160363

Truth or Lie?
Leah & Amelia

Person A – participant
Person B – magician (this trick is not magic)
The first step to this trick is to sort the cards into three piles of three (done by Person B). When Person A chooses a pile Person B place that pile on top of all the others when collecting the cards. The card Person A has seen is now in the 3rd position because when they pick up the pile their card is at the bottom so when Person B places them face-down it’s the third card in the pile.
Person B will now ask Person A to lie or tell the truth about what their card was. It does not affect the outcome of the trick whether Person A lies or tells the truth. For example: Person A sees the card Ace of Hearts but chooses to lie and say Jack of Clubs. When Person B spells out the word “Jack”, they place “J”, then “A”, then “C” (the third card which is Person A’s card). The “K” is the final card to be put down when spelling this word. You place these cards at the bottom of the pile and Person A’s card is now at position seven because there are two cards before it (“J” and “A”). It doesn’t matter how many cards are placed after it because the smallest amount of letter possible on the first word is three so there are two letters before Person A’s card.
The card now moves to the 5th place because when you spell “of” two more cards are placed at the bottom of the pile (neither are Person A’s card) so Person A’s card moves up two places to the 5th position (7-2=5).
Next you spell out either “hearts”, “diamonds”, “clubs” or “spades”. There are always going to be four cards in front of Person A’s card. This will bring it back to the 5th position.
When you spell “magic” the “C” is the fifth letter and Person A’s card is in the fifth place. When Person B reveals the letter “C” from the word “magic” they reveal the Ace of Hearts and tell Person A they were lying. This is not a magic trick, this is just a very complicated bit of maths.