I was recently reading an effect in J.K. Hartman's "Card Dodgery" entitled "Jacks and Jills" and I suddenly had a memory of a card effect I used to do (a lot) long before I started learning magic on a serious scale. This was one of about 8 or 10 card tricks I knew and performed (badly) for years as a teen and young adult before my first trip to a magic shop. It was the kind that "Uncle Larry" or some guy at work taught you.

It was pretty much self working. As I recall, a simple dealing effect with only 12 cards. The story (I learned) was 4 business men (kings) were looking for rooms due to a convention in town. The hotel had only 4 rooms and one got each. An hour later, 4 women (queens) in town for a tupperware meeting also needed rooms so the manager had no objection if they shared with the businessmen (as long as they were ok with it) and they certainly were. They got together in each room and decided a card game was in order so the manager found 4 young men from the local college (jacks) and sent one to each room.

The local Vice Cops got wind and raided the place thinking wild acts of hanky panky just had to be going on so they grabbed the master key from the manager who insisted he ran a very christian business and wouldn't even married folks share a room. there was a redeal in the meantime and when the rooms were raided each contained a four of a kind - K's in one Q's in another and J's in the third.

It was a very simple double deal that changed the occupants from mixed to the same but I forget the name, the exact moves and never did have a real reference as far as any type of crediting (and as a total layman myself at the time, didn't even know credits existed). I would love to know who's it was and find it in print or on video somewhere so I can brush it off and perform it again. (Only because it was a fond memory of my "I only know a couple cart tricks days).

Thanks in advance. -Poof

Sounds like a version of the Hotel Trick

http://www.geniimagazine.com/magicpedia/Hotel_Trick

Totally agree with Magico's answer. Sometimes also called 'Hotel Mystery'. Often times uses 4 more cards, (usually the aces) for a total of 16 cards instead of 12. The aces become the vice cops or inspectors depending upon your story line.

That looks like it. I very well may have used the aces also and just forgot. It was taught to me by a guy who worked for my dad when I was 12 or 13 years old. I'm kind of glad the Hartman effect reminded me of it. For as simple as it is, I remember always getting great reactions. Thanks for the link. Now I can trace the "real" origin of it.

R Paul Wilson has a really nice version of the Hotel Mystery called Hotel History on volume 2 of his Extreme Possibilities dvd set that is simple and direct although not self working it's definitely worth checking out if you like the plot.

Funny enough, I asked that same question a few months back, and I got some interesting answers as well. I knew it under a different presentation:Name and source for this old card trick

Poof Daddy, I believe that Emerson & West may have adapted the premise of this effect to their "Shaggy Dog Tale" packet trick. Their trick only uses 7 cards, but by learning the moves, it could be adapted for regular playing cards.


Best Magical Regards,

Mark Williams

I have a vague memory of the trick mentioned in the first post - I recall having seen it from a friend when we were borh kids. Perhaps not the same trick, but the premise seems the same.

Going through volume 2 of Nick Trost's "Subtle Card Creations", I found that Trost gives some background on the plot. He cites an early version from 1859 as being the creation of W. H. Cremer ("Like With Like, or How to Run a Hotel"). He continues to credit Marlo with popularizing the idea ("The Hotel Mystery", 1942) and mentions that the modern version is from an unpublished idea from Persi Diaconis, "suggested" by Ken Beale around 1967 (I'm not sure what is meant by "suggested" in the text). It seems it was an attempt to apply the working of the coin trick "Thieves and Sheep" to playing cards.

Hartman's "Jacks and Jills" is a nice trick - his attention to detail, with this trick in particular, is great. The five "Hotel" tricks in the Trost book are less interesting, but the book has other nice things in it.

I wonder how many packet effects E&W put out over the years? I don't think I ever saw one I did not like though.

carlyle, I agree "Jacks and Jills" is fantastic on its own. I was just amazed that once I read about 1/3 of the way thru, I started getting all these fond memories of my "pre-magic" childhood. I even remember how awesome it felt to be taught the secret to this "hotel effect" that "I" was able to do for people and make me look cool.

This sounds like something that Steve Reynolds did in his Penguin lecture...