How to Do the Jail House Rock Card Trick

Impress your friends with this intricate magic card trick. As long as you do the trick correctly by following the steps, counting correctly and adding correctly, this trick works out on its own.

Difficulty: Moderate

Instructions

1. Remove all the Jokers out of a regular deck of cards and shuffle the deck.

2. Choose the top card off the deck. If it is a face card, put it back on the bottom of the deck until you find a number card.

3. Place the number card face down. Add whatever number of cards you need to the top of this card so that the face value of the card and the number of cards you place face down on top of it equals eleven. For example: if the number card is a six, place 5 more cards from the deck on top of the six card; if the card is a two card, add another 9 cards from the deck to the top of the two card and so forth.

4. Make 6 more piles identical to the pile made in Step 3.

5. Ask your friend to select 3 piles from among the 7 piles on the table. Then remove the remaining 4 piles.

6. Tell your friend to then pick 2 more piles from among the 3 on the table. Turn over the top cards from these 2 piles. Deal out the value of the face or number card for each of these cards next to the 2 piles. For example, if the top card is a four, deal out 4 cards face down; if it is a King, deal out 10 cards face down.

7. Deal out 16 cards in a separate pile.

8. Deal out the remaining cards into a pile, counting them out loud. Now turn over the top card in the third pile of cards your friend chose in Step 5. The number of cards and the value of this top card should be the same.

Tips & Warnings

• Practice this magic card trick until you feel very comfortable with it before attempting it in front of a friend or audience.