Got any simple "magic" tricks?

[Inchworm]

Alls I can remember are a few old bar tricks to tease the neighbor kid.

I'd forgotten the trick Orleans mentioned in another thread about magically making a pen write another color until today :)

Whatcha got?

:hi:

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

1. "Pull my Finger" - it's always a gas!

oh, you probably mean Real Magic.

:hi:

[Inchworm]

2. She KNOWS that'n

LOL

:rofl:

[Kali]

3. I suck at magic and ALWAYS fall for tricks

but I desperately hold on to the belief that susceptibility to illusion is a trait of intelligent people:rofl:

[Inchworm]

4. I'm more into tricks myself

because I bite like a bass :D

:hi:

[pokerfan]

5. If the child is old enough, here's a mind-reading trick

that is 98% accurate.

1. Think of a number from 1 to 10
2. Multiply that number by 9
3. If the number is a 2-digit number, add the digits together
4. Now subtract 5
5. Determine which letter in the alphabet corresponds to the number you ended up with (example: 1=a, 2=b, 3=c,etc.)
6. Think of a country that starts with that letter
7. Remember the last letter of the name of that country
8. Think of the name of an animal that starts with that letter
9. Remember the last letter in the name of that animal
10. Think of the name of a fruit that starts with that letter

Are you thinking of a Kangaroo in Denmark eating an Orange?

Like I said, it doesn't always work but when it does, it's pretty effective. First, it's a simple math trick involving casting out the nines which forces the result of step 5 to always be the number 4. After that, it relies on the fact that there are only four countries that begin with the letter D: Denmark, Djibouti, Dominica and Dominican Republic. Denmark is obviously the most well known so then it's on to animals whose name begins with the letter 'K'. The mark could choose Kiwi or Koala but is far more likely to pick Kangaroo. Then fruit beginning with the letter 'O' is fairly obvious.

If the child isn't old enough to go through all of that, then some simple sleight of hand tricks can be learned in short order.

French Drop: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HeyG8FZMcKw
Card swap: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n016q1w8Q30
Penn & Teller explain sleight of hand: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oXGr76CfoCs

[Inchworm]

6. Cool, thanks!

My Social Psychology instructor did a similar trick that made my jaw drop. I picked odd answers and was in the minority percent but he so called it as to how many students would do what I did :D

:hi:

[PassingFair]

7. This one takes a little practice....

Try to blow out a match just by flicking the END of the match stick.

If you flick it sharply, the match will put itself out, and if you
hold it right, you won't be able to tell why.

Light the match, then BLOW through your OPPOSITE sleeve.

Simultaneously flick the match out, and she'll think that
you blew it out through the other sleeve.

I looked for a diagram on-line, but couldn't find one.

Here's a cute one:

http://www.angelfire.com/pe/SimpleMagik/im.html

[Inchworm]

8. I'll try these

:)

:woohoo:

[Call Me Wesley]

9. I only can do these.

:P

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dJCtOz32dnw

[woo me with science]

11. Great video.

:rofl:

[Inchworm]

28. I can do this

I may get arreated lol

[woo me with science]

10. Have kid think of a number between one and four.

When he picks number 3, magically pick up a nearby object, which has a note taped under it.

"The spirits commanded you to pick #3."

(of course, there are other nearby objects with notes in case he picks numbers 1, 2, or 4)

[pokerfan]

12. The best thing about magic

is that it teaches critical thinking skills.

[woo me with science]

14. Absolutely!

That, and the doves coming out of your pants. :thumbsup::hi:

[Rabrrrrrr]

13. Give him lit dynamite to hold, and when it blows up, say "Ha! Made your hand disappear!"

:rofl:

It's fucking HILARIOUS!

[woo me with science]

15. LOL!

Yeah, but that trick only works twice...

[Inchworm]

29. I thouht 5his'n

we need a lead-in

:P

[MiddleFingerMom]

16. Here's my all-time favorite bar trick.

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I know, I know. A cigarette.
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If you don't want to be a bad influence, you can do the same trick
with a well-rolled joint.
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Or a straw... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... y'old fuddie-duddie.
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I like to have the cigarette "heel" my finger.
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http://www.videojug.com/film/how-to-perform-the-rolling-cigarette-trick
.
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I had a "militarized" cellphone -- built to military specifications as far as
dustproof, shockproof and water resistant. I was talking on the phone
with someone with the same model and he told me that as a bar bet (I
would NEVER trust this), he would put the ringer on "vibrate", drop the
phone in a glass of water, and have someone call it to watch the ripples.
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[mopinko]

17. who says you can't learn anything useful on the internets?

fun thread. i got nothin' tho.

[applegrove]

18. You set out a ten cards in the shape the clubs make on a 10 of clubs.

that is (where a "*" is a club):

* . *
* * *
* * *
* . *

One of them needs to be a 10 (it can go anywhere face up like the other 9 cards).

You work with a partner who knows what is going on. Get someone else to pick on of the cards in their head. They whisper the card to you. You then point on random cards and say "is it this". Your partner's answer is "no" You don't point to the card that is the chosen one till after you have pointed to the 10 of clubs and on that ten of clubs you point to the exact club that represents the picked card. Et voila! nobody can figure out how you and your partner do it.

[Zavulon]

20. Another similar partner trick

I'm your partner, I know the card and you don't. I call you into the room, have you face the victim, brag about your psychic skills and so on, with one hand on your shoulder in a "this is by buddy here, he's the greatest" stance. As you "concentrate" on the card, I use my other hand - more specifically, the index finger on it - to trace out the answer on your back. Try it a couple times with a friend and you'll be able to feel it properly and tell the answer from the friend "drawing" on your back - 7c for seven of clubs, 2s for two of spades, JD for jack of diamonds, etc.

The only time I've seen the trick fail is when a ten is selected, because that requires three "figures" traced on your back instead of two (sometimes this confuses people and by the time they figure out that the first two 'tracings' meant the value of the card, they've already missed what the suit was).

Also, if the card is a four, start at the bottom, go upward and make the triangle going to the left at the top so that it looks like the number 4 in this message instead of drawing a 4 with the upper 'L' to the left and the straight line down to the right. The key is to trace out the card's value so that you never have to remove your finger to complete it before moving on to the suit. This obviously is tough to do with a queen, but the feeling of the circle will be so distinct that confusion won't be any problem.

My dad and I have been doing this trick for others since I was a kid, and when a queen is the answer we just use a circle. With a partner you've practiced this with none of this will be a problem, even the tens.

[applegrove]

22. You can also put your fingers on your 'partner's' temple. Then your partner

closes their jaw and with a closed jaw clamps doubly down on their back molars. You can feel that action in their temples but nobody can see either their jaw or their temples moving. You then can count out the card number by doing the action repeatedly. By putting your two hands on your partner's temples you can really play up the esp aspect of the trick.

[pokerfan]

30. oops

I should have read the entire thread before posting my version of the temple trick. I didn't think anyone else knew that one. :blush:

[applegrove]

31. Great minds think alike ... as they say

[pokerfan]

27. Another 'mind reading' trick

Involves your partner touching your temples like a Vulcan mind meld. (He can even be blindfolded.) You can then signal to him by clenching your jaw muscles. The fingers can be surprisingly high on the head as the jaw muscles extend quite high up on the skull where they attach. If you do it gently, no one will be able to see it. Then work out whatever code you want.

[pokerfan]

26. Poker fun fact

You can't make a straight without either a 5 or a 10, so you can remove just eight cards from a deck and make a straight impossible.

[Zavulon]

19. A coin trick which always fools those who haven't seen it:

Takes about 3-5 minutes to master, too. Best coin trick I know, and the only one which has ALWAYS fooled its intended victim. I've been doing this trick for both kids and adults for over 30 years, and it's never failed me yet.

Take two coins - I find that nickels work best for this trick, your mileage may vary. Put one heads up in your left palm, the other tails up in the right palm. Be sure to point out which coin shows heads and which shows tails. Your palms should be a few inches above a table, preferably one with a tablecloth on it (because of the sound the coins will make).

Then VERY quickly, turn both hands over and slam the coins on the table.; Ask your victim which coin will show heads up now. Unless your victim is a complete idiot, he or she will correctly point to the coin under your right palm.

Now, THIS time, repeat the exercise except make the following change: put the tails-up coin in your left hand and the heads-up coin in your right - only the tails-up (left) coin should be resting on your fingers, around the second knuckle. Do this quickly and casually so that the off placement of the tails-up coin doesn't generate suspicion.

VERY quickly, flip your hands over and slam the coins down again. Ask again: which coin shows heads? This time, however, when the victim points to your left hand, you remove it to show NO COIN WHATSOEVER under it. BOTH coins are now under your right hand. It's a great effect that always elicits an "Oh, my God" or "Holy shit."

See, by placing the right-hand coin on your fingers, you make it easy to throw the coin under the left hand when you flip your hands downward - plus, because it's so much higher up than the corresponding left-hand coin, the coins won't click together.

Done quickly and with skill, it's just about undetectable. If you practice it enough to the point where you can do it blind, you can look your victim in the eye while talking, distracting the victim and eliminating any chance that the one coin's flight to the other hand will be seen.

It works best for me if the outer edge of the back of my palm is already resting on the table with my palms turned a few degrees towards each other before flipping my hands over. That may or may not be the case for you. Plus, dimes or quarters might work best for you instead of nickels. After three-plus decades of doing this trick I can do it with any coin, but believe me - you'll be able to as well with only an hour's practice or so.

Once you get the move and routine down, make sure to practice the flip / throw at least a couple times a week to keep up the skill. If you do that, this trick will serve you well for life.

P.S: Obviously, it might work better for you if you choose to use the right hand to throw the coin instead of the left. I'm a lefty, so I throw with the left hand - but after practicing it for so long I can use either. Won't take you long to develop the ability either, so it just depends on which one feels better, which you're more comfortable with.

[Brickbat]

21. Here's a card trick that I love.

Before you have an audience, take the four jacks out of a deck of cards. "Fan" them in your hand. Whatever jack is on the "bottom" of the fan while the faces are facing you, put three cards (doesn't matter which) behind it.

When you have an audience, hold the jacks and the extra cards in your hand (making sure the three extras are stacked behind the "bottom" jack), and put the deck of cards face down on the table. Fan out the jacks so only the four jacks are visible, and the dummy cards are all behind the last jack. Explain that the four jacks are bank robbers, and the deck of cards is a bank. Fold the fan of jacks back into its own mini deck and put it face down on top of the bank, explaining that they're helicoptering down to break into the bank.

If you've done this correctly, the three dummy cards are on the top of the bank. While telling the story of the break-in, take the first dummy card, keep it face down, and slide it into the deck face-down near the bottom, talking about how this robber goes down to the first floor to get the safe boxes.

Then take the second dummy card and put it about halfway through the deck, explaining that this robber is on the floor where all the piles of money are.

Do the same for the third card, putting it near the top, and talk about whatever this robber is getting. When I told this to my kids, they liked elaborate descriptions about piles of jewels and so on, as well as a little pantomime with the helicopter. I started showing them this trick when they were about 5, and my 12-year-old still loves it, even though he knows the trick.

So now you tell about the fourth robber, who stands on the top as a lookout. You pick up the fourth card, which is actually the first jack, and put him face-up on the roof. Your mark will think it's the fourth jack because of the dummy cards in the deck.

So then, according to the card-trick book I had, the lookout jack says, "Cheese it, the cops!" (So old fashioned! But I still say it anyway.) With a flourish, pick up the lookout jack and place him aside, and then flip over the next three cards, saying, "And out came the second robber, the third robber, the fourth robber, and they GOT AWAY!"

[cemaphonic]

23. This is a variant of a classic card trick that is pretty easy to do.

Sloppy Shuffle Triumph:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lgGOWK8-I0s

Here's the traditional version (which isn't *that* hard either, but needs a lot of more practice to come off well than the other one). I'm not crazy about the non-speaking performance, since it's the sort of trick that is really enhanced by a story, but it's graceful and non-spoilery.

Triumph
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=01Xfr-Mrzbo&feature=related

[Zavulon]

24. My absolute favorite card trick

If you have a chance to do a trick in a familiar setting like a kitchen where there will be a notepad and some standard pencils, prepare the following:

Pick the name of any card you intend to force your victim to pick, say, the seven of diamonds. Take a pencil and rip off one of the pieces of the notepad (so as not to leave impressions on the next piece when you write), and write the name of the card on the piece of paper. Do this opposite-handed so that it looks barely legible and nothing like your handwriting - it adds to the effect. Then break off the tip of the pencil on the piece of paper and crumple up the paper with the piece of lead in it. Keep that wadded-up ball of paper handy. Now you're ready.

When it's trick time, force your victim to pick the seven of diamonds (if you don't know how to do it, search Google: how+to+force+a+card There are dozens of methods, most quite simple and no skill required, so just pick one you like.

Once the victim has the intended card, tell him or her to grab that notepad next to the phone and to grab a pencil, too. Instruct the victim to break off the tip of a pencil on the paper and to crumple it up with the lead inside. Once done, ask to see it to make sure the lead is still in there - this will be your guise to switch the victim's wadded-up ball of paper with the one you've prepared.

Now that the switch is made and you're "satisfied" that the lead is still in the ball of paper, tell him or her to make a fist and hold the ball tight inside. Say "I want to concentrate on your card, and I'll command the piece of lead to write out the name of it. Do you feel it? Can you feel it writing?"

Regardless of the answer, wait about five more seconds and say "Let's see if it worked." Have him or her open up the paper, and the name of the card will be written on it :)

Once you're good at forcing cards, the possibilities are limitless. You can seal "predictions" in envelopes, for example. Magicians often use the force of a card to make said card magically reappear in their wallets or yours (if they can get advance time alone with your wallet to put a duplicate card in yours) and then, when you're looking at your wallet in amazement, they use that time to switch the deck they used to force the card on you and substitute that deck with an identical one that's missing the duplicate card the victim just found (so that when you say "Wait a minute, give me that deck" and look for the card you picked and just found, it's no longer in the deck).

Another example: modern magicians now like to force a card on you, and the VERY SECOND you see what card you've picked, you get a (prepared beforehand and saved in drafts on the magician's phone, obviously) text message on your cell phone telling you what it is. The effect, being as instantaneous as it is, really shocks people. The second you even SEE the card you just picked, your phone goes off telling you that you have a text message, and the text has the name of your card in it. As long as you have a draft saved and are ready to send it to a particular person's phone, you can do this trick on the spot.

About twenty years ago for a very special occasion my father used a card force in the following manner: it was my aunt's 50th birthday, we (the whole family) were all in an expensive restaurant, so right in front of the entire family he had her pick a card, seemingly at random, but in fact he "forced" the eight of hearts on her. While he had his back turned, she showed the card to the entire family, put it back and shuffled the deck to her heart's desire. He then took back the deck and went through some comical chants, pretending to concentrate on the deck, when he suddenly called a waiter over. He gave the waiter a $50 bill, made a loud spectacle of pointing out that it was one dollar for every year of the guest of honor's age (to much laughter, including the waiter's), and asked him to go buy him a newspaper, bring it over and keep the change. He then explained that he was going to cover the deck with a newspaper and make it appear in a way none of us have ever seen before.

The waiter brings back the paper, my dad covers the deck with it, does a few more comical gyrations and chants, and then says "Ah, fuck it. I can't find it. Here, you do it." He then threw the paper at my aunt and told her to look in the personals under birthdays.

After a couple minutes of searching the paper, at first thinking she was looking for an actual playing card, she finally noticed the following want ad in the paper in huge block lettering, and just exploded into laughter: "Happy 50th Birthday, LM, you wretched old hag. By the way, you picked the eight of hearts." :) This one shocked everyone in the family who wasn't in on it.

(For that trick my dad needed two confederates: 1.) me, to drive over to my aunt's house at five in the morning to steal her newspaper so that she wouldn't see the ad in advance, and 2.) my uncle, to keep her distracted enough with birthday stuff so that she wouldn't have time to go buy another copy. As soon as they arrived at the restaurant and my uncle nodded at me and my dad, we knew she hadn't seen the paper and the trick was on. Obviously, the newspaper itself was a third confederate given that my dad bought the want ad about a week in advance and made it clear that it HAD to run on a certain day and on that day only.)

[struggle4progress]

25. When I was a kid I used to "erase" borrowed dollar bills and turn then into blank white rectangles

I thought it was a good trick but it did not win the wild acclaim I thought it deserved

:shrug:

[Kablooie]

32. Here's a video explaining a cute little trick that's great for kid's parties.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WD2i4Mn6nio

[applegrove]

33. HOld a small item in one hand out so all can see the enclosed hand.

With the finger on your other hand pointing to the first hand start counting 1, 2, .... Gosh darn, you've dropped the item you were going to make disappear. Pick it up with your second hand quickly and go right back into the original position and start counting again. This time count all the way to 3 and open your first hand which is of course empty.

[Skittles]

34. I can make two cats appear by opening a tin can

yes INDEED