Magic Card FAQs

What is misdirection?

Misdirection is how many modern magic tricks are accomplished. Instead of being incredibly fast with their hand magicians use their mental and performance capacity to mislead the audience into thinking the trick is being performed somewhere that it is not. A magician will purposely mislead their audience to look away while they perform the trick right in view. If the audience knew what was going on they would be able to spot the trick easily. You can try this at home easily as well. Show someone in the room a coin in your palm. Now make it look like you are putting it into your other hand and tightly close that empty fist while looking at it. The coin is palmed in the original hand and casually dropped to the side. The audience has already seen the entire trick, but they are waiting for you to open your hand which will reveal the coin has disappeared. To bring the coin back you will have to get creative. Making it appear behind the ear is easy enough.

What are gaffed cards?

Gaffed cards, commonly called trick cards are cards that differ from the regular cards in a standard deck. They may have pictures on them, be doubled sided, have different numbers on them, or have different colors. They are important for many tricks including the simple Monte and the double Monte. They are most often custom made by the individual magician, but Bicycle makes many pre-gaffed decks for accomplished magicians. They can also be used to create illusions and other effects.