How to Learn Card Forcing

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By eHow Contributing Writer

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Card forcing is very important in most card magic tricks. During a magic trick, there are a myriad of ways to force a card on someone. Here are the steps to performing four variations of card forcing.

Difficulty: Moderate

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

Deck of cards
Friend and/or audience

Cross-Cut Card Force

Step 1

Place the desired card on the top of the deck and ask your friend to cut the cards.
Step 2

Ask him to place the bottom half of the deck crosswise onto the top part of the deck to "mark the spot," which actually serves to distract him.
Step 3

Talk to your friend for a while about how there is no way you could know the card because they cut the cards themselves in a random spot. Then ask your friend to remove the deck on top and pull the top card off the bottom half of the deck.
Step 4

Tell him what card it is without looking at it because you forced him to choose this card and you know what it is.

Card Force With Dice

Step 1

Plant the card to the seventh or fourteenth card position depending upon how many dice you are rolling. With dice, the opposite sides of 1 die add up to 7, and with 2 dice the opposite sides add up to 14.
Step 2

Instruct your friend to roll the dice.
Step 3

Tell your friend that you will add the number he has rolled together with the opposite side of the dice or die.
Step 4

Count out that number of cards (7 or 14) and tell him what card it is because you forced it on him.

Hindu Shuffle Card Force

Step 1

Do a Hindu shuffle with the deck by quickly taking the cards off the top of the deck in your right hand (held between your thumb and fingers) with your left hand, placing them in your left hand, which is lower than the original deck. Keep the cards in your left hand close to the original deck, which makes it appear that you are shuffling the deck.
Step 2

Tell your friend to tell you when he wants you to stop.
Step 3

Show him the card on the bottom of your deck, which is the forced card. You have forced this card upon him because you know what card was on the bottom of the deck and now you can predict it, as if by magic.

Countdown Card Force

Step 1

Place your forced card on top of the deck.
Step 2

Instruct your friend to choose a number between 1 and 10. For this example, let's say he chose 5.
Step 3

Deal out 5 cards onto the table starting with the forced card, telling him you are showing him what you want him to do.
Step 4

Put the dealt cards on the top of the cards. You just reversed the order of the cards so that the top card is now in the fifth position, exactly where you want it to be.
Step 5

Ask your friend to deal out the cards, tell him what the fifth card is, because you forced it on him.