The trick that fooled Churchill

Check out a trick called ‘out of this world’ which is widely reported to have fooled Winston Churchill during a wartime dinner party.  He asked to see it several times over, was completely baffled and it even made him late for parliament, or so the story goes. 

It is a very simple but effective card trick that has been credited to the American amateur magician Paul Curry. This trick is legendary amongst magicians; all you need is a pack of cards and the secret outlined below. 

 The effect involves a volunteer guessing which card is red and which one is black from only seeing the back of the cards. Once they have guessed all the cards in the pack the magician reveals that they have guessed every single card correctly, amazing!  

Watch the video demo and learn the secret below:

The secret is as follows:

Step 1: In advance you need to prepare the pack and separate the deck into half black cards and half red cards.  It doesn’t matter which is on the top.

Step 2: At the start of the trick you can either kick straight off or if you want a more authentic approach complete a number of false shuffles. The cards need to remain half black and half red. 

Step 3: Take out two red and two black cards from the deck ensuring you do not reveal that the deck is split by colour.

Step 4: Put one black and one red card face up on the table and one black and one red card face-up in the middle of the pack, this needs to be exactly where the colour changes. 

Step 5: Now deal the cards on to the each of the face up cards in accordance with your volunteer’s choice. It doesn’t matter which one. The first half of the deck will all be of one colour meaning that the choice will be 50% correct. 

Step 6: When you get to the face-up cards, say to avoid any bias you are going to put them on the opposite pile i.e. place the red card face up on the line which started with a black card and vice versa. 

Step 7: Continue to deal the cards until complete. Once again, as the second half of the deck is one colour you will end up with one line which matches 100% to the corresponding face-up cards and one line where the cards are split between red and black but they do not match the corresponding face up cards. 

Step 8: Now for the reveal. Get your volunteer to turn over the line of cards that match the face up marker cards. This will provide a level of distraction, whilst they are doing this gather up the second line of cards (leaving the first marker card on the table) and  reverse the order of the cards. This simple move should be done smoothly and by doing so will go unnoticed but will instantly make the face cards match the corresponding face down cards.

This trick really is quite simple to perform but quite baffling to your spectators. 

If you like this, check out our take on this trick. Other Worldly has been made from Star Gazer Bicycle cards for an extra special performance.