Magic is a great way to entertain your friends and family. It is also very useful in business and can be used as a great “icebreaker” when meeting new business contacts. This series of articles will teach you some simple tricks, which you can perform anywhere, without any special equipment.

The imaginary deck of cards

This is an excellent trick and will allow you to do a card trick anywhere you want, even if you don’t have a deck of cards!

How the trick appears to the public

1. You intend to take an invisible deck of cards out of your pocket and give them to someone to shuffle.
2. You can have fun telling them that they have dropped a card and asking them to pick it up and put it in the package. “Hey, that’s the Ace of Spades. That’s my favorite card!”
3. Then you ask them to take a letter from the package, but not to tell you what the letter is.
4. Then you tell them to silently multiply the value of their card by 10. An Ace counts as one, Jack as eleven, and Kings as thirteen. Obviously number cards only use their own face value, for example 2 is 2, 3 is 3, etc.
5. Then you ask them to add a number to their number; Let’s say you tell them to add “five.”
6. Then you ask them to add one to their number if the card is a clover, two if it is a heart, three if it is a spade, and four if it is a diamond.
7. He then asks them what number they are thinking of and can immediately tell them the name of the card they are thinking of.

How to do the trick

1. Puzzling simple goal.
2. All you have to do is subtract the number you gave them to add to their number, and the rest will tell you which card they are thinking of.
3. For example, let’s say you are thinking about the four of Clubs.
4. They multiply that by ten and get forty.
5. Then it asks them to add five (it can be any number you want, but we’ve made it five to simplify this explanation) to their number and that gives them 45.
6. Then you ask them to add one to their number if the card is a clover, two if it is a heart, three if it is a spade, and four if it is a diamond.
7. So since your card is a Club, they will add one to your total, giving 46.
8. When you subtract 5 from 46 you get 41.
9. The first digit tells you the number of the card (4 means it is a 4) and the second digit tells you the suit of the card (1 = Clover).
10. So, you know that his card was the four of clubs and you can reveal it in the most dramatic way you want.

Let’s do it again with the King of Diamonds.

1. They multiply the King (13) by ten, which gives them 130.
2. You then ask them to add 5 to their number, which gives them 135.
3. Then you ask them to add one to their number if the card is a clover, two if it is a heart, three if it is a spade, and four if it is a diamond.
4. Since it is a Diamond, they will add up to four, for a total of 139.
5. If you subtract 5 from 139, it gives you 134.
6. The first two digits tell you that it is a King (13) and the last digit tells you that it is a Diamond (4).
7. So you know that the card they are thinking of is the King of Diamonds.

Remember, if you’re good at mental arithmetic, you can change the “five” and ask them to add your number, to whatever number you want, every time you do the trick.

As long as you are sure to subtract “your” number from your number in your mind! Five is an easy number to subtract, so stick with it for a while until you develop your confidence and experience.