A Math Teachers Cards Tricks

Steve Pelikan Department of Mathematical Sciences University of Cincinnati Cincinnati, Ohio 45221-0025 August 27, 2011
Abstract Several mathematical card tricks are presented, including instructions for performing the trick, an analysis of how the trick works, and ideas for using a discussion of the trick to explore the mathematical ideas behind it. A few tricks that are only faintly mathematical are presented so that you will have enough workable material to assemble a simple performance based on mathematical card tricks.

Introduction

Nearly everyone whos just been fooled by a card trick immediately demands Howd you do that? With these tricks you can reply Im glad you asked, because I wanted to talk with you about mathematics anyway. . . The card tricks that are described here are of rather uneven quality and are presented not because of their entertainment value but because most of them provide a starting point for the discussion of a variety of mathematically interesting topics. This isnt to say that the tricks shouldnt be performed! With a little bit of practice any of them can be presented and will eectively grab your audiences attention. You dont need to actually perform many tricks in the course of a school year (or semester or term) to keep peoples interest. Just make sure that every once in a while people see you manipulating a deck of cards. Lines like I never play with cards, magic is too serious to be called play or No one who knows me will play poker with me anymore and I never gamble but Im always happy to play cards for money will indicate that youre a card expert. This build-up is a bit ironic because the tricks described here are almost completely self-working and only a few require even simple slights of hand. All you need is some showperson-ship, some spiy patter, and occasional well placed misdirection. I save the performance of actual tricks for rewards: any time attendance is low such as a warm Friday afternoon in spring or the day before Thanksgiving 1

break is a good time to perform. Or perhaps after the class does well on an exam or project. The exception to this rule is the Mathematical Modeling course that is oered as part of the M.A.T. program at U.C. In that course we devote several weeks to constructing mathematical model of discrete systems, and the systems we work on most are decks of cards. Ive demonstrated, and the classes analysed, many of the tricks mentioned here. Indeed, some of the discussion here is based on ideas and suggestions of students in that course. Real magicians dont tell how their tricks work, but the point of these tricks would be lost if you didnt tell, or at least give hints. Try to give just enough direction to let the audience gure it out for themselves. This might actually be extended over several days and repeated performances. Ask for conjectures about how the trick works and then deductions based on the conjectures. And then only tell whether the deduction is correct, not the conjecture.

The 27 card trick.

Heres a presentation of the trick. Ask for assistance from an member of the audience. Hand the assistant a deck of cards, have the assistant shue and then deal three piles of 9 cards each face up. Invite the assistant to examine the piles, show them to the audience, and then select and remember a single card. Have the assistant tell you what pile the card is in, and then reassemble the hands into one packet by turning the piles over and placing them in one stack. You must take note of the position at which the pile containing the selected card is inserted into the packet count 0, (if on top) 1 (if in the middle) or 2 (if on the bottom). The packet is again dealt into three face up piles, the hand containing the selected card is determined, and you are informed which hand contains the card. Add 0, 3 or 6 to the count according to whether the hand is put on the top, middle, or bottom when the hands are reassembled into a packet. A nal deal is made, you are told the hand containing the selected card, and the hands are reassembled into a single packet. You add 0, 9, or 18 to the count according to the position at which the hand with the selected card is placed in the pile. The count now gives the number of the selected card, counting from the top of the deck starting at 0. You can discover the card in a variety of ways. One approach that is fun is to take the deck from the assistant and deal cards face up until the selected card is exposed on top of the pile of dealt cards. I bet you the next card I turn over is the card you selected. The assistant will accept the bet thinking that youve made a mistake and are about to deal another, incorrect, card from the deck onto the face-up pile. Instead, reach out and turn the top card of the pile face down. An alternative discovery is to ask the assistant to deal the correct number of cards face down on the table (so that the selected card is then on top). The performer can then simply turn over the top card. When asking someone else

to deal cards, be sure to tell them to deal c + 1 cards where c is the count since the rst card is considered to have number 0.

2.1

What makes the trick work?

Imagine numbering the cards in the packet of 27 consecutively from the top starting with 0. When the cards are dealt into three piles, theyll be distributed as shown in this table: 0 1 2 0 0 1 2 1 3 4 5 2 6 7 8 3 9 10 11 4 12 13 14 5 15 16 17 6 18 19 20 7 21 22 23 8 24 25 26 Here row 0 is the bottom of each pile and row 8 is the top. If the card that is selected by the assistant was originally at position k from the top of the packet, it will appear in pile number k %3 and in row k/3. Here we use integer division in which we ignore the remainder, and a%b is the remainder when a is divided by b. If the cards pile is inserted into the new pile at position j1 , it will be number 9j1 + k/3 from the top, starting with the top card as number 0. On the next deal it will appear in column 9j1 + k1 /3%3 and row (9j1 + k/3)/3 = 3j1 + k/9. If the cards hand of 9 is assembled in the position j2 , the card will then be at location 9j2 + 3j1 + k/9 in the newly assembled packet. On the last deal the card will be in row 9j2 + 3j1 + k/27. If the stack is replaced at location j3 , the card will then be at location 9j3 + 3j2 + j1 + k/27. But k/27 = 0 if we use integer division and start with k in the range 0 k < 27. So the position of the selected card in the reassembled packet is just 9j3 + 3j2 + j1 , which is independent of the selected cards original position.

2.2

Discussion

1. Does integer division obey all the usual properties of division? What about the rule that says A/C + B/C = (A + B )/C ? This isnt true in general since 2/3 + 1/3 = 3/3. Is there anything special about the computations we did that avoids this diculty? 2. A variation of this trick uses 21 cards and has the performer do all the manipulation. Each time the hands are reassembled, the performer puts the hand containing the the selected card in the middle. In this variation, whats the location of the selected card after 3 deals?

3. Can you modify the trick so that it works even if the cards are dealt and reassembled 4 times? How n times? 4. Can you make variants of the trick that use n cards, k piles, and m deals? I rst learned this trick from my father who used 3 piles of 7 cards. I suspect he read about the trick in Martin Gardners Mathematical Games/ column in Scientic American, but Ive never asked him. In this version, if the pile containing the chosen card is always assembled into the middle of the packet, the chosen card is the 11th after three deals have been completed. 5. In a common variant of this trick, the piles are dealt face down each time, and the spectator/ assistant either lifts them to examine them and determine the pile to which the chosen card belongs, or the performer fans the cards with their faces to the spectator/assistant. The eect is nice because the performer never sees the faces of the cards until the chosen card is revealed. Performing the trick this way requires a slight modication of the procedure described above. Work out the details. Please see Martin Gardners Mathematics Magic and Mystery (re) published by Dover. This book contains an entire chapter on this trick, including additional variations and much historical information.

Double dealing

Prepare for this trick by moving a ve spot, a 6 spot, and a joker to the bottom of a deck. Remove the other joker from the deck. Secure two volunteers, Ms. A and Mr. B, and hand slightly over the top half of the deck to A asking her to select any 20 cards she likes. Meanwhile, you chose two prediction cards, placing the ve spot face down in front of A and the 6 spot face down in front of B. Take the packet of 20 cards from A, insert the Joker, and shue the packet. Hand the packet to A and ask her to fan through them (with faces towards her) and note the card that lies behind the joker. Reclaim the packet, perform several cuts, and repeat the process with B, asking him to note the card that is in front of the Joker. Reclaim the packet, cut it a few times, and the deal the cards face up into two piles. The last card will land on the rst pile. Ask A which pile her card fell in. Turn the piles over and reassemble the packet by putting the second pile face down on top of the rst (face down) pile. Repeat the process with Mr. B. Point out that there are an odd number of cards and that youll remove one so that each participant gets the same number of cards. Cut the pile so that the Joker is moved to the bottom of the pile and remove the Joker. Put the top 10 cards in front of A and the remaining 10 cards in front of B. Ask each assistant to examine their prediction card and count down that number of cards in their pile. Each will discover the card they originally noted.

3.1

Discussion

This trick can most easily be analysed by simply calculating the relative positions after 1 and two deals of two cards that started at adjacent positions in the packet. If x with 0 x 20 is the original location of a card in the packet, counting from the top card as 0, then after 1 deal the location of this card is F (x) = 10 (x (mod 2)) + x (x (mod 2)) . 2

After the rst deal, cards that were adjacent are 10 apart in the reassembled packet. To see what happens after the second deal, compute F (a + 10) F (a): the cards are now 5 apart, separated by 4 cards.

Binary Sort

Start with 8 cards fanned in your hand face up. Ask a participant to silently select a card and remember what it is. Pull every other card in the hand out a bit so that its obvious youre divided the cards into two groups the in and the out group. Ask the spectator whether the selected card is an in or an out. Which ever, divide the hand completely and put the group of the selected card on top. Fan the hands again, break into in and out, and put the selected cards group on top. All the time the cards are held face up, so that the spectator can see what is happening. After one more division, it will be obvious that the selected card has been moved to the top of the hand. No surprises here. As an improvement, use 16 cards, and replace the top card of the packet by a card of the same denomination and suit but from a deck of cards with a dierent back pattern. (Red and Blue Bicycle decks work nicely here). Before you begin, write the name of the top card on a piece of paper and seal the paper in an envelope. Fan the cards and ask the spectator to select a card and remember two things about it the card itself and its number from the top of the packet. Proceed with 4 sorting steps to bring the spectators choice to the top of the packet. Claim credit for identifying the chosen card by the magic of a binary sort procedure with log base two of sixteen steps. But wait I asked you to remember two things about your chosen card, the card itself and its number counting from the top. Perhaps the number from the top is signicant. What was the number? Count down the indicated number of cards, remove it and place it face up. Put the remaining packet face down next to it, giving it a little shove to expose the backs of several of the cards. Have the spectator look at the paper in the envelope. It names the card youve just selected from the deck. And whats more, you say as you snap your ngers, Ive changed the color of that card. Turn over the other card showing that it has a dierent pattern on the back.

This trick is very eective since the two surprises come one after another very quickly after spectators have seen the obvious result of the of the sorting procedure and expected it to be the punchline of the trick. The color switch really gets them because theyre still wondering at the switch of the cards. Another thing that appeals to me about the trick is that it shows that theres value in studying every aspect of a mathematical construct, not just the obvious one: Everyone can see that the sort brings the chosen card to the top, but very few people realize that it exchanges the top and chosen card. So theres a payo for having made a more careful mathematical analysis that most people will make.

4.1

Suggestion

As always, with a potentially hostile audience, it is a good idea to have the spectator write down his/her card choice or at least show the card to other spectators. By having the card shown around and replaced back into the hand, you can ensure that the top card isnt the card thats been selected.

4.2

Questions

1. Explain how the binary sort procedure actually exchanges the top card with the selected card. 2. It is obvious that with 2n cards, n steps of sorting are required to eect the exchange. What if the number of cards isnt a power of 2? 3. If you use 3n cards and divided the packet into three groups at each of n steps, does the trick still work?

4.3

Discussion

Perhaps the easiest analysis of the binary sort depends on representing the numbers of cards in base 2. Start with a deck of 2n cards, numbered 0 (on top) to 2n 1 (on the bottom). Each cards number can then be represented as an1 an2 a2 a1 a0 where the ai s are either 0 or 1. This notation means that the number of the card is ai 2i . Suppose that at the start of the trick the participant chooses card kn1 k0 . Let us compute the location (after the rst sort) of some card that starts at location an1 a0 . Cards that have even numbers have a0 = 0 and those with odd numbers have a0 = 1. Also, cards in the top half of the deck have an1 = 0 while cards in the bottom half of the deck have an1 = 1. The new numbering of a card a after one step of the sorting procedure is 0an1 a1 1an1 a1 After another step the number is 6 if a0 = k0 if a0 = k0

 00an1 a2 10an1 a2 01an1 a2 11an1 a2

if if if if

a0 a0 a0 a0

= k0 = k0 = k0 = k0

and and and and

a1 a1 a1 a1

= k1 = k1 = k1 = k1

After n steps of the procedure the card that started with number a will be at location b = bn1 , nn2 b2 b1 b0 where bi = 0 bi = 1 if ai = ki id ai = ki

In particular, each bi = 0 if we start with the number k and this says that the chosen card is moved to the top of the deck by our procedure. What is the nal position of the card that started on the top of the deck at position a = 00 0? Its ith bit is 0 or 1 according to whether ki is 0 or 1. So the top card is moved to position k in the deck. Our procedure exchanges the chosen card and the top card.

4.4

Connections

The sorting trick and the 27 card trick are closely related. Try using a base three representation for the cards in the packet of 27 and modelling the trick as if it were a ternary sort.

Binary numbers

Heres a simple trick that relies on the fact that every number between 1 and 13 can be written as a sum of the numbers 1, 2, 4, 8 using each of these numbers at most once. Of course, this is just the base 2 representation of the number, and any number up to 15 has such a representation. But were only concerned here with the denominations of cards in a regular deck. Before hand, remove the Ace of Clubs, 2 of Hearts, 4 of Spades, and 8 of Diamonds (you can remember the order of these suits as Clubs Hearts Spades Diamond CHaSeD) from the deck and place them, in this order in your pocket. To perform the trick hand the remainder of the deck to an audience member and ask him/her to select a card, remove it from the deck, and return the rest of the deck to you. Have him/her show everyone the selected card while put the remainer of the deck in your pocket with the other 4 cards. Now I cant possible pull the card you selected out of the deck because youre holding it, but Ill do my best to match the card you selected. Express the denomination of the selected card in base 2, so you know what combination of A,2,4,8 add to the denomination. You will pull these cards from your pocket, showing that they add to the card that was selected. If one of the cards youll be using matches the suit of the selected card, pull it out rst and

show that it matches the suit. Then pull out the remaining cards to add to the correct denomination. Otherwise, rst pull out a card that matches the suit, discard it, and pull out the cards that add to the desired denomination.

Rows and Columns

Heres a really bad trick: Lay out a square array of 16 cards face up in 4 rows and 4 columns. Ask a spectator to select a card and, rather than naming it, tell you the number of the row and the column in which the card sits. You can then name the card, to very little amazement on the part of the spectator. Done this way, its not a very good trick. Another trick almost as bad, but perhaps suitable for younger audiences: Again, lay out the cards in a 4 by 4 array, ask the spectator to select a card and tell you simply what row contains the card. Remember this number. Reassemble the cards into a packet, putting the rows in the stack in order. Deal the cards face up into a square array again, but ll the columns of the array rather than the rows. The eect is that the cards of the rst row now make up the rst column, the second row has become the second column, etc. Ask the spectator which row now contains the selected card and you can the identify the card. Use the rst piece of information you were given to determine the column and the second to determine the row. Again, not too impressive! Heres a fancier version of the same trick. Seated at a table with four participants, deal four cards to each, ask each to inspect his/her hand and select a card in it to remember. Collect that hands from left to right, placing them in order in a stack face down. Deal the packet into four hands again. Pick up one of the hands and fan it with faces towards the participants. Ask if any of the participants see the card they selected. If the person on the far right says yes, hand him/her the card that is on the far right of the hand, since its the card that he/she selected. If the second person from the right says yes, hand him/her the second card from the right. And so on. Proceed to the next hands until every participants card has been discovered.

6.1

Suggestions

With a little practice you can actually perform this trick wearing a blindfold. To keep things interesting and reduce the chance that some participant will guess the principle, its worth rearranging some of the hands into a dierent order as you pick them up. Theres only 4 cards, so its fairly easy to remember whose card is whose, and that way you wont always be handing the k th card from the right to the k th person from the right.

6.2

Discussion

Explain explicitly how this trick works and how it relies on the same principle as the two lame versions mentioned at the start. Can you devise a version of this trick thats based on 3 rows of 5 instead of 4 rows of 4 cards?

Simple prediction

This trick was invented by Bob Longe and is described in his book Worlds Best Card Tricks. After permitting the assistant to shue a deck of cards, fan the deck towards you and announce that youre going to predict the future. Note the top card of the deck (say it is a ve), and count ve cards up from the bottom of the deck. Say the fth card is the 9 of hearts. Select the other card with the same denomination and color (ie. the 9 of Diamonds) from between the 9 of Hearts and the top of the deck. This is you prediction card. Place it face down on the table. If the corresponding card lies below the 9 of hearts, ask the assistant to remix the cards so that theyll be really random. Close the deck and hand it to the assistance face up, asking that the cards be dealt face up into a pile on the table. After the assistant has dealt the 9 of hearts, say Okay, that enough. You can stop now, deal a few more, or pickup a couple, whatever you like to make things really random. Turn the dealt cards over in a face down pile, and take the undealt packet and place it face down on the table. Ask the assistant to turn over the top card of the undealt packet and observe the denomination of that card. Then deal that number of cards from the other packet, turning the resulting card face up. Well it seems that I did predict the future because my prediction card has the same color and denomination as the card you selected at random. Turn up your prediction card.

7.1

Suggestions

As an introduction, Mr. Longe suggests something like: Im going to try to predict the future by selecting a card. Since there are 52 cards, the chance I get the right one is only 1 in 52. But I feel lucky this time ... and besides this trick hasnt worked the last 55 times Ive tried it, so Im way overdue for success. As you pick out the prediction card, make a show of not manipulating the deck in any other way. Theres no cards up my sleeve, and, as you can see, I havent palmed any cards either. Watch closely to make sure that all Im doing is picking out a single card. After the two piles are face-down on the table: I want things to be really random, so Ill give you a choice of which pile you want to use. In some magic tricks, the performer only appears to give the assistance a choice. But here youll actually use which ever pile you select. Let the assistance select a pile. 9

Depending on which pile is selected, instruct the assistant to turn up the top card (and then you count of that many from the other pile), or you turn over the top card of the other pile, and the assistant counts that many cards from the pile he/she selected. Of course, you should only do this trick once with this modication.

7.2

Questions

The patter suggested to accompany this trick refers to the notion of randomness, and suggests that the procedure that the participant is lead through will select a random card. So its natural to discuss the notion of randomness in conjunction with the trick. 1. What is meant by random and really random in the monologue above? 2. What do you think about the argument that says The trick hasnt worked the last 55 times Ive tried it, so Im overdue for a success? 3. It is possible that the prediction card is lower in the deck that the card that matches it. What is the probability that this happens? If it does happen, close the hand and return them to the audience member to be mixed again because you want the deck to be really random.

A stacked deck

Theres a variety of tricks that use a stacked deck. The method of stacking described here is due to Si Stebbins. I learned about it from Stuart Cramer. The denominations of the cards are treated in the standard way: Ace counts as 1, Jack as 11, etc. Addition of denominations is always modulo 13. The suits are to be considered as arranged in a cyclic order best remembered with the word CHaSeD: Clubs, Hearts, Spades, Diamonds. Of course, Clubs follows Diamonds. To arrange the deck, start with the Ace of Clubs face up on the table. The next card to place on it is the 4 of Hearts, then the 7 of Spades, and the 10 of Diamonds. To compute the next card to add to the pile, add 3 to the denomination of the current top card, and increment the suit to the next in the cyclic order. Continue cycling through the suits and adding 3 to the denomination of each card. The last card youll place on the pile will be the Jack of Diamonds. Of course, since 11 + 3 = 1 mod 13, the Ace of Clubs follows after the Jack of Diamonds, so the cards are now in a circular order. You can cut the deck, and the order is preserved. If you look at the bottom card of the deck, add 3 to its denomination and increment its suit, youll know the card thats on top of the deck.

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8.1

A simple trick

Ask an assistant to draw a card from the deck as you fan it before her. As she withdraws the card, you cut the deck and place the cards that were above the drawn card on the bottom of the deck. The card that was drawn now follows the bottom card in the cyclic order. After a peak at the bottom card, you can read the assistants mind and announce what card she holds. Have the assistant return the card by placing it on the top of the deck so that the cyclic ordering is preserved. After a few cuts that make it appear youve shued the deck, youre ready to perform the trick again.

8.2

Suggestion

This is a very special, high-tech deck of cards. Each card has a micro-processor and radio built into it. Sort of hard to believe, because the cards are still so exible, cut the deck to appear that youre shuing the cards but its amazing what they can do with silicon these days. When one card is separated from the deck, wave a single card in the air it becomes a radio transmitter and the remaining deck becomes a receiver and also acts as a low power speaker. Invite a spectator to select a card; you reassemble the deck and glance at the bottom card as you hold the deck up to your ear as if it were a transistor radio in order to hear the name of the missing card from the radio-equipped deck. Then you can announce the name of the card. As a variation, ask a participant to remove a small packet of cards, put one in his pocket unseen, and hand the rest, one each, to some additional assistants. You reassemble the deck and look at the bottom card while this is going on. You can read the participants minds by calling out the cards they hold I sense that someone is holding the Jack of Hearts etc. This works except once, when you name the unseen card in the rst assistants pocket. Return to it at the end after naming all the other cards, name it correctly, have it revealed and explain that you found it by ESP not by mind reading. Youll need to use care in reassembling the deck, or discard the deck after giving it a shue and oering it to a participant to see that theres nothing special about the cards. Without the shue, the participant may notice that the colors alternate.

8.3

Counting cards

Place the deck face up on the table and ask someone from the audience to cut the deck, putting the packet cut o on the table beside the bottom portion. You can now tell exactly how many cards were cut o. As a hint for how to get started establishing this fact, imagine that the top, face up, cards of the two packets are the 4 and 8 of Diamonds, with the 4 on the packet the audience member cut o. Then there are 4 (8 4) cards in the portion cut o since Diamonds occur as every 4th card of the deck, and there are 8 4 packets of

11

such cards since the denominations of the Diamonds increase by one for each group of 4 cards. If the suits of the two top cards dont match, you can casually perturb the remaining pile to expose a card of the same suit (moving no more than 3 cards), make the calculation, and adjust for the few extra cards. Of course itd be better to simply compute (by moving backward in the Stebbins ordering) what the denomination of the next card in the desired suit is. This only takes a little practice.

8.4

Discussion

All these eects depend on the stacked deck. What other orderings are possible? For which k other than k = 3 can you add k at each step and increment the suit of the card, to you get a cyclic ordering of the entire deck? Suppose you had a deck with S suits, each having cards of D denominations 1, 2, . . . D. When can you generate a cyclic ordering with the add k to the denomination and increment the suit rule? Even more generally, suppose your deck has S suits labelled 1, 2, . . . S 1 and D denominations. For what pairs of integers m, n does the rule the card with suit s + m%S and denomination d + n%D follows the card with suit s and denomination d generate a clyclic ordering containing all the cards?

Four Jacks

Prepare a deck in which the Jacks at at positions number 9, 10, 11, and 12. You can fool with the deck a bit as long as you dont disturb this ordering. Explain that the trick you want to demonstrate requires 4 Jacks and rather than ipping through the deck to nd the needed cards, youll use a better technique. Ask the audience for a number between 10 and 19. Say the number is 16. Deal 16 cards from the top of deck face down onto a pile on the table. Then add the digits of the number 1 + 6 = 7 and one at a time remove (undeal) 7 cards from the pile on the table to the top of the deck. Take the top card o the pile on the table and set it aside. Repeat this procedure, asking for a new number each time, 3 more times, lining up the cards youve set aside. Turn them over one at a time to show that they are the 4 Jacks. If we take any number between 10 and 19 we can represent it as n = a1 a2 where the ai are the digits of its base ten representation. Of course, a1 = 1 since were working with a number between 10 and 20. Then, in each deal described above, the top n (a1 + a2 ) cards of the deck are removed to the pile on the table. But this is just 10a1 + a2 a1 a2 = 9a1 = 9. So no matter what number the audience chooses, you always end up with 9 cards in the pile on the table. Once you have 4 jacks theres several things you can do with them.

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9.1

The elevator

This trick requires a minor slight of hand, passing o a stack of 5 cards as a stack of 4 Jacks. Return the jacks to the bottom of the deck, and then remove them together with one additional card. Keep the packet of 5 cards well aligned, holding it with two hands. The right hand has ngers and thumb on the top and bottom edges of the packet, the left hand has thumb on the front of the cards and the ngers supporting the backs of the cards. Show the audience the rst Jack. Then, using the left thumb, remove it carefully to the left hand, showing the second Jack, holding the rst Jack in the palm of the left hand. Slowly transfer the second and third Jacks to the left hand one at a time. The right hand now holds the last Jack and the additional card, hidden behind this Jack. Place these two cards (held together) on top of the three Jacks in your left hand, square them up, and then transfer the packet of cards, face down, to the top of the face down deck. You now have 3 Jacks, another card, and a Jack on the top of the deck in that order. Deal the top 4 cards face down to the table side by side, reminding the audience that each of the cards is one of the Jacks that have just been shown. The rst Jack will climb from the bottom of the deck to the top. Place the deck face down on the rst card, and rie the cards a bit. Show that the top card is a Jack, take it o and place it aside face up. The second Jack will climb from the top down to the bottom. Take the second Jack from the table and place it face down on the deck. Tap the deck in a magical manner. Rie the cards a bit, and turn the whole deck face up to show that the Jack has moved to the bottom of the pile. Set this Jack aside, next to the rst one. The third Jack will not only crawl from the middle of the deck to the top, but hell ip himself over in the process. Take the third Jack from the table and place it, face down, in the middle of the face up deck. Turn the deck over and then expose the top card, showing that the Jack has done what you claimed. The last Jack will be inserted into the deck, and turn himself over without changing position. Place the remaining card from the table face down into the deck, and rie the deck a bit. When you fan the deck, the single face-up card will be found to be the remaining Jack.

9.2

Follow the crowd

While needing no slight of hand, this trick requires some misdirection in which you induce the audience to look at a card turned face up on the table while you slip a single card onto the bottom of a packet of cards held in your hand. With the 4 Jacks on the table, deal three cards face up on each, and then assemble the piles into a single stack. Explain that you have arranged the packet so that every 4th card is a Jack. Deal the rst 4 cards onto the table side by side, naming the cards as theyre dealt: Jack, something, something, something. Before you deal the next four cards on top of the rst 4, make

13

sure that everyone understands how the cards on the table are arranged. Using the fth card (currently the top card of the deck) point to the rst card you dealt and assert that it is a Jack. Ask a member of the audience to come, turn it over, and show everyone that it is, in fact, a Jack. While this is happening, slip the card from your had onto the bottom of the packet. Proceed in dealing the cards to the four piles, naming them as before, to suggest that all the Jacks have been stacked in a pile together. In fact, the rst pile has a Jack topped by 3 non-Jacks, and the last pile has a non-Jack topped with 3 jacks. You know Jacks hang out together and are a pretty tight group. Where one of the goes, they all go. Move the single Jack from the bottom of its pile, keeping it face down, and use it to replace the card in the last pile that sits under the other three Jacks. Where one of the goes, the others follow. Turn over the last pile showing that all four of the cards are Jacks.

9.3

Questions

1. Suppose you wanted to have the audience choose a number between 20 and 30 for the rst deal. Where should the Jack be placed in the prepared deck?

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The lottery trick

This is another trick that Stuart Cramer showed me. It uses a deck of cards that have numbers on them. You can purchase a deck of blank cards or simply use an ordinary deck; with a heavy-duty marker label the faces of the cards 1 through 52. Youll also need a lottery ticket. In Ohio, these tickets have 6 numbers on them. Select the cards whose numbers match the numbers on the ticket and place them on top of the deck, separated from the other cards by the ticket. Youre now ready to begin. Explain that youre going to demonstrate that no one in their right mind would play the lottery because it must be rigged that even you can adjust the winning numbers to match any ticket. As youre speaking lay 6 groups of cards face down on the table. The rst pile should consist of the 6 cards that match the ticket. The others should simply be about the same size. Explain that Ohios lottery has 6 numbers so youll be working with 6 piles, one for each number. Invite a participant to come up and shue each pile. When this is done, instruct him/her to stack the piles (face down) into 1 single pile. Indicate how this should work by doing part of the work yourself. Pick up one of the piles and put it on top of the rst pile the one containing the cards that match the ticket. Tell the participant to put the rest of the piles on in any order (s)he likes. Now ask the participant to deal the deck into 6 piles of face-up cards. Hand the participant the lottery ticket and ask him/her to compare the numbers on the ticket to the cards that are showing on the top of the pile.

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An extension of this trick is to perform it twice, using two dierent lottery tickets. Keep the cards in a box with the packets for each ticket separated by the tickets themselves. For the rst performance, leave one ticket and its packet in the box. After the trick is complete, mix the cards and return them to the box. For your encore, simply extract all the cards, separating out the packet that goes with the second ticket. When I invented this variation for myself, I bought a second ticket at random and discovered that one number appeared on both tickets. So my version of the repeated trick explains that my magical powers were partially consumed and that I could only match 5 of the 6 numbers on the second ticket. Only later did someone tell me that one can select the numbers that appear on a ticket and so purchase two tickets that have no numbers in common.

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Discussion

The audience should be able to deduce how this trick works. If necessary, you can direct their attention to the question of where the top cards in the nal display came from.

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