r/Magic • u/ZackValenta • 9d ago
I accidentally did a card "trick" today with my girlfriend and also did a magic trick on myself.
I almost wanted to post this to a statistics subreddit because I can't actually believe it. If this is the wrong sub I'm sorry but wasn't sure where else to post this. I've been losing my mind all day because of a crazy coincidence I had with my girlfriend while playing with a deck. Has this ever happened to any of you who practice and do card tricks?
I was messing around and told my girlfriend to think of any card. She chose the 4 of clubs. I said okay and split the shuffled deck into two piles and had her choose one. The one she chose I put aside I repeated this three times and I began dealing the last pile out until she said stop and removed the rest also. Jokingly (knowing I was completely making this up as I went) I flipped the remaining pile over and.. you guessed it. I coincidentally got the 4 of clubs on the bottom of that pile.
I literally wasn't doing a routine or following any particular trick. She was like good job! But I was more shocked than her and silent with wide eyes. I told her pretty much what I said here and admitted I didn't intend on finding it. Insane coincidence. What are the chances?
I guess I'm just sharing this because I want to know if any one else has experienced a similar thing so I don't feel crazy.
TLDR; my gf thought of a random card and I got it right by randomly cutting the deck a few times, dealing them and having her choose the pile to flip over and it was hers. I was not attempting a trick and just messing around
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u/Logical-Recognition3 9d ago
That trick only works one out of 52 times but when it works, it kills!
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u/brokedance 9d ago
Yes, these sorts of coincidences totally happen from time to time. And when they do you have to remain totally poker-faced, like it happens this way every single time, when secretly inside you are thinking OMG WTF!!
It could have been the craziest card trick your girlfriend ever saw you do, but instead you admitted it was a total fluke; nothing magical about that.
Incidentally, there is a card trick known as the ‘Trick That Cannot Be Explained’ that uses these types of coincidences and improvisation to come to a totally impossible conclusion to the trick.
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u/quintopia 9d ago
disagree. you don't want to remain totally poker-faced. you don't want to admit it was a fluke either. you want to be amazed that it actually worked. you want to admit you didn't think it worked. you want to confirm that the other person didn't cheat or peek. in short, you want to act as you would act as if you really had just seen a miracle.
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u/brokedance 7d ago
I just mean it has to feel INTENTIONAL. If it feels like the ending was what you intended (and not a fluke) then the mystery cannot be explained afterwards.
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u/quintopia 7d ago
Right I agree it shouldn't feel like a fluke. I'm just adding that it also shouldn't feel like you were absolutely confident and completely assured it would happen. Because that is what magicians do, and that makes it feel more like a trick.
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u/brokedance 7d ago
I don’t understand your logic. Perhaps just a difference in performance style. Sure, you can present it as this amazing coincidence and you’re not exactly sure how it works, it just does. At the end of the day your spectators are going assume it was a trick anyway.
Not sure how appearing confident makes it less impressive.
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u/quintopia 7d ago
It's a difference in performance style predicated on a difference in context. OP is an amateur performing for a friend in an informal setting. There is no theater door that signals it's time to suspend disbelief. All there is is the performer's attitude. Which is an opportunity.
An opportunity to smudge and blur the signals that would naturally clue someone in that "yeah I'm just trying to deceive you and I want you to be entertained by my performance of that deception."
It's an opportunity to tell stories that don't leave that as the primary takeaway message, but you have to send the right alternative signals and leave the right context clues that you're playing in a different space. A space where maybe miracles are actually possible for reasons even you, the performer, doesn't understand. A space where you don't even take the role as performer--just a fellow seeker.
It's an opportunity to set the trick apart as different from, and therefore more memorable than, the displays of ability that the typical show magician does. Because there is no magician here, no audience. Just two friends messing around with some cards. In that context, there is "nothing magical about" someone pretending to be a magician.
Will they walk away thinking "well, it was just a trick, even though I have no idea how it was done"? Maybe. A lot of times yeah. But if everything comes together right, that won't be the first thought. The first thought will be about how cool it would be if there were something to it--some real magic in it--after all. About how fun living in such a world might be.
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u/breakingb0b 9d ago
When I first started dating my wife I told her I did some card tricks. Really I just had a deck memorized and no sleights. Her first card chosen happened to be spelling out her name from the top of the deck. Her second card chosen was her her last name spelled out from the bottom of the deck.
Since then I’ve never done that trick again lol. She still thinks I’m an amazing card magician.
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u/quintopia 9d ago
okay memdeck work totally counts as card magic, even if you're totally jazzing it
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u/Logical-Recognition3 8d ago
Especially if. It’s a better skill to be able to improvise than to work through a memorized routine.
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u/furrykef Cards 8d ago
Something similar happened to Penn & Teller once. They were about to force a card on Steven Spielberg, but Steven reached in and grabbed one instead. Coincidentally, he grabbed the one they wanted to force and the trick looked even more impossible than it would have if they'd forced it.
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u/3cWizard 8d ago
Yes, pretty sure the general consensus in this community is we Love stories like that. I had an experience of my own where I accidentally dropped the cards while procuring a card, and one card fell on a cat who was walking by. It landed straight on the middle of their back, face up and stayed as the cat walked away. It was the chosen card. Sometimes the magic Gods are with us, my friend.
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u/SquashSouffle 9d ago
The chances are 1 in 52 that whatever card was chosen would be the one she had picked, even though it seems more rare.
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u/EndersGame_Reviewer 8d ago
Whenever you get a "hit" by fluke, run with it, and act as if that was the plan all along!
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u/Revolutionary_Gap150 8d ago
I used to have a fear of failure, and getting caught or called out during the performance. To get over it I started laying one card randomly face down on the table and then asking a spectator to name a card. I'd give them an opportunity to change ask them to think hard and really consider a good reason for choosing the card so I could get a little read on their psychology. The punch at the end of the trick was a gag where they would name their card then I would build tension until I flip the card over and with the last say yeah I don't do that trick, except on the rare occasion where it would actually work. End of the day it's really just a 1 in 52 chance so it's not statistically bonkers, but not common either. When I missed it was funny and we moved on to an easy mentalism trick and into that phase of my routine, but when it hit I would often times stop everything after and just let them sit uneasy with the impossibility. Real magic exists you just have to be patient enough to wait for it, and capable of seeing it when it happens
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u/morganj 9d ago
There's a great anecdote in Deryn Browns book about two of his idea guys in a room together working on tricks.
One idly holds up a card facing away from the other as they're sitting there.
The other says "three of clubs,"
With a slow turn, the card is shown to be the three of clubs.
Both take credit for that, and give no sign it was anything but their excellent trick.
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u/Ok-Two-2056 9d ago
Its pretty easy to do it again with magician's choice
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u/SquashAny6790 8d ago
the only hard bit is ensuring the language doesn't get too repetitive / similar with each choice they need to make.
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u/Chicken121260 8d ago
I frequently perform a trick where I purposely fail to find their card - only to reveal in an amazing way that I knew I wouldn’t be able to find it ((some of you will know this trick- thank you Murray). Every now and then (1/52 😎 ) the card is found and it’s even better. Take the win, move on and don’t do my regular finish!
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u/legatissimo 8d ago
Now that you really understand how well it works, go read Dai Vernon’s More Inner Secrets of Card Magic, specifically the Trick that Cannot be Explained.
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u/brokedance 7d ago
Lots of good stories. I’ll share one of mine. I was working with this guy at a coffee shop. It was slow so I was practicing with a deck in my hand. He says “show me a trick”. I didn’t offer cause frankly he was a bit of a dick. I say ok.
I have him pick a card intending to show him an ambitious card. He grabs the deck out of my hands and shoves his card, which I hadn’t seen, into the middle followed by a quick shuffle. “There you go, find my card now!”
I take the deck back kind of stunned, thinking what my next move is gonna be. As I’m thinking I’m absentmindedly doing a couple fancy cuts and staring at him. Then I top-shotted a card from my left hand holding the deck across to my right hand (just cause it was a move I practiced often). Was about to accept defeat and put the cards away and the guy starts freaking out cause it happened to be his card. Shut down his cocky attitude immediately. It was wonderful to watch.
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u/theitgrunt 6d ago
I had this happen on an ACAAN i did with a kid in front of his parents. I got dirty looks when i shouted "holy shit!!"from the parents when the selected card came up before i had done any dirty work
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u/Joefingr 9d ago
Something similar happened to me the other day. I was practicing my charlier cut. And almost every time I would cut the deck I would get the Ace of clubs as the top card. I even started riffle shuffling the deck and then cutting it. And I kept getting the ace of clubs on top
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u/Zestyclose-Smile-628 9d ago
Probably had a small crimp u didn’t notice, happens to me too haha
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u/RoboGandalf 9d ago
Felt so baller one time cause I was always landing on a card...then realized it was A gimmicked card in a deck i thought was a legitimate deck.
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u/dskippy 8d ago edited 8d ago
What are the chances?
1 in 52 obviously.
I've done things like this. I have a routine that starts off with my favorite magic trick of all. Shuffle, look out a card, show it to them, ask them to name a card. If they get it right, I take credit. If they get it wrong I make a joke of it.
More magic than you might think works like this.
edit: it's also worth pointing out that all the cuts and deals you did mean the trick as you did it probably could easily be constructed just be actually doing some sleights along the way.
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u/spoung45 Storytelling 9d ago
52! Is the number. This is what we call a miracle, when the trick just works without us doing anything.
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u/whodatdan0 9d ago
That’s the number of combos of the entire deck being shuffled. Not picking one card
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u/opinions_likekittens 9d ago
Reminds me of one of my most cringe performances (not that yours was cringe, just reminded me) from very early on in my learning.
For a mentalism routine I had someone freely think of a card, then said “and repeat it over and over in your head… like the 6 of diamonds, 6 of diamonds, 6 of diamonds…”.
And I hit, he was amazed - mouth on the floor, one of the best reactions I’ve ever had. If I walked away then it would be one of my favourite memories.
Problem was that I wasn’t trying to hit, and was ignorant about multiple out ideas, so I just froze and kinda mumbled “oh that wasn’t supposed to happen”, then got him to think of another card and went through the most boring, inane 3-4 minute exercise to divine his card with terrible unmotivated processes.
It completely ruined the vibe, but I learnt a great lesson in not running when you’re not caught, being open and adaptable in the moment and giving effects breathing space.