Neat Card Trick

Select a standard deck of cards with four suits and a total of 52 cards plus the Jokers. Remove the Jokers.

Step 1: Count values

This trick involves only counting the face value of cards, also counting cards themselves. Pay no attention to the suit of the cards.

In this trick an Ace has a value of 1. A Jack has a value of 11. A Queen has a value of 12. A King has a value of 13.

Comments

[JReynolds09]

I did it, and it didn't work the first time. my middle deck, top card was a 7 and I had 8 cards left. I checked and everything was right other than that. any reason why this could happen.

[Phil B]

I had another thought about why you might have gotten a wrong result. When a person is first doing this trick it is easy to forget and place the first card on the bottom of a pile, rather than on the top. If the new top card were an 8 rather than the 7 you first drew, that would account for your result.

[Phil B]

I have been showing this to people over the last 50 years. As I said, so long as I used a complete deck and so long as I counted correctly, it has always worked. It sounds as if you tried it a second time and it worked. Is that correct?

[skunkbait]

Are you sure you're playing with a full deck?