Free Card Tricks

Out of all those free magic tricks what makes this one any good? For starters, it's simple and direct. Mostly though it has a FUN presentation. That's why it's called Up The Garden Path. Have you ever heard that name before. It comes from a saying, "Lead them up the garden path then turn the sprinkler on them." It means you think one thing is happening then SURPRISE!, something completely different happens.

Why is this important when being a magician? You need to be careful that you don't use your magic secrets to try and make yourself look smarter than your friends. You know what I mean, that 'hey I'm cool because I know things you don't.' You need to understand that even thoough your job as a magician is to fool people, most people don't like being fooled - it makes them feel stupid. So try and soften that feeling people get when they are fooled. Humour helps to do that. It's called 'taking the sting out of the trick.'

You can easily take this principle and apply it to other free card tricks you know. A very talented English magician - although he resides in New York - named Simon Lovell has a technique he uses often. He calls it the SILENT MISCALL and SLOW REVEAL. By that he means when he holds a card - the one the audience assumes he has just correctly found - in his hand at the end of a trick, just as he is going to turn it round to show the audience that he has skillfully located their card that was moments earlier lost in the deck somewhere, he looks at the card himself first and pretends that he has messed up and got the wrong card. He then puts a slight smirk on his face and a twinkle in his eye as he slowly turns it round to show the audience he was just toying with them and he has in fact found their card.

So enjoy this series of free card tricks.




Here's a nice subtlety that came from aussiedownunder09 on YouTube: Nice trick - and it occurred to me this morning that you can include one of the cards the trick doesn't work on provided there is only one. If the cards you can tell aren't turned around, then it must be the card you can't tell if it has been moved or not. Thanks for that. Anyone got any other ideas?

More free card tricks that don't make people feel foolish.

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