I remember back in the day where kids would pull out a deck of cards and do tricks where they line up four rows and do some counting trick with it.

Then with that same deck I would do a trick they have never seen before.

Not a pick a card regular trick but something unusual and funny.

Any one have any experiences like this?

I'm so glad someone posted something like this, finally. In my whole life, most of the times I've been actually present when someone does a card trick (not watching one on TV, but actually being there "live")were times when I was a kid and we'd be sitting around on a hot summer day in someone's air-conditioned kitchen, not knowing what to do -- maybe having played "Go Fish" or some other card game -- and someone would grab the deck and do the 21-Card Trick or the 4 Robbers or some other old warhorse like those. Anyone who could have done a really good card trick, like the Gemini Twins or Devastation or even the Piano Card Trick, would have blown us all away. I don't think it actually happened to us then, though. I'm glad to know it happened to SOMEBODY!

This used to happen to me all the time. Even as I got older I would go to events and parties and there would be someone there doing those old workhorse tricks. It usually took everything I had not to grab the cards and go to town. I always ended up just clapping and keeping my mouth shut.

There is an interesting inside joke in the movie shade where there are some magicians at the magic castle and on them is doing the 21 card trick. They did this as a reference that it is the most common trick non magicians use. I think every magician is approached at one time or another by someone showing them the 21 card trick. I see this as an opportunity to blow their mind using the same principle with a transposition or a different revelation.

It happened to me a lot since I moved to the student dorms here in Cluj where I go to college.
I sometimes get out on the hallway for a smoke and I have my deck of cards in one hand doing some one handed cuts. other students walk up to me and say gimme the deck for a second let me show you something and I am always cool with that.
but I think 8 out of 10 times they all do the 21 card trick ,lol.
and the other 2 out of ten just look at the deck ,

-Matt

That 21-card trick ... I know it works, and I know how it works, but I don't know HOW it works. There must be an algebraic explanation of it somewhere.

At my school, it's the trick where they hit the cards out of their hands and the only one remaining is their selected card, I still don't know how to do it!

Mitchell

Heh, I remember being a freshman in highschool. Kids would sit around with cards and while not playing poker or whatever get into the whole card trick show. I don't think there is a better feeling than watching 3 card tricks by others you knew how to do when you were 5. (Grabbing the deck and showing off some Royal Road skills)

lool, I failed to mention that! The first time I saw it I was like "WT_?".
It gets very good reactions but the problem is that it is hard to find people that don't know it

-Matt

I live in New Zealand. I'm 60+ and every time a lay person shows me a card trick it will be math based, so it seems that this is universal. Many tricks of this type require a full deck, and when I am working walk-about it is rare for me to have a full deck so they are unable to show their trick with my cards.

If you show these same lay people something simple with a glide or double lift, that is enough to leave them completly stumped. Funny thing is, if it is a math based effect, I can never remember this type of trick myself!

I hate those math based tricks. It a basic slice and dice of the rows and columns to spot the cards.
It is one of those tricks to show people who are drunk, but even then they won't care what your doing let alone see the simplicity of the trick.

Actually, that effect does quite a number of a lot of people.

The 21 card one that is, I mean it's simplistic, yes, it doesn't involve any funny stuff outside of the fact that it's so easy to do, and yet, to some people, it can be more intriguing and astonishing than something much more complex.

It all depends on who you're working with. What your working with, etc. I normally do that sort of effect when I get handed a deck of cards at random and I get put on the spot.

Yes, that would be the hitman, a very good trick when performed right but I've yet to see that!

Let's just say I saw a lay-person try to control a card. Imagine that, just imagine.... aahhh, you see this is when I love to pretend I'm amazed like all the others, grab the deck and blow them away. Good times

I refused to do magic at school because I didn't want to get hounded/pestered all day by people wanting to see some tricks. I also knew that if one went wrong, then I would never hear the end of it...

I like it when people are pestering me to do magic, it gives me something to do!

To me, counting tricks are very boring. There is a magic class in my school and they were all taught there so no surprise!

Yeah, counting tricks have nothing to keep the spark alive. It's just going on and on, really lame, and we've all seen them happen over and over. I know it's not terribly nice to laugh at another's failure, but I always find it funny when they totally space on how to do it.

I don't know. Such math-magical tricks certainly have their place. I'm fairly new to magic and when I do a few tricks I like to break the ice (my ice, i.e my nerves) by doing a self-working card trick (non-math) and then a real trick or two and then a math trick which I explain to them. Of course, I'm a math instructor so I often use the math-magical tricks as a part of my lecture. I might show it to them and ask them to figure it out. For many folks its just as magical, given that the average person is not particularly adept at math (job insurance )

Kevin

Talking about kids in school doing the 21 card trick...

The funniest time that this trick was shown to me was when I worked at an engineering firm. A young guy was leaving his job there to enter into military service (God bless him) and he'd heard that I did magic. So I went by his desk, ending up with about 5 guys watching, to shown him one or two tricks. Before I could even start, he said, "I know a magic trick." So I gave him the cards and let him "entertain" us. The other guys started giving him a hard time since everyone's seen it before, but I let him finish. I couldn't help but chuckle in my mind as he struggled to get it right.

After he had "WOW'ed" us all. I did one simple trick - can't remember what it was, but then I decided to try out out a packet trick (Jumping Jacks) that I had been practicing for a while and hadn't had the chance to perform. This is just a transposition routine where the Jacks "jump" from one location to another. The funny thing is that the layout of the cards on the table resembles the 21 card trick. After the Jacks were shown to be missing from where they just saw them, I told him to look at the indifferent cards that we had placed underneath his computer's mouse across his desk. Every four letter word in the dictionary came out of everyone's mouth at that moment.

It caused quite a stir in our semi-quiet engineering office.

21 card trick