How to Do Card Tricks Convincingly

Magic card tricks are a fun way to entertain your friends and family, and can provide a great rainy-day activity. Learning how to do card tricks is easy, but you must be able to do them convincingly, so practice a few principles when showing off your skills.

Difficulty: Easy

Instructions

1. Work with your audience. In order to do magic card tricks convincingly, you'll need to engage your viewers. Involving them in your tricks can help make them believe you're truly doing magic. Use an audience member to verify that you're using a normal deck of cards, for instance.

2. Become an actor. Magic tricks rely on your face not giving anything away, and your ability to feign surprise. If you're unable to do magic without sounding or looking phony, the audience will have a hard time being impressed.

3. Watch where you're looking. Magic is all about illusion, and in order for many card tricks to work you'll have to use misdirection. If you get caught looking down at the card you're switching or pulling out of your sleeve, others will follow your gaze and the jig is up.

4. Practice in the mirror. Watch your expressions and hand movements while doing a trick, and try to make them more convincing. Make sure you can do the trick smoothly and that you aren't inadvertently showing your audience how it's done.

5. Learn to cover your mistakes. Occasionally, a magic card trick will not go as planned, and you'll have to find a way to work with it. If possible, you must pretend it's part of the trick itself.