Make Marked Cards (Tutorial)

In this video, I'm going to show you how to take a standard deck of bicycle cards and turn them into a marked deck. Of course, you could just buy a deck of marked cards, but it's pretty simple to create one yourself, and when you make it yourself, you could use whatever method works best for you. But before I begin, a couple things. This card marking technique is great for like magic tricks. If you're thinking about cheating in a poker game by making marked cards, this is not the video for you. So one of the things that's great about the rider back bicycle cards is that there are so many little spots that you can mark that'll be easy for you to see, but the spectators will never catch on. And these are like the most common popular cards you'll see used anyway, so it doesn't look weird when you pull out a deck of bicycle cards. So what I'm going to show you here is the method that I like to use, but of course once you learn this, you can adapt it to however you want to mark your cards, however it's going to make it easy for you to remember what you're looking for. I focus on two particular areas of the card. For the suits, I look at this area. If the card is a spade, I do nothing. If I see there's no marking in this area, then I know that the card is a spade. If the card's a club with a red Sharpie marker, I'll mark off this one spot. That way, when I'm looking at the back of a card quickly, if I see that there's no white line in that little bottom left spot, I know this is a club. You'll have to remember to mark the card on both sides so that no matter which way the card is turned, the marking will always be in the spot where you're looking. And if it's a heart, I just mark off the second spot. And if it's a diamond, I mark off the spot on this side. So at a very quick glance, I could just cut the cards and look at the back of this card, I immediately know that it's a heart. For the numbers, I use this little section here. And if the card is an ace, I don't mark it at all. So if the card I'm looking at has no markings under the suit and no markings under the number, it's got to be the ace of spades. Then if it's a two, I mark this spot. If it's a three, I mark this one. A four is here, five is here, six is here, seven is here, eight, nine. For a 10, I mark the center dot. Then for a jack, it's the center dot plus upward. For a queen, it's the center dot and the one over to the right. And for the king, it's the center dot and the one straight to the right. And once you get used to looking for this method, it'll be very easy to quickly just glance at the back of a card and immediately know what card you're looking at. At quick glance, I can see this card is the four of hearts, because this marking obviously is the four, and I see that this one's blocked, showing the hearts. And this card is the ace of clubs, because there's nothing marked over here, but the club's marked over there. With a little bit of practice, you won't even have to think about it. You'll know exactly which card's which. As you can see, as I deal these cards out onto the table, they look like regular cards. No one's ever going to notice there's a marking. Or if I cut the card somewhere, they don't look any different, unless you know exactly what you're looking for. Now that you have a marked deck, you can mix this in with other tricks that you do. You wouldn't want to just say, oh, cut the cards and I'll guess what card it is. That's going to lead them right to the method of what you're doing. Instead, you want to mix it up with some other trick. For example, if you know the side step in the stack, and I'll link a video below on how to do that in case you're not familiar with the stack. But if you did have a stacked deck like that, you could very easily have the spectators tell you when to stop, you show them that card, and as they're looking at that card, you're looking at the back of the next card, so you know what that one is, which then tells you the card that they're looking at. And you'll place it back. Now you can shuffle these cards up. You already know what card they're thinking of before the trick even begins. It's even more powerful than the standard side step in moves, where you have to look at the bottom card or peek at some other card. In this case, you're never looking at any card. Of course you are, but they don't know the deck is marked. And here's a bonus thing you can do once you work out your method. If you're performing with a partner or an accomplice, you can easily write down what a card is using your same code. For example, if I drew one line like this, that is a six of spades. Because in your marking, you would have marked the bottom part for the six and nothing for the spade. And if I did this, it would be a six of clubs. Essentially, you're just drawing the same marking without the card. If you both know the method, it's an easy way to translate what card you're thinking of. And once you're comfortable with that method, you can really get creative and make up your own mind-blowing card tricks. If you suspect that somebody has a marked deck and you are playing a game of poker or something you want to check, there's a very easy way to see this. If you just riffle through the cards like this quickly and stare at any one spot on the cards, just look for any changes. As I riffle through these cards, you can clearly see that something's moving around. And that's a clear indication that it's a marked deck, so you want to get out of that game quick.