Card Tricks > Geometric Treatment Card Trick
Double Cross
The title of this trick is not meant to imply that any betrayal or
duplicity is involved. Rather, it describes the essential principle of
the card effect, namely; that the detection of a spectator's card is
carried out by locating it at the juncture of two lines of cards that
cross each other.
Presentation
The performer deals out twenty-five cards in turn to five spectators
with the request that each spectator mentally selects and memorises one
of the five cards he holds. The performer takes back all five card
packets and squares the assembled pack. He now continues by dealing out
the same twenty-five cards into five heaps after which he holds up each
five card packet in turn with faces towards the spectators. When a
spectator sees his selected card in one of the five card spreads, he is
told to immediately let the performer know so that this five card packet
can be placed in front of the spectator in question. If more than one
card is present in any given five card spread, the performer will place
the five card packet in front of the spectator who first speaks up. The
second spectator will be considered in due time.
After checking the last five card spread, the performer explains that
he will now attempt to identify the several spectator cards by noting
their psychological reaction to the several cards as they are placed
face up in their hands, one by one. The performer is able to correctly
specify each spectator's card in turn by observing their facial
expressions and bodily reactions.
Method
The success of this trick is completely dependent on the manner in
which the performer deals and collects the cards. In dealing out the
cards at the beginning (face down), the performer starts with the
spectator on his left (one card) and then rotates the deal to the right
(one card each). After the first five cards have been dealt (one to each
spectator), the performer repeats this dealing sequence for the
remaining twenty card packets (face down), but in an order that is the
reverse to that of the card deal. Thus he collects the packet of the
fifth spectator first, places the packet of the fourth spectator on top
of this, places the packet of the third spectator on top of the two
packets in his hand, and so forth, so that at the end the first
spectator's packet at the top when the performer squares up the
twenty-five face down cards.
The performer deals out the twenty-five cards a second time in the
same manner as was done the first time. The performer holds up each five
card packet in turn with cards spread with faces towards the spectators
for ready identification of their selected cards. Any packet containing
an identified card is placed in front of the spectator whose card is in
that packet. When all the five mentally selected cards have been
located, the performer picks up one of the five-card packets in front of
one of the spectators and asks him to verify again that his card is in
this group of five. To check, he asks the spectator to hold out his hand
(palm upward). The performer then removes cards, one by one, from the
top of the face down five-card packet and lays them face upward in turn
on the palm of the spectator's hand. Just prior to this stage, the
performer locates the spectator's card by relating it to the position of
the spectator relative to the other four spectators. Spectators are
numbered from one to five starting with spectator number one at the
performers far left and ends with the spectator five at performer's far
left.
The cards in the five-card packets are similarly numbered with number
one as the bottom face down card and number five the top face down card.
The spectator's number is now a cue to the spectator's card. When a
right handed person spreads a card packet, he normally does so with the
bottom card pointing to the far left and the top card to the far right.
In this trick, geometric observation is helpful, the correct spectator's
card is the one pointed towards him. Thus if the spectator is at
position three, his card in the five-card packet is the middle or third
card. If he is at position five, then his card number five which in a
normal card spread is also to the far right.
Once the performer has located the spectator's card by this
association of card/ spectator positions, it is but a matter of
dramatics to convince the audience that he must be actually spotting the
spectator's card by observation of spectator's reaction to his card when
placed on his hand.
Explanation
Lay down the cards in the form of five rows of five cards each, one
under the other. If a person were now asked to select a card and to
identify its position by giving its row and column number, there would
be no hesitation in picking it out. In the first deal, the number
position of the spectator corresponds to column in which the spectator's
card will be located. In the second deal, the spectator looks for his
card in one of the packets and in pointing out this packet to the
performer, he at the same time unknowingly advise the performer that
this is the row in which his card is located. By knowing the column and
row applying to the spectator's card, the performer, in essence, simply
locates the juncture of the two and the disclosure of the card follows.
It may be helpful to clarify the geometric configuration involved by
dealing out the cards face up and checking out for yourself how the
principle of the row and column intersection actually work out this
trick.
Comments
This card effect can be extended to cover six-card packets deal to
six spectators, or in general to packets of x cards each dealt in
rotation to x spectator since the basic principle still holds.
Card Tricks > Geometric Treatment Card Trick
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