3 Card Monte
Three cards Monte is a very old magic trick since the 15th century, also known as ‘find the lady’. It is just an illusion that magicians trick you into. As the name suggests, the “three-card Monte” consists of the combination of three cards from the deck of 52 cards. Among the three cards, one is the card which you hide till the end, another is the card that you show twice and the third one is the money card.
The combination of cards is such that the jack of spades and jack of clubs complementing the ‘money cards’ which is usually the queen. The queen is often a red card, usually the queen of hearts. At times the ace of spades is used as the money card too because in some cultures the ace of spades is beheld as lucky and luck is the premier factor on which this trick works and this makes the game more interesting.
Three Card Monte was a favorite trick of legendary magician Michael Skinner. For 20 years, he enjoyed demonstrating his incredible variation at the Golden Nugget casino in Las Vegas. The routine he performed made use of some cleverly designed. Three Card Monte, or Find the Queen is a classic chance game! Can you randomly select the card hiding the queen? It's a 1 in 3 chance of choosing the right answer!
The spectators can examine that you are not hiding any card or using more than cards. If they can prove their suspicions, you owe them a certain amount if they cannot, they owe you the said amount.
Now coming to the way how the game is played, there are multiple ways of how to play this game
- First one is where the dealer has three cards in his hands and asks the player to choose the winning card, he confronts the audience to guess the winning card and every right guess wins a certain amount, and every wrong guess gives the dealer that certain amount.
- The second one is where one identifies the position of the winning card if the dealer is holding 3 cards in hand one on top of another the player should know whether the winning is at the top, centre or bottom. The right guess gives the player money and wrong guess, to the dealer.
- The dealer asks the player to guess the third card he unfolds and the other two for the player and asks the player to guess the remaining card. If you can guess it, you win and if not you lose.
The dealer never fools you with any of the above tricks. He is just too fast with his moves that a normal person can never decode his moves and identify the right card. It is the dealer’s job to make sure that the player never wins. The tricks he uses are not to fool you. The magician intends to make you spellbound and the dealer does his job.
How to Arrange the Cards?
You pick three cards out of which 2 are losing and one is winning. Try to use identical cards as the losing cards.
How to trick?
- 1. Bending
3 Card Monte Rules
Once you’ve got your 3 cards selected, the first important step in showcasing for the trick is the bend. You will take each of the 3 cards and bend them lengthwise. This means that when you place the cards on the table, the long edge of the card will be rested on the table, and the shorter end will curve upwards. The next step is to pre-bend the corners of the cards so that picking and holding become easy. You will need to bend the outer right corner and inner left corner of each card. Once you perform the trick, you will bend the money card to make it appear easier for the player to watch.
- 2. Throwing
3 Card Monte
The throw signifies the way you need to place the cards on the table in order to confuse the player so that the player is following the wrong card from the very beginning.
- 3. The fake throw
In exactly the same way as you picked the card for the fake throw you need to throw them with the winning card on the bottom of your right hand, and the losing card on the top. The difference is that when you go to throw down the first card, you will throw down the top card, not the bottom card. To do this, you need to let the top card go with your index finger, and immediately grab the bottom card with your index finger.
3 Card Monte Magic Trick
This is an illusion for the player which will leave him quite confused till the end and he will not figure out the trick till the end.