How to Do the Paired Court Magic Card Trick

Many card tricks are self working, so they don't need many sleights of hand or other sneaky methods. The Paired Court card trick is one of these. The effect of this trick is that the court cards will appear to arrange themselves into pairs. Keep reading to learn how.

Difficulty: Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Deck of playing cards

1. Take the 12 court cards out of the deck. The court cards are the jacks, queens and kings. When you do so, make sure that one of the red queens is on the top of the deck, when the deck is face down. Make sure your spectator doesn't realize you have done this.

2. Arrange the other 11 court cards in pairs so that no two colors or values are next to each other. For example, you can have two black kings next to two red jacks. Alternatively, you could place two red kings next to two black queens. The second red queen should be on the top, so that when you turn your pile of 11 paired cards face down, the red queen is the first one.

3. Turn over two cards at a time and show them quickly to your spectator. Make sure you mention that you have 12 cards, although this is a bluff. After you show each pair, return them face down to the bottom. The cards will not be matches now, since you actually are holding only 11 cards.

4. Count the six pairs aloud as you remove them from the top and put them on the bottom. What happened is the spectator actually saw the one red queen twice, but hopefully they didn't notice. Now the red queen is on the bottom of the 11 card pile.

5. Place the 11 cards on the rest of the deck. The two queens will be together now. Do some false cuts to make it appear you are mixing up the cards if you like. Show six pairs again, taking them from the top of your new deck. They will match up this time, two kings together, two jacks together and so on.