At any holiday, or just in a friendly company, sooner or later a moment arises when ordinary conversations begin to cause boredom, and you want something unusual. It is in this situation that a person who knows several simple tricks, has an excellent opportunity to attract the attention of everyone present.

Complex tricks that require lengthy preparation and special props are not suitable for a “sudden” demonstration in a company. But simple plot tricks, such as “two robbers”, based on sleight of hand, will provide the illusionist with delight and applause from the audience.

The “two robbers” trick is a short story accompanied by manipulations with coins. “Two robbers decided to somehow rob a bank,” says the magician, accompanying his words with an image of “pacing” fingers. “They entered the vault and found four bags of money in it.” The magician, of course, does not have bags, but they are completely replaced by 4 coins laid out in a square.

Continuing the story, the narrator shows how the robbers each take two “bags”, how, having heard the guard’s steps, they drop the coins in fear and, hastily collecting them, run away. At this point, the audience sees that there should be 2 coins in each fist. However, the robbers come home... And then they discover that the loot is distributed unfairly: in one fist there are three coins, and in the second - only one.

How to show “two robbers” correctly

The four coin trick is based on the same principle as famous game into the "thimble". The quick movements of the magician's hands hide the actions that he is actually doing with the coins, and it seems to the audience that each hand is taking 2 coins over and over again.

Before you do the “two robbers” trick with coins, you need to remember the algorithm of actions well.

At first you simply illustrate your story by moving the coins around. It is best to lay them out in the form of a quadrangle: this way it will be more convenient for you to take them, and, at the same time, the money will be clearly visible to the public. Place a coin in each palm, then clench your fists and place the second coin on your closed fingers.

The most difficult part of the trick begins after the words “they fussed and ran.” You begin to quickly move your hands in a circle, feigning panic. At this moment you need to “drop” 2 bags.

It seems to the viewer that 1 coin is falling from each hand, but this is nothing more than an illusion. You quickly throw both coins onto the table from one fist, and at the same time unclench and immediately squeeze the second, allowing the coin lying on your fingers to fall into your palm. If you did everything correctly, but one palm will remain empty, and the other will now contain as many as 2 coins.

Now pick up the “fallen bags”: place one coin on each hand and, opening your fingers for a second, hide the money in your fist.

So, how much did the thieves earn this evening? That's right: one is 3 bags, and the second is just one.

This is important! Like most of tricks based on sleight of hand and optical illusion, the “two robbers” trick should not be shown twice in a short period of time, since with each show the likelihood that someone will notice your manipulations increases.

Four Jacks - Four Thieves

This trick was sent to me by one of the fans card games and tricks. It consists in the following. To prepare the trick, 4 jacks, 3 any cards and 2 aces are taken from the deck. Any 3 cards in our case are six, seven and eight of diamonds.

6, 7 and 8 are discreetly placed at the bottom of the stack of jacks.

After that, the cards are laid out on the palm (4 jacks) in such a way as shown in the photo below. In this case, the 6, 7, and 8 diamonds will be under the jacks.

After the cards have been laid out, we begin the story for the audience: “4 jacks - 4 thieves (we show 4 jacks) went to rob the house (we collect our cards in a pile and carefully place it on a common deck of cards face down as shown in in the photographs below, so that the viewer does not have time to notice that you have not 4, but 7 cards in your hand) went to rob the house.

The first one went to the basement (remove the first top card from the deck face down, in our case it will be 6 diamonds, and hide it almost at the very bottom of the deck), the second to the room (hiding the second card in the middle of the deck), the third to the kitchen (hiding the third card, also in the middle of the deck), and the fourth remained at the top (we turn over the top card - it’s a jack).

At this time, the alarm went off in the house and the police arrived (let the 2 aces be the police). The thief who remained on guard saw the police in time and called his accomplices to the roof of the house (everything here is subject to the imagination of a magician - you can close the deck with a “magic handkerchief”, “conjure”, making “magic” passes with your hands, or say “magic words”). The thieves gathered on the roof (we turn over the top 3 cards - naturally these are jacks) and managed to escape."

Four robbers

Focus Description:

Four jacks are shown to the public and placed on top of the deck. They are declared to be robbers, and the deck is declared to be a mansion that they are going to rob. The first jack should stand upright, resting on some object on the glass table. He portrays a guard in the garden. The second jack is placed at the bottom of the deck - he explores the basement. The third jack is placed in the middle of the deck - he searches the dining rooms and other rooms on the first floor, and the fourth jack is placed closer to the top of the deck - he is “responsible” for the bedrooms. At a signal from the guard in the garden, all the jacks rush to the roof to hide - and are again found at the top of the deck.

The secret of the trick:

1. You can use a pre-prepared deck for this trick, but it is easy to prepare it by lazily playing with cards before starting the trick or starting your reprise. You say: “For this trick I need four jacks, although they can be called robbers, because they are known cheats, especially when they get together to play a little trick.”

2. While pronouncing this monologue, find jacks in the deck and at the same time arrange it so that the sequence is formed: jack, jack, jack, three simple cards, jack on top. Fan out the deck, hiding the plain cards behind the third jack, so that you can show the audience four jacks in a row (see picture). Place the rest of the deck face down on the table.

3. Say: “One dark night, four jacks decided to rob a rich mansion, they wanted to climb onto the roof using the fire escape and get into the house through the window above the door. The deck is a mansion, the four jacks at the top are four robbers.” You roll up a fan of jacks and place them face down on the top of the deck. The second, third and fourth cards are, of course, not jacks.

Four jacks fanned out with three simple maps between the third and fourth, are shown to the audience. Of course, the spectators only see four jacks and are unaware of the hidden cards

4. Continue: "But they changed the plan, realizing that it would be better if one of them remained in the garden as a guard - in case the police showed up. So one of the robbers did not climb onto the roof, he remained in the garden, on guard."

5. Take the top card from the deck, the jack, and place it so that it rests on any object (for example, a wine glass) on the table. Say: “This is the guard.”

6. "The rest of the jacks climbed onto the roof, following the original plan. The first one went into the basement to see what was there." Place the top card near the bottom of the deck (not the jack, of course). "The next jack went to the dining room, library and living room." Place the third card in the middle of the deck. "And the last jack was looking for jewelry in the bedrooms." Place the fourth card a quarter away from the top of the deck.

7. Now tell the audience: “While each jack was busy with his business, a policeman walked along the road, stopped near a mansion and walked along the alley, as if checking if everything was in order. Knave in the garden (point to the jack on the table) decided it was risky to give warning of danger, so he whistled." If you are a good whistler, make a loud whistle. This will bring your little show to life.

8. “Hearing the whistle, all the jacks rushed to the roof to then go down the fire escape.” Showcase the deck. “And here they are, my dears, all on the roof.” Turn over the top three cards to reveal that they are three jacks.

As I already said, this is the original version of the trick and does not require any special skills. However, if you have already mastered the Double Raise manipulation and don't like the way you prepare the deck before the trick, you can get your jacks to end up on top of the deck using the method used for the Four Aces trick. It is also used in another four-jack trick called Jumping Jacks.

On the other hand, let's say you perform the Jumping Jacks trick first. When you collect the jacks after this trick, you can fan them out as shown on the previous page and go straight to the Four Robbers trick. Since the audience saw you just use jacks, they won't be inclined to suspect that you have more than just four jacks in your hand. The reprise in this case should be: “Now you know what these terrible jacks can do, let me tell you the story of a recent dastardly crime and how they almost managed to get away with it.”