Card manipulation facts for kids

Card trick. Top left: "Pick a card, any card". Top right: Hiding a card behind the hand. Bottom left: A "spring" flourish. Bottom right: Mixing the cards helps prepare for a trick.

Card manipulation is a super cool part of magic! It's all about making amazing tricks happen using playing cards and clever sleight of hand (quick hand movements). Magicians often use card manipulation in shows, especially in close-up (right in front of you!), parlor (for a small group), and street magic (out in public).

Some of the most famous magicians who were masters of card manipulation include Dai Vernon, Tony Slydini, Ed Marlo, S.W. Erdnase, Richard Turner, John Scarne, and Ricky Jay. Even Houdini, who became famous for his escapes, started out as "The King of Cards"! Some well-known card tricks that use these skills are the Ambitious Card (where a chosen card keeps returning to the top) and Three-card Monte, which is a common street game where you try to find a specific card.

How Magicians Do It: Card Techniques

Magicians use special secret moves, called sleights, to perform card illusions. The goal is to do these moves so smoothly that the audience doesn't even notice! It takes a lot of practice to make them look easy and natural. Here are some of the main techniques:

Lifts: Picking Cards Secretly

Lifts are ways to take one or more cards from the deck. Often, the audience knows which card is being lifted, like a card they chose. A famous move is the "double lift." This is when a magician picks up two cards, but makes them look like just one card!

False Deals: Tricking the Deal

When you deal cards in a game, it's supposed to be fair. But false deals are secret ways to deal cards that look fair, even though the magician knows exactly which cards are going where. This can mean dealing a specific card to themselves or someone else.

• Second dealing: Dealing the second card from the top instead of the top one.
• Bottom dealing: Dealing the bottom card instead of the top one.
• False counts: Dealing more or fewer cards than expected.

Side Slips: Moving Cards to the Top

A side slip (also called a Side Steal) is a technique to secretly move a chosen card to the top of the deck without anyone seeing. It was invented by a magician named F. W. Conradi.

Passes: Secretly Shifting Cards

Imagine a card is put into the middle of the deck. With a pass, the magician secretly moves that card to the top (or bottom) of the deck very quickly and quietly. It's like a secret cut of the deck. There are many types of passes, like the classic pass or the Charlier pass.

Palming: Hiding Cards in Your Hand

Palming is when a magician secretly holds or hides one or more cards in the palm of their hand. The audience can't see these cards. The magician keeps them hidden until they need to make them appear for the trick. There are many ways to palm cards, like the Tenkai palm or the Hofzinser bottom palm.

False Shuffles: Keeping Cards in Order

When you shuffle cards, you expect them to get mixed up. But false shuffles make it look like the cards are being mixed, when actually they stay in a special order for the trick. A magician can use a false shuffle to keep one card in place, or even keep the whole deck in the same order it was before the shuffle!

• Riffle shuffle: Looks like a normal shuffle but keeps cards in order.
• Hindu shuffle: Another type of shuffle that can be done falsely.

False Cuts: Controlling the Deck's Top Card

Cutting a deck usually means splitting it and putting the bottom half on top. This is supposed to make sure no one knows what card is on top. But false cuts are secret ways to cut the deck so that a specific card (or cards) ends up exactly where the magician wants it, usually on top.

Color Change: Making a Card Transform

A color change is a really cool effect where one card seems to change into another right in front of your eyes! Often, a red card might change into a black one, or a number card into a face card, to make the change more amazing. Magicians use different techniques for this, like the classic color change or the snap change.

Crimps: Secretly Marking Cards

Crimps are tiny, secret bends or marks made on a card. These marks are so small that the audience won't notice them, but they help the magician know where a specific card is during a trick.

Jogs: Small Protrusions

A jog is when one or more cards stick out just a tiny bit from the deck. This small bump isn't usually seen by the audience, but it helps the magician keep track of a card's location while doing other moves. Jogs can be on the side, in, or out.

Reverses: Flipping Cards Over

Card reverses are techniques where one or more cards in the deck are secretly flipped over, for example, from face up to face down, without the audience knowing.

Forces: Making You Choose a Specific Card

A card force is a clever trick where the magician makes you choose a specific card they want you to pick, even though you feel like you're making a free choice! Some common forces include the classic force and the riffle force.

Images for kids

• 

  Orson Welles performs a card trick for Carl Sandburg (August 1942)

See also

In Spanish: Cartomagia para niños