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RevdStephen New user 6 Posts |
Dear Friends,
I am developing an effect using binary arithmetic to permit a magician to send a coded message about a chosen playing card to their assistant. So far, the mechanics are quite bald and I could do with some assistance working it into a presentation. EFFECT Six cards are freely chosen by the spectator and seen by the magician. As the magician watches, the spectator chooses one of them and seals it in an envelope. The magician then picks up the remaining five cards and lays them down in such a way that when the assistant enters the room they are able to determine the spectator's card. PROPOSED METHOD Any card has a value 1 (Ace) to 13 (King) - forget the suits for now. The Magician and Assistant have agreed on a suit order (for example CHaSeD) Any five cards can, therefore, be arranged in increasing order - where two or more cards appear with equal values then they are sorted by suit as agreed. Five cards in a row create four steps between one card and the next, where each step is either "increase' or "decrease". This is the key to coding the sixth card. The code simply converts the value of the sixth card into binary. Essentially, this is just using the numbers 8, 4, 2 and 1 to create the required total. You have a ONE if you need the number and a ZERO if you don't. For example, SEVEN is coded as 0111 (4 + 2 + 1) similarly, JACK is coded as 1011 (8 + 2 + 1) Each ONE is represented as an INCREASE and each ZERO is represented as a DECREASE. EXAMPLE The spectator draws six cards as follows: 6C, 8H, 3H, QH, 7S, 7H and chooses QH for the envelope The magician then takes the remaining cards and sorts them in order of size: 3H, 6C, 7H, 7S, 8H We remember that Q (12) is coded as 8+4 so in binary 1100 We need the cards to be sorted as INCREASE, INCREASE, DECREASE, DECREASE So we reverse the order of the final three cards: 3H, 6H, 8H, 7S, 7H Assistant enters the room and sees 'Increase' (3H to 6H) 'Increase' (6H to 8H) 'Decrease' (8H to 7S) and 'Decrease' (7S to 7H using the CHaSeD order) Thinking of this as 1100 it is easy to convert back to 12 and determine the Queen. IDENTIFYING THE SUIT The magician simply leaves a gap in the cards. 1 (gap) 4 = CLUBS 2 (gap) 3 = HEARTS 3 (gap) 2 = SPADES 4 (gap) 1 = DIAMONDS No gap = Spectator chose the Joker! So in our case, when the assistant entered the room, they saw the cards 3H, 6H, (gap), 8H, 7S, 7H and knew that the Spectator's chosen card was the Queen of Hearts. SECOND EXAMPLE Assistant sees the cards 2H, (gap), 9D, 8H, KS, QS and correctly determines that the spectator chose the 10C. PRESENTATION - needs work! CONCEPT - unknown. I doubt this is an original idea, but I can't find anything similar in my own library. |
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hcs Special user Germany, Magdeburg 506 Posts |
A similiar trick is Leo Boudreau's "The Silent Partner" in "Spirited Pasteboards", 1987. He uses also six cards, but he coded the selected card with all six cards. The six cards are lying face-down on the table.
The plot is an old one maybe using only five cards is new. |
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hcs Special user Germany, Magdeburg 506 Posts |
Fitch Cheney’s Five-Card Trick
Fitch Cheney’s Five-Card Trick in "Colm Mulcahy - new mathematical Principles applied to card tricks", 2008 A volunteer from the crowd chooses any five cards at random from a shuffled deck, and hands them to you so that nobody else can see them. You glance at them briefly, and hand one card back, which the volunteer then places face down on the table to one side. You quickly place the remaining four cards face up on the table, in a row from left to right. Your confederate, who has not been privy to any of the proceedings so far, arrives on the scene (e.g., is called in from another room), inspects the faces of the four cards, and promptly names the hidden fifth card. This superb effect is usually credited to mathematician William Fitch Cheney Jnr (1904-1974). Note that you get to choose which card to hand back, and later on, in what order to place the remaining four cards. The first condition can be worked around actually . . . ask how later if this interests you! |
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hcs Special user Germany, Magdeburg 506 Posts |
Fitch Four Glory
in "Colm Mulcahy - new mathematical Principles applied to card tricks", 2008 A volunteer from the crowd chooses any four cards at random and hands them to you. You glance at them briefly, and hand one back, which the volunteer then places face down to one side. You quickly place the remaining three cards in a row on the table, some face up, some face down, from left to right. Your confederate, who has not been privy to any of the proceedings so far, arrives on the scene, looks at the cards on display, and promptly names the hidden fourth card—even in the case where all three cards are face down! |
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RevdStephen New user 6 Posts |
Thank you, hcs - Fitch Cheney's Five Card Trick looks most like the sort of trick I might have glanced at without realising it! Colm Mulcahy (of Card Colm fame) would also be exactly the sort of source in which I might have previously seen the effect described. Thanks for helping to track it down.
The second effect you describe sounds almost impossible - must spend some time figuring that one out. Thanks again. |
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hcs Special user Germany, Magdeburg 506 Posts |
Its my pleasure!
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hcs Special user Germany, Magdeburg 506 Posts |
For the sake of clarity:
In any of those effects the magician selects the hidden card and hands it face down back! |
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RevdStephen New user 6 Posts |
Yes, and so I think this is where my version is better. The spectator not only chooses any six cards but then chooses any one of those six to hide (say replace in the empty card case)!
One further presentation idea is to send a text message to the accomplice, for example: 3D, 2S, JC, KD, 6S, 10S - the spectator chooses 3D I type this message into my phone: 10S 6S 2S JC KD Which everyone sees before I press SEND. The reply comes back: 3D Of course, you will have noticed that I included an extra space character after JC, which conveys the suit. |
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alicauchy Veteran user Málaga, Spain 310 Posts |
You can also consider Eigen's trick.
It is an "improved" version of the original Fitch trick, in which the spectator can even choose the card to hide.
So much to do, so little time . . .
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alicauchy Veteran user Málaga, Spain 310 Posts |
Have just noticed that hcs also mentioned the improvement.
Apologies for my reading in diagonal!!
So much to do, so little time . . .
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saxonia Regular user 168 Posts |
Hello,
You might be interested in reading an older thread in this forum. I really like the idea that the number of submitted cards can be part of the code: http://www.themagiccafe.com/forums/viewt......forum=99 |
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RevdStephen New user 6 Posts |
Thanks for that link, Saxonia. At the time of the OP I had not known of the connection with the older Fitch Cheney effect, which has now led me to considerable additional reading, especially via Colm Mulcahy and Martin Gardner as mentioned above. I recently trialled my version of the effect with some Maths Teacher colleagues and it went down very well. You've got to pick your audience for tricks like this, I suspect!
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RevdStephen New user 6 Posts |
I have just heard from a fellow Maths Teacher, Adam Bissett, about his improvement on my original. He gives permission to share his version here, which I now reproduce in full.
A regular deck of 52 cards is ranked from AC to KD using the standard CHaSeD order of suits. This means any two cards can be ordered (high/low) without any ambiguity. It is possible to encode any chosen card from the 52 with only THREE others. The suit can be done with the gaps between adjacent cards as they are laid down on the table in a row. You have four options: two large gaps, large gap on the left, large gap on the right and no large gaps. Just assign a suit to each of these possibilities. The value can be done with the same style of permutations. There are six if face up. These could be lmh (low middle high) for Ace, lhm=2, mlh=3, mhl=4, hlm=5, hml=6 Turning one face down gives six more: low, high, down (lhd=7); ldh=8; hld=9; hdl=T; dlh=J; dhl=Q and the thirteenth can be two face down cards=K It seems that Adam has stumbled on the same idea of using Face Down cards as an extra clue (as mentioned in Colm Mulcahy's column... https://www.maa.org/community/maa-column......ur-glory ...and the spacing between cards as suit indicator in a similar way to my version. I take my hat off to Adam and recognise his superior solution! |
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federico luduena Loyal user Spain 248 Posts |
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alicauchy Veteran user Málaga, Spain 310 Posts |
Quote:
On Aug 15, 2018, federico luduena wrote: The description of the youtube page states the following: "A variation of Fitch Cheney's five-card trick, Rusduck asked if you could arrange four playing cards to encode the identity of a hidden card, where the spectator chooses which card to hide." These are exactly the conditions of Eigen's trick.
So much to do, so little time . . .
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Chris K Inner circle 2544 Posts |
Fascinating discussion.
My apologies if I forgot it while my brain was thinking of all the math involved but... Is there a particular reason why you would need/want to code with cards, and even if so, a reason why the values matter? Ignoring the (many) amazing 2 person codes freely available (of which I am no expert, I'm just spitballing here), there are the simple approaches of just body positioning (left foot in front, toe out is Spade, toe in is heart, right foot in front toe in is club, toe out is spade). It's actually less movement than putting cards in a specific order. OR And this is just me, again with no reference based on previous tricks, the alignment of face down cards. In a bold example, let us imagine the cards positioned slightly higher on the table (relative to deck or something, let's say) are 1 and cards positioned slightly lower are 0, easy binary code. I think more deceptive would be slightly angled left/right but, again, this is just me thinking aloud. I think the cards being face up just seems like the least impressive approach when, if you are simply trying to communicate a number and suit, there are much more deceptive ways. But, and this is the last time I'll say it, my brain is swimming with the mathematics of all this, so I may simply thinking about this all wrong. In any case, good luck! -Lem |
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Chris K Inner circle 2544 Posts |
Follow up to my above post, and I need to squeeze this out before lunch ends... and again, I don't have any of the Fitch or Eigen's effects, which sound much better. I've also only been thinking about it for 10 minutes or so, so I may be way off. I think I have a 4 card version but I need to really think it through, this is 5 cards.
Five cards are selected (random, handed out, multiple options here, assuming spectator picks them out-why not?). Performer fans them face up, spectator selects one. Performer sets remaining 4 cards face down after shuffling if desired (using left-right as 1-0 for binary coding; this gives assistant the value). One card is slightly higher or lower, this cues the suit (first card higher/lower: Spades, second card: hearts...). I'd actually do it differently but in this scenario the performer can leave the room after laying the cards down. I guess the big question is whether the use of a confederate is stronger here that in some other effect. I'd go with some other effect personally. I just like the application of the math though. Best of luck all, Lem |
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saxonia Regular user 168 Posts |
Quote:
On Sep 18, 2018, Lemniscate wrote: I think the idea has been introduced in the context of a telephone test. The spectator announced four of the cards and asked for the fifth. |
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Chris K Inner circle 2544 Posts |
Quote:
On Sep 19, 2018, saxonia wrote: Ok, I missed that, thank you very much! Best, Lem |
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JasonEngland V.I.P. Las Vegas, NV 1728 Posts |
An interesting aspect of the Fitch Cheney (and similar) systems is that you don't have to use the playing cards themselves as signaling devices. Consider these 5 items laid out on a table: coffee cup, creamer, fork, napkin, spoon. Notice that they're in alphabetical order. By moving these objects around, you can encode a playing card exactly as described in the Fitch Cheney system.
Spectator selects a card while your partner is in the other room. You maneuver the objects into the proper order as he or she is let back into the room. You can even leave the room before they're brought back in, as long as your spectator doesn't suspect the objects as being the encoding devices. I've fooled a handful of bright people with this system. Jason
Eternal damnation awaits anyone who questions God's unconditional love. --Bill Hicks
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