic Ace Triumph, Emotional Reaction, or Fogels Triple. All rather classic SWers.

If I feel like adding in a tiny amount of dexterity I may also do: a simple force and reveal trick (many different ones) or control and reveal trick (again, many different ones), or use preceeding tricks to set up for a SW that involves a small stack (there's many of those too).

Even if you just limit yourself to being able to do a false shuffle and cut, a control and a force, and no other sleights there's still a huge range of solid card magic that can be done 🙂
 
The top three that come to mind for me are:

1) Force a card and reveal
2) Triumph(slop variation)
3)Ambitious Card

I usually default to one of these three because they are easy and hit hard.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Casualistry
You must log in or register to reply here.