Impress Your Friends With A Magic Card Trick

'Reds and Blacks' is a simple card trick for the novice magician. Get a standard deck of cards and separate the red and black cards. Lay them face down on a flat surface in front of your audience. Have a volunteer choose one card from each pile at random, memorize them and then place each card into the opposite pile it from which it was selected. Have the person shuffle each deck separately and then place the two decks back together. Now you can look through the deck and find the card that doesn't match the color of the cards that surrounds it.

Another trick that will astound people is teleporting cards. You'll need a standard deck and a group of people sitting at a table with chairs. Show the group a normal card deck and ask a volunteer to replace the card on the top of the deck. Ask the person to stand up, then deal the top card and a few more onto the table. The volunteer should then put his hands on top of these cards to "prevent them from moving". Toss a few cards onto the chair of the person who is standing and tell the audience that the chosen card has been teleported right from the under the person's hands to their chair. When checked, the card is in fact on the person's chair!

While this magic card trick may seem miraculous, its success depends on the savvy skills of the magician. When the person chooses his card and is looking at it, the magician takes the bottom half of the card deck and flips it over so that it is face up, but still beneath the top half. After the card is placed on top of the deck and the audience member is asked to stand up, the magician flips the deck over so their card is now at the bottom and other cards are now at the top. The magician deals these random top cards to the table and asks the volunteer to place his hands on the cards. The magician then secretly flips the deck over once more so that the chosen card is on top of the deck. Remember - the magic of card tricks is in making sure no one knows your secrets!

To encourage magical thinking in an audience, you have to practice a magic card trick so that you can perform it smoothly. Once you've mastered the basics, you can progress to a Svengali deck of cards. Those advanced illusions are sure to leave your friends wondering how you've tapped into the magical world of the sleight of hand.