Card Forces - Use The Force

Easy card force sleights that when mastered will allow you to perform lots of amazing magic and card tricks. These secret moves, open the door to hundreds of cool tricks. Even quicker than you can say ABRACADABRA

Exaggerated methood of forcing a card on someone.

To" force a card " is to ask the spectator to choose any card and make them pick the card you want them to pick, while leaving them thinking that they had a completely free choice .

This way you can create your own tricks.

A typical routine being as follows.

Just before performing your trick, select a card to force. Then, force that card on your spectator ( using one of several easy card manipulations, that yiou can learn on this page,) let them view the card without you seeing it and then re insert it back in the deck.

They can then, shuffle the deck.

Ask them to cut the deck in half and keep on doing things that will make your audience think that is impossible for you to tell which card was chosen. After a while you can reveal their card and accept the applause.

Riffle Slip ForceThe Riffle Slip Force is one of the most convincing and easy to do ways to ensure that your spectator chooses your desired card.

You can see the move in action here. Make sure that the card that you wish to be chosen is on the top of the pack (face down ) before starting the trick.
In this example we will use the 3 of hearts.

To carry out this excellent sleight, hold the cards as shown in a basic hold known as the mechanic's grip so that the top card can be held securely in place with a gentle squeeze from your four fingers.

You then proceed to grip the pack firmly as shown and riffle through the pack by applying slight pressure to the far corner of the pack as shown.
As your thumb spreads across the corner the cards will riffle down. Tell the spectator to call "stop !" when they wish you to stop.

Heres the money shot! While keeping a fairly firm grip on the top card in the pack with your fingers. Grab a pile of cards from the middle of the deck and pluck them from the pack in an upwards direction.

The top card will remain where it is and will be pushed against the rest of the pack. ( this should be done in one smooth, swift motion ) and will be unnoticed by the spectator.

The top card of the pack in the magician's hand can then be turned face up to reveal the force card.
Your spectator will be convinced that this is the card that was at the position in the pack, that they shouted "stop" at.

Top 5 Ways To Force A Card

Here are five of the most useful ways to force a card on someone.

It is much easier to understand how to do the card forces by watching them being done on video or by following the step by step photos further down the page.
The video below explains probably all you will need to know to be able to do a good card force.

Elimination Force

Please note that the card to be forced has been turned face up in the photos to make explanation easier. This card would be face down during the actual performance.

Place card to be forced on top of the pack.

1. To do this force, select the card to force and place it on top of the face down deck. Tell your audience that you will extract six cards at random.

Extract the top card and five more cards. You must always remember which one is your card to be forced.

Display playing cards in two rows of three in preparation for a smooth performance of a card force.

2. Now, display the six cards in two rows of three cards each. For this example, the selected card will be the third one of the top row.

In this case the red king would have been placed face down on the top right. The card is only shown face up here for illustration .

Spectator selects a row of playing cards.

3. Ask the spectator to select a row. If the spectator selects the top row, say -"OK, we'll keep this one...". If the spectator selects the bottom one, say -"OK, we'll take this one out". The idea is to keep the row with our peeked card .

Spectator selects two cards from a row of three that he can see on the table.

4. Now, ask the spectator to select any two cards. There are three possibilities. If the spectator selects the first two cards, say - " let me remove these two cards and you take the remaining one".

If the spectator selects the last two, remove the first one, leaving the second and the third, and repeat the process. If he selects the first and the last, remove the second one and repeat the process.

Stop Force

Do the pinky break sleight to prepare the deck in readiness to perform the card force..

1. This force, looks even better, because you actually ask the spectator to tell you to stop any place on the deck and THEY select the card at the stop point.

Start by cutting the deck and placing the card to be forced at the top of the bottom portion of the deck.

2. Now, you'll be doing a very useful move named the little finger break . This move consists in leaving your little finger over the peeked card, so you can easily cut to it.

Riffle the deck. with your thumb and ask the spectator to tell you where in the deck to stop.

3. Now, riffle the deck and ask your spectator to tell you to stop in any place.

Stop at the pinky break position in the deck.

4. When the spectator calls stop, you'll stop at the pinky break. (requires practice)

5. Give the spectator the card that they selected.

These are just a few of the many methods of forcing a card as well as the classic card force that are available to learn.

You may have heard of the infamous second deal card sleight which is a form of card forcing which may be used in the field of cardistry or to give an unfair advantage in card games.