The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims Volume 2 Part 27

Repeat the process for a third batch, and finish with the remainder for the fourth--always remembering to take the card from the next row in succession continually; in other words, only one card must be taken from each row at a time.

When the cards are thus arranged, request a party to cut them. This is only pretence; for you must take care dexterously to replace the cut just as it was before. Let them be cut again, and replace them as before. Your ruse will not be detected, simply because n.o.body suspects the possibility of the thing.

Now take up the pack, and from the BOTTOM take the first four cards; handing the remainder to a party, sitting before you, saying--'I shall now call every card in succession from the top of the pack in your hand.'

To do this, two things must be remembered; and there is no difficulty in it. First, the numbers 6, 2, 10, 9, 3, king, &c., before given; and next the SUIT of those cards.

Now you know the NUMBERS by heart, and the SUIT is shown by the four cards which you hold in your hand, fan-like, in the usual way. If the first of the four cards be a club, the first card you call will be the six of clubs; if the next be a heart, the next card called will be the two of hearts, and so on throughout the thirteen made up from every row, as before given, and the suits of each card will be indicated successively by the suit of each of your four indicator cards, thus, as the case may be, clubs, hearts, diamonds, spades; clubs, hearts, diamonds, spades, and so on.

After a little private practice, you will readily and rapidly call, as the case may be, from the four cards in your hand:--the six of clubs, two of hearts, ten of diamonds, nine of spades, three of clubs, king of hearts, eight of diamonds, four of spades, ace of clubs, knave of hearts, seven of diamonds, five of spades, queen of clubs--and so on to the last card in the pack.

In the midst of the astonishment produced by this seemingly prodigious display of memory, say--'Now, if you like, we will have a hand at Whist, and I undertake to win every trick if I be allowed to deal.'

Let the Whist party be formed, and get the cards cut as usual--only taking care to REPLACE them, as before enjoined, precisely as they were.

Deal the cards, and the result will be that your thirteen cards will be ALL TRUMPS. Let the game proceed until your opponents 'give it up' in utter bewilderment.

This splendid trick seems difficult in description, but it is one of the easiest; and even were it ten times more difficult than it is, the reader will perhaps admit that it is worth mastering. Once committed to memory the figures are never forgotten, and a few repet.i.tions, with the cards before you, will suffice to enable you to retain them.

5. Two persons having each drawn a card and replaced them in the pack, to guess these cards.

Make a set of all the clubs and spades, and another set of hearts and diamonds. Shuffle well each set, and even let them be shuffled by the spectators. Then request a person to draw a card from one of the sets, and another person to draw one from the second set.

You now take a set in each hand, presenting them to the two persons, requesting them to replace the drawn cards. You must pretend to present to each person the set from which he drew his card, but in reality you present the red set to the person who drew the black card, and the black set to the person who drew the red card.

Each person having replaced his card, you get each set shuffled. Then you take them in hand, and by running them over you easily find the red card amongst the black, and the black card amongst the red.

Of course you will have prepared the sets beforehand, and take care to alter the arrangement as soon as possible after the trick. But you can prepare the pack in the presence of others without their detecting it.

Distribute the cards by dealing according to the two colours; take them up, and having placed the red set a little projecting over the black, set them down, and, pretending to cut them, separate the sets.

6. Twenty cards being arranged upon a table, a person thinks of two, and you undertake to guess them.

Lay out twenty cards of any kind, two by two,

| c | i | c | o | s | | d | e | d | i | t | | t | u | m | u | s | | n | e | m | o | n |

and request a party to think of two in a line; that is, one of the ten sets formed by the twenty cards. This done you take up the sets in the order in which they lie, and place them in rows according to the letters of the words. You may use a diagram like the preceding, but as the words are easily retained it had better be dispensed with, distributing the cards on the table just as though upon the diagram, which will make the trick more puzzling and extraordinary. Proceed as follows:--Place the cards two by two on similar letters: thus, place the two cards of the first set on the two d's in dedit; the two cards of the second set on the two i's of cicos and dedit; the two of the third set on the two c's, and so on with the ten sets.

All the letters of the words being thus covered, ask the party who has thought of the cards to tell you in which lines these cards are. If both are in the first line (cicos), they must be those on the two c's; if they are both in the second line, they cover the d's in dedit; both in the third line, they cover the u's in tumus; both in the fourth, they cover the n's in nemon.

If one be in the first line and the other in the second, they cover the i's in cicos and dedit, and thus of the rest--the two cards thought of NECESSARILY covering two SIMILAR LETTERS, whilst each of the letters occurs only TWICE in the diagram.

7. To tell a card thought of without even looking at the cards.

Take any number of cards,--say twenty. Pretend to shuffle them with the faces towards you, and REMEMBER THE FIRST CARD as you close the pack--suppose the ten of diamonds. Tell the party that the only condition you require is to be told the ORDER in which the card is dealt out by you; in other words, he must tell you whether in dealing it comes out first, second, third, &c.

Remembering your first card, you may then turn your back to him, and deal out the cards one by one, and one upon the top of the other, requesting him to think of a card and its order as before said.

Then take up the cards, and shuffle them repeatedly, by throwing a portion of them from the bottom to the top, taking care not to mix the cards or let any drop, and then let the party cut them as often as he pleases. Then, take the cards in hand. Pretend to examine them mysteriously, but in reality only look for YOUR card--the first dealt out--the ten of diamonds for instance. Now, suppose he tells you that the card he thought of came out FIFTH. Then, for a certainty, it is the fourth card on the RIGHT of the ten of diamonds, in spite of all YOUR shuffling, and all regular cutting, for such shuffling and regular cutting cannot alter the order or sequence of the cards. Always remember to count from your own card inclusive to the number of the card thought of towards your right hand. But should your card happen to be so near the right hand or the top as not to allow sufficient counting, then count as far as it admits to the RIGHT and then continue at the LEFT.

Thus, suppose there are only two cards above the ten of diamonds, then count two more on the left, making the fifth. If the card you remember, or your first card, is first, then count the requisite number on the left, always beginning with YOUR card, however.

The REASON of this trick is simply that by merely cutting the cards, and shuffling them in the way indicated, you do not alter the SEQUENCE of the cards. With regard to this sort of SHUFFLING, I may say that it is simply CUTTING the cards--always preserving their sequence--a most important fact for card-players, since it may lead to a pretty accurate conjecture of all the hands after a deal, from the study of the one in hand, with reference to the tricks turned down after the previous deal, as already suggested. Hence, in shuffling for whist or other games, the cards should not be shuffled in this way, but more thoroughly mixed by the edgewise shuffling of certain players.

This is the trick I alluded to at the commencement of the chapter, the mode of performing which I succeeded in discovering.

Of course ANY NUMBER of persons may think of cards, remembering their order, and the operator will tell them, in like manner.

8. A person having thought of one of fifteen cards presented to him, to guess the card thought of.

Form three ranks of five cards each, and request a party to think of one of these cards, and tell you in which rank it is. Take up the cards of the three ranks, taking care to place the cards of the ranks in which is the card thought of between those of the two other ranks.

Make three more ranks as before. Ask the party again in which rank the card is, and take them up, placing the rank in which the card is between the two others. Operate in like manner a third time, and the card thought of will infallibly be the THIRD of the rank named by the party.

Observe, however, you must not form each rank with five consecutive cards; but you must place the cards one by one, placing one successively in each rank; thus, one at the top on the left of the first rank, one below that first for the second rank, one below the second for the third rank, then one in the first, one in the second, one in the third, and so on.

This trick, which is very easy, always produces a great effect. It only requires a little attention, and it can never fail unless you make a mistake in arranging the cards, which, however, is too simple to admit of error.

9. Two persons having each drawn a card from a pack, and having replaced them, to tell these cards after the pack has been shuffled and cut by the spectators as often as they like.

The cards may be easily divided into two numerical parts, even and odd: by taking a king for four points, a queen for three, a knave for two, and the other cards for their especial points, we may make up two sets of sixteen cards each, the even composing one, and the odd the other.

These two sets being before the performer, he takes one, shuffles it well, and lets a party take a card. He then takes the other, shuffles it, and lets another party take a card. Then, whilst each party is looking at his card, which HE IS REQUESTED TO DO, the performer dexterously changes the place of the two sets, and he requests the parties to replace the cards in the set whence they took them. It follows that the party who took a card from the EVEN set places it in the ODD set, and he who took it from the ODD set places it in the even set. Consequently, all the shuffling and cutting in the world will be useless, for the performer has only to spread out the cards of each set to point out the cards drawn.

10. Singular arrangement of sixteen cards.

Take the four kings, the four queens, the four knaves, and the four tens of a pack, and ask if there be any one in the company who can form a square with them in such a manner that, taken in any direction, from right to left, from the top to the bottom, by the diagonal--anyhow, in fact--there will always be in each line a king, queen, knave, and a ten.

Everybody will think the thing easy, but it is certain that no one will succeed in doing it. When they 'give it up,' take the sixteen cards and arrange them as shown, when the king, queen, knave, and ten will stand as required.

11. The seven trick.

Make up the four sevens of a pack, and take seven other cards, no matter which, for another lot, and, presenting both lots, you say:--Here are two lots totally dissimilar; nevertheless, there is one of seven, and I declare it will be the first touched by any party present. Of course, when touched, you at once prove your words by exhibiting either the sevens or the seven cards--taking care to mix the cards into the pack immediately to prevent detection.

12. Infallible method for guessing any number that a party has thought of.

Take the first ten cards of a pack of 52 cards. Set out these ten cards as shown below, so that the point A should correspond to the ace, and to 1--the point F to the card representing the 6--and E to the 10.

2 3 4 B C D 1 A--------E 5 10 K--------F 6 I H G 9 8 7

Thus prepared, you request a party to think of a card, and then you tell him to touch any number he pleases, requesting him to name it aloud.

Then, adding the whole number of the cards to the number touched, you tell him to count backwards to himself, beginning with the card touched, and giving to that card the number of the one thought of. By counting in this way, the party will at length count the entire number on the card thought of, which you will thus be able to designate with certainty.

Example:--Suppose the card thought of is G, marking 7; again, supposing the one touched to be D, equal to 4; you add to this number the entire number of cards, which is, in this case, 10, which will make 14. Then, making the party count this sum, from the number touched, D to C, B, A, and so on, backwards, so that in commencing to count the number thought of, 7 on D, the party will continue, saying, 8 on C, 9 on B, 10 on A, 11 on K, 12 on I, 13 on H, and end with counting 14 on G; and you will thus discover that the number thought of is 7, which corresponds to G.

Of course the party counts TO himself, and only speaks to designate the point on which he stops, namely, G in this example.

This trick may be performed with any number of cards--as few as six, or as many as fifteen. Then you must always add to the number the total of the cards used. The trick will be much more interesting and striking if you turn the cards face downwards, only trusting to your memory to retain the order of the numbers.

Of course, the letters are only used to facilitate the explanation. The cards really form a sort of circle, beginning at 1 or the ace on the left, and then continuing with the 2, the 3, the 4, the 5, and so on, to the 10 below the ace; and, by necessity, the party must end his counting with the very card he thought of, beginning from the one he happens to point out.