Missing card. Effective trick and its solution

EFFECTIVE FOCUSES AND THEIR CLUES
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Missing card. Focus Secret

Spectacular tricks and their clues

Directory / Spectacular tricks and their clues

Focus Description:

While the magician is standing with his back to the audience, one of them takes a card from the deck, puts it in his pocket and shuffles the deck. Then the artist turns, takes the deck and begins to lay out the cards one by one face up. After all the cards have come out, he calls the missing one.

Focus secret:

The numerical value of the missing card can be determined by calculating in your mind the sum of the numerical values of the cards laid out on the table. At the same time, jacks are assigned the value 11, ladies 12. Kings can be considered zeros and not taken into account at all. Without kings, the sum of the numerical values of all cards in the full deck is 312. Therefore, to find the numerical value of the missing card, you need to subtract the sum of the numerical values of 312 cards from 51. If this last sum turns out to be 312, then the missing card is the king.

When showing this trick, it is important to master the methods of quick counting. So, for example, it is obvious that when adding 11, it is convenient to first add 10, and then another one, and to add 12, you first add 10, and then two. A further increase in the speed of counting can be achieved by "dropping twenties", that is, counting modulo 20. In other words, as soon as the sum exceeds 20, discard this number and keep only the remainder in memory.

After the last card is laid, you will have to memorize a small number from 0 to 12 inclusive. Subtract this number from 12 and you get the numerical value of the missing card. If the last sum is 12, then the missing card is the king. It seems to us that the elimination of "twenties" is the best way to speed up the count. However, many people prefer to discard 13 in this case. Then, for example, adding 7 and 8 and discarding 13, you memorize 2. Instead of adding 11 (in the case of a jack) and then discarding 13, it is easier to subtract 2 without adding anything. In the case of a queen, discard 1. It is clear that kings do not need to be taken into account. When you have finished counting, subtract the last digit from 13 and you will get the numerical value of the hidden card. After it is found, you can, of course, by handing over the cards a second time, find out the suit of the missing card. However, the secret of the focus is immediately revealed. How to determine the suit of the card at the first layout, simultaneously with its numerical value?

One way - really difficult if you do not have the technique of quick counting in your mind - is to simultaneously memorize the total number for the suit and the same number for the numerical value of the card. Let's assign, for example, to the cards of the spade suit the numerical value 1, the clubs - 2, the hearts - 3, the diamonds - zero (and we do not take them into account). When adding, tens are discarded, and as a result one of four numbers is obtained: 5, 6, 7 or 8. Subtracting it from eight, you will find the suit of the hidden card.

Here is another method for tracking the sums of card numbers and suit numbers. Let's establish some order of suits, say, spades, hearts, clubs, diamonds. Before opening the first card, let's say to ourselves; 0-0-0-0. If the first card is, for example, the seven of hearts, say 0-7-0-0 to yourself. If the next card is, say, a five of diamonds, the score changes to 0-7-0-5. In other words, you have to keep in mind the changing sum of all four suits. If only one card is removed from the deck, then when calculating all four changing amounts, kings must be included. The sum of the numerical values of the cards for each of the four suits should in this case be equal to 91. But since one card is hidden, the sum for the corresponding suit will be less. So, if you ended up with a score of 91-91-90-91, that means the ace of clubs is missing. By discarding the twenties, you can, as before, make it easier for yourself to count. In this case, to obtain the numerical value of the missing card, the last amount found must be subtracted from 11; if it is greater than 11, then it should be subtracted from 31. (However, you can simply remember that the final sums of 20, 19 and 18 correspond respectively to the jack, queen and king.)

The advantage of this method is that you can remove not one card, but four at once, one of each suit, while guessing four cards will not be more difficult than one. In this variant, kings can be ignored, since it is known in advance that one card of each suit is missing. The final sum for each suit will now be 78. (Kings don't count!) Dropping 20 three times, we get 18. Thus, the final chain 7-16-13-18 will indicate that the following cards are missing: jack of spades, two of hearts, five clubs and king of tambourine.

However, keeping four changing numbers in memory is not easy.

To get around this difficulty, we recommend using as a "secret" counting device ... with your feet. If you are sitting at the table when laying out the cards and your legs are hidden from those present, then it is unlikely that the slight movements of them, which will be required here, will be noticed by anyone.

At the beginning of the trick, place your feet so that the soles of your shoes are flat on the floor. When dealing a card on the table, raise or lower the toes of your boots according to the following system. Mark the appearance of a card of spades by raising or lowering the toe of the left shoe. More precisely, with the appearance of the first such card, raise the toe, the second - lower, the third - raise again, etc. If the card is of a red suit, then raise or lower the toe of the right shoe. If the card turns out to be a club, then change the position of both socks at the same time. When a diamond card appears, do not change the position of the socks at all. After the last card is laid, you will recognize the suit of the missing card in this way: if the left sock is on the floor - a card of red suit, if raised - black, if the right sock is on the floor, the card will be of spades or diamonds; if the right toe is raised - club or red. With the above in mind, it's easy. Find out the suit of the hidden card. So, if both socks are on the floor, the card will be a diamond suit. If both socks are raised - club suit, if one left toe is raised - peak, and if one right one is raised - red.

Fingers can be used as the simplest counting device when finding the numerical values of cards. At the same time, the demonstrator keeps his hands on his knees, and the cards (slowly) are dealt by one of those present. The fingers are renumbered from left to right from 1 to 10. When a card appears, the corresponding finger rises or falls. Jacks are marked by moving the left hand forward along the leg or back, ladies - by the same movements of the right hand. Kings are not taken into account. The suits can be followed by moving the toes of the boots as explained above.

Using your fingers as a counting device, you can find the numerical values of not only one, but also several cards taken out of the deck, provided that these values \uXNUMXb\uXNUMXbare not the same as each other. To do this, you just need to note which fingers will be raised at the end of the layout (or which hand is advanced forward). Of course, in this case, you need to know how many cards were hidden, since you can only determine what is missing, the king, without taking into account one card when calculating.

Author: M.Gardner

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