How to Do Magic Tricks For Fun - Match Mind Reading! By Michael Breck

This is a great little trick for the bar or any social occasion. Even though you do not look, you are able to predict how many matches a spectator has moved from one pile to another.

How It Looks To The Audience

The magician turns his back and asks a spectator to make three piles of matches, each containing no less than four matches. He is also told to put the same number of matches in each pile. The magician then asks to spectator to take three matches from each of the end piles and place them in the center pile. The magician then asks him to count the numbers of matches in either end pile and take that amount away from the center pile and put them in the left pile. When the spectator is finished, the magician correctly states the number of matches in the middle pile!

How The Tricks Is Done

The secret is simple. If you follow the instructions above, then there will always be nine matches left in the center pile. You could announce this as the answer, but do not. Cover up your tracks and make it a bit more complicated by asking him to move a few more matched from pile to pile, while mentally keeping track of the total.

For example, ask the spectator to move four matches from the left pile to the middle pile. This will make the center pile contain thirteen matches. Then ask him to move two matches from the center pile to the right pile. This will leave eleven matches in the center pile and you can grandly announce this as the total.

You can safely repeat this trick. However, some spectator may suspect you are using an arithmetical system to obtain the same results each time. However, by varying the number of matches moved, you can fool them by arriving at a different total each time.

You can confuse them even more by asking them to initially move one, two, or four matches from the end piles to the middle pile, instead of three. If one match is moved, then the final number in the middle pile will be three. If two matches are moved, then the final number in the middle pile will be six. If three matches are moved, then the final number will be nine.

The number in the middle pile will always be three time the number of matches you ask the spectator to move from the end piles to the center pile. Knowing this, you can vary the procedure to keep the final total different each time you do the trick.

Michael Breck is a professional Magician in Scotland. He also runs an entertainment agency called The Magic Agency, which supplies bands, string quartets, harpists, and entertainers for weddings and events. For a mind-explosion of entertainment ideas go to Weddings and Events