Aces Switch Places

The magician starts to make four piles of cards by dealing four aces, showing them to the audience. He then deals three cards onto each, so the ace remains at the bottom.

Then the magician gathers up the cards, and starts dealing them again, so the first three cards will be random, and the fourth will be an ace. He demonstrates this fact.

He then deals the remaining 12 cards to make the four piles, so the right-most pile contains all the aces.

The magician takes the bottom Ace and puts it on the top of the pile to its left, and takes the bottom random card from the pile that he has just added the card to, and puts it on top of the aces. After a magical move, all the aces have followed the ace and are now in the other pile, leaving the random cards in the pile that contained the aces.

Pictures

1. Exposed view of initial piles

Method

Start as explained in the effect, and continue until you show the first ace in the right-most pile. The secret move is that when you flip the ace over to show the audience, use the top card of the remaining 12 cards. Return this card to the bottom of your 12, so the sequence will be one card out. Then continue as explained in the effect.

Comments

sushifish28
6th Apr 06
i dont get it:S
jahovis
1st May 06
No offense, but you did a really bad job explaining this trick. I don't know whether to deal the cards face up or face down, and am confused about many other aspects.
sajid
3rd May 06
Can u be a bit clear ..?
Sunny
10th May 06
I agree with everyone else
Donly1
16th May 06
Yeah that's what i'm about to tell....I just wish u can exlain it a little bit clearly cuz I very don't understand!
yanzhang
21st May 06
thanks for the explain but i still dont understand
Kashukun
25th May 06
who will learn how to do this trick if the explanation is bad
ramodkk
8th Jun 06
same
Legendary
8th Jun 06
ugh. i only got the first part. be more clear?
trappakeepa
8th Jun 06
Same with everyone else, I dont get it.
Mind
13th Jun 06
The thing is that all cards are kept face down ..and .. at the time of "exposing" the first ace to the viewer ..just take the next top card to the bottom of the deck without their knowledge..then simply continue to deal ...rest is self working
Mint
23rd Jun 06
Yeah, very lousy explaination, let me fix this trick (like I tend to do) EASY & CLEAR PERFORMANCE METHOD 1.First, start off with 4 aces at the bottom of a 12 cards. 2.Next, with the deck face down, flip the cards over from left to right to form 4 rows of 4 with an Ace at the bottom of each 3.Now flip the piles over, stack them on top of eachother and repeat step two except that all four aces will be to the right. 4.To explain this clearly, if the pile was squared up and flipped over the top card would be on top of that pile take the top ace, place it on the bottom of the row to the left of it, take the top card from the row with 5 cards including the ace you added and set it to the top of the ace row. 5. suqare up the piles, flip them over, stack them on top of eachother from left to right. 6.deal the cards as usual, but when you are about to deal the 12th card, perform a second deal so that you skip the ace and then play down the final four aces on the bottom row. This trick still isn't all that impressive, but it's good for starting out.
mrwyano
6th Jul 06
Good Explanation youre rite its not that impressive but i thought it was kinda cool.
kalam
7th Jul 06
Its a great trick for beginners since its almost self-working. I taught it to a few friends and they could perform immediately. You dont even have to prearrange the Aces since you can reveal it to the audience as you perform. You can even get the audience to deal the cards. It helps to be more convincing if they can participate.
Gusty
12th Jul 06
I do it a different way, 1. deal out four rows of three random cards. 2. Put an ace at the bottom of each row. 3. Square the piles and put them on top of each other so that every fourth card is an ace. 4. Deal out 4 face-down cards next to each other like you are starting 4 new piles. 5. Flip them over one by one with a playing card. 6. Give a good line of patter and while they are distracted put the playing card you flipped the 4 cards over with at the bottom of the deck. 7. Continue dealing out the cards like normal but face down to make 4 rows of 4 cards with three face down in each row. 8. Tell an audience member to pick a pile that doesn't have the aces in it, if they pick the third pile, take away the other two piles, move the face-up ace to the third pile and the face-up card on the third pile to the fourth pile, flip over the three face down cards on the third pile and Voila! The 4 aces have followed each other. 9. If they pick the second or first pile, take away whichever pile they picked and put your right hand over the third pile and your left hand over whichever pile they diddn't pick and ask them to pick left or right. Whichever one they say, take away the left pile, then all you have to do is follow the second half of step 8. Also, if you want the aces to end up in the first or second pile, when you put the card on the bottom, if you want the aces in the second pile, put another card on the bottom with it, if you want them in the first pile, put two cards on the bottom with it. I hope this makes it slightly more impressive.
freak4binga
13th Jul 06
nice detailed explanation GUTSY. It was a bit easier to understand for a beginner like me.
davidangelcblain
31st Jul 06
i have a really nice trick called mindbender but i cant submit yet
Nihilus
9th Aug 06
As usual this trick is a good one but horribly explained and then Mint comes along and completely redeems it.
shadowsoldier3
6th Sep 06
Nice trick but you made it hard to understand... thanks though Gusty for the explanation.
lickety
1st Oct 06
GUTSY, thanks alot, finally someone who knows how to expalin something for a change haha yur da man
alecmorand
6th Nov 06
ok now, i really dont understand this trick at all. could someone please help me out, or at least make a video or something so that everyone knows what the heck you are talking about!
invisiblepalm
26th Nov 06
Thanks gutsy and Mint. It was really quite confusing, alrite trick though
rulerof52
4th Dec 06
I believe that it would make more sense if you included the entire explanation in the effect.
alocin
5th Jan 07
I think you need more explination in the trick it would be good if only you could get the trick right
MrImpossible
6th Jan 07
You can also just palm the bottom card on top :s Lame trick...
ranger
13th Jan 07
the trick is great. but lousy explanation. but i think i got it.let me show you.1. take the 4 aces + 12 indifferent cards so that you've got 16. 2. take the packet face up 4aces on top. 3. deal top 4 aces in a row and cotinue to deal the remaining 12 cards so that you will have 4 face up packets aces at the bottom of each pile. 4. gather up the packets from the right. the 4th card from the top ( face up )will be an ace, bottom card of the face up packet will be an ace too. 5. turn the packet over now deal the top 4 face down cards in a row but from right to left.turn the right most card and show that its an ace 6. now for the secret move, take the top face down card of the remaining 12 cards (ace) and move it to the bottom of the face down packet. then continue to deal from right to left(face down). spectaters will think that the right most pile contains aces but it is not. three aces will be in the left most packet. 7. take the ace in the right most packet and move it to the left most packet. now it will have 5 cards top 4 are aces. 8. take the indifferent card from the bottom of the left most packet and move it to the top of the right most packet. 9. turn the packets over and show that all the aces have come to the left most packet. they will be amazed.
tmac3323
26th Jan 07
ok heres how its done for people who dont cant tell... 16 cards... 12 of them are random, four of them are aces, aces start out at the top, and you put them in 4 seperate piles. face down. you show these are aces. 4 cards seperate so far that are aces... deal 3 random cards onto each one, then collect them in a pile, show that the aces are at the bottem of each one. then you deal them out again... but this tiem you dont show anything and you deal by seperate piles. right, middle, left, then top, thats hwo i do it... the bottem is aligned with the left and right and the top is right on the bottem, just like the arrow keys on a keyboard... or at least mine... if you deal it out like i do the aces will always be the fourth one... right bottem left and top has the ace, do it again, top has the ace... do this with the rest of the pile, and you have the 4 aces at the top. hope that helps XD
eca
28th Feb 07
very confusing explanation. I'll perhaps come back to it when I fee like playing mind games with myself.
tobygw
10th Mar 07
I'm so confused. I still don't even understand the new explanations. Will someone please try to explain this as clearly as possible.
debateable
12th Mar 07
i barely got this it could be explained a little better but i did understand it
jkersey
20th Mar 07
If you follow along with your own cards (which is a good idea anyway) the explanation isn't horrible. Not as good as Mint or Gutsy, but passable. I like this trick. It's good to perform for nieces or nephews. They can understand what to expect, and are surprised when it's different.
silvershinobi
9th Apr 07
I agree with everyone about the not understanding it but as with ALL good magic it takes practice and while practicing what you said I think I was able to understand it. Please don't keep refering to "the effect" because unless you tell us which part it gets a little confusing. otherwise this is a great crowd pleaser!
shaunthetaco
13th Apr 07
that was a really good trick. however, many of the other people did not get it. maybe you can explain it a little easier to understand
tourvader
7th May 07
Luckily I read other people's comments. Thanks you guys! I tried this one at school at it worked out fine, so as long as you understand it completely, it should be pretty easy to pull off.
Wobber
18th May 07
After reading all those comments with explanation, I finally got it! It's great to have a community of illusionists so they can work together to get a trick understood.
oddbit
3rd Jun 07
I could understand the explanation, it's the pictures that made it confusing. Still, I muddled through and figured it out. Nice, could be done impromptu.
dreamblade77
14th Oct 07
i didnt get this trick i dont no if i have to put them in some oder or something like that? I got the first part done but i got lost after that.
dreamblade77
14th Oct 07
thanks Gusty that really help a lot


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