First, here’s the trick. It’s awesome because it works and you can even use it to amaze yourself! There’s no actual “magic” skill required, and in order to make it into a real magic trick, all you have to is add a little razzle dazzle. You can even instruct other people to do it, thus allowing you to preform “magic” without even touching the deck.

Follow these steps carefully:

Step 1: Get a 52 card deck.

Step 2: Shuffle the deck.

Step 3: Flip the first card of the deck over.

Step 4: Take 13 and subtract the value of the card you flipped over. Number cards equal face value, Jack is 11, Queen is 12, King is 13. Flip over that many additional cards. This forms one pile. (Example: Flip over a five, then flip over 8 more cards. Flip over a King, flip over no more cards.)

Step 5: Repeat until you run out of cards in the deck. If you cannot complete a full pile, leave the remaining cards in the deck.

Step 6: Flip all the piles over so that the back of the cards are face up. It’s important to not rearrange the order of the cards.

Step 7: Pick up piles at random until there are three piles left. Add those piles to whatever remains to the deck (forming a new deck if all of your piles were perfect and the original deck was empty).

Step 8: Flip over the top card of two of the piles.

Step 9: Take the deck of cards. Remove ten cards from the top.

Step 10: Take the value of one of the cards you flipped over. Remove cards from the top of the deck equal to that value.

Step 11: Take the value of the other card you flipped over. Remove cards from the top of the deck equal to that value.

Step 12: Count the amount of cards remaining in the deck. That value will equal the value of the top card of the remaining pile.

Step 13: Flip that card over.

Step 14: Act amazed. It’s mathematical magic!

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