“I don’t even have any good skills. You know, like nunchuck skills, bow hunting skills, computer hacking skills. Girls only want boyfriends who have great skills!” Napoleon Dynamite.
As a well-rounded human, it is important to have good skills. You may not be shopping for a girlfriend like Napoleon Dynamite, but if you want to win friends and influence people, you might consider amplifying your skills. One skill that is a sure winner and certain to im- press even the sourest fish wife or slew foot friend is the traditional card trick. And boy, do I have a winner card trick for you today… You begin by acquiring a standard deck of cards. These can be brand new out of the box, or old used cards stained with taco grease dug from the bowels of your dirtiest kitchen drawer. Any deck will do. You can even use a partial deck. You only need 20 cards for this trick.
Next, you need an audience. This trick works well when you have a crowd gathered. You might try this at Thanksgiving dinner, or anytime your rowdy friends are present and in need of entertainment.
Choose one person to shuffle and cut the deck for you. This is merely for show. Shuffling does not make a difference for the trick, but this feature seems to be part of official card trick protocol.
Once you have the cards back in your hands, deal out ten stacks of two cards each. I like to lay these out in two rows with five pairs in each row, 20 cards total on the table. Put the remainder of the deck aside.
Now comes the most important part of the trick. Ask one person, or more, in your audience to pick a pair of cards while you are not looking. A nice touch is to leave the room, or step outside while your audience chooses cards.
If you are performing for a group, try asking all of those in attendance to choose a pair (up to 20 people).
The more people that you have choose cards, the more impressive this is. But it is a very good idea to have each participant write down the cards they selected on a scrap of paper.
It is easy, in our smartphone age with the resulting limited mental capacity present for people to forget or misremember their cards.
If they don’t correctly remember their cards, then your trick is blown. Make them write down the cards they choose.
Once cards are selected, your people can move the stacks around if they wish. This is an- other fine touch that makes the trick look more difficult. But the primary rule is that the pairs themselves cannot be separated. Pairs must stay together.
After pairs have been chosen, and your patrons have written down their cards, you may pick up the piles. You can have one person point to the stacks in the order they want you to pick them up. This again makes the trick look harder.
They are essentially scrambling your pairs to make the trick more difficult for you.
Once you have the cards collected, turn them face up and begin laying them down on the table in four rows of five cards each. But here is the secret to this trick. You lay the cards down in a pattern, matching these four words – ATLAS, BIBLE, THIGH, GOOSE.
Cards will look like this ATLAS BIBLE THIGH GOOSE This pattern shows only two matching letters in all of the words. There are only two As, only two Ts, and so on.
The first pair that you lay down will go where the A letters
are, so in the first and fourth spot in the first row.
The second pair you lay down will go in the T spots, the second place in the first row, and the first place in the third row.
Continue on until all 20 cards are placed in this pattern.
You then ask your audience members, one at a time, to reveal the row or rows where they see their cards.
Once you know the row or rows their cards are in, there is only one option for you to choose.
For example, if they say both of their cards are in the first row, then their pick has to be both “A” cards, the first and fourth in line.
With your amazing mental and magical abilities, you will tell them which cards they chose.
And unless they have misremembered their cards, you will be correct every time. This trick can be quite impressive, especially if done in a large group. Your friends will be amazed at your cool Las Vegas style magic skills.
Even Napoleon Dynamite would be proud.
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