How to do a pressure fan

A pressure fan bends the deck slightly and lets the cards slip off your fingertips one after another as your hand sweeps a half circle. Hold the deck by its ends, seat it in the fork of your other thumb, press down with your middle and ring fingers, and sweep right and down, pivoting on your thumb. Keep the bend light and steady, and expect it to take weeks, not minutes.

What is a pressure fan?

The pressure fan is a card fan made by bending the deck and letting the tension spread the cards. Vanishing Inc describes it as “Working like a unique blend of the Thumb Fan and Card Spring.” Wikipedia’s cardistry article lists the “pressure fan” among the common moves in its category of fans and spreads.

It’s useful as well as pretty. Card tutorial site December Boys says “Should you ever ask a spectator to choose a card, opt with this fancy Pressure Fan (or a Thumb Fan for that matter).” It also calls the pressure fan “a pretty visual flourish, albeit being considered a basic move.”

Our guide on how to fan a deck of cards compares the pressure fan with the thumb fan and the one-handed fan. If you haven’t done any fans yet, start with the thumb fan, then come back here.

What should you learn first?

Springing the cards. The pressure fan uses the same bend. Free Magic Tricks and Illusions tells you to “squeeze to bend the cards as you would when you want to spring the cards.” In a Magic Café forum thread on the pressure fan, one veteran member’s first piece of advice was “get comfortable springing cards from hand to hand.”

In Jean Hugard’s Modern Magic Manual (1939), springing starts the same way: you “Squeeze the pack between the thumb and fingers, making the face concave,” then let the cards slip away one at a time. You don’t need a perfect spring before you try the fan, but you do need to know what a light, even bend feels like.

How do you do a pressure fan?

These steps follow Hugard’s description of the fan in Modern Magic Manual, with details from Free Magic Tricks and Illusions. They’re written for a right-handed person. Swap hands if you’re left-handed.

1. Hold the deck by its ends. Right thumb at the lower end, middle and ring fingers at the upper end. Free Magic Tricks and Illusions adds “the first finger curling at the top.”
2. Seat it in your left hand. Hugard places the deck in the fork of the left thumb, with the tip of the thumb on the back of the deck near the lower end. Free Magic Tricks and Illusions adds “the index finger slanting diagonally across the face of the pack.”
3. Bend. Hugard says: “Press the right middle and third fingers downwards, bending the cards.”
4. Sweep the half circle. Move your right fingers to the right and downward so they trace a semicircle, pivoting on your right thumb, and let the cards slip off your fingertips one after another.
5. Hold the pressure all the way round. Free Magic Tricks and Illusions says: “Keep the bend in the cards while completing the fan, maintaining the pressure.” Lose the bend and the fan ends up looking like a thumb fan, as the next section explains.
6. Close and square. Our suggestion: sweep the fan closed with your right fingers, the same way you close a thumb fan, and square the deck before your next try.

Why does my pressure fan come out wrong?

• It turns into a thumb fan. That’s a common complaint. One member of the theory11 forum wrote: “I can’t maintain the pressure so it just ends up like a thumb fan.” The fix is step 5: keep the bend on until the last card leaves.
• The cards spring away or leave a curve. Our suggestion: that usually means too much bend. A theory11 member advised: “Remember not to bend the cards too hard when you’re doing a pressure fan.” On the Magic Café, the same veteran member wrote “use only as much pressure as the cards require.”
• Your thumbs get in each other’s way. The member who started the Magic Café thread said the cards “tend to riffle off and form a semi-arc, or even a line,” and that “my thumbs get in the way of each other.” Our suggestion: check that your right thumb stays at the lower end as the pivot while your fingers do the travelling.
• An old deck fights you. On the Magic Café, the same member noted that a new deck needs barely more action than a thumb fan, while an old deck needs more pressure. Free Magic Tricks and Illusions agrees that “using a relatively new deck will help as the cards tend to slide more easily.”

How long does it take to learn?

Longer than the thumb fan. December Boys says “For rookies Pressure Fan could seem like an intimidating and difficult move” and advises: “Make sure you’re committed to dedicate several weeks to master this technique.” Hugard says the first results are discouraging, but the spread widens gradually until “the spreading of a perfect semicircle of cards is accomplished by a rapid sweep of the hand.”

Short, regular sessions help more than one long one. For a routine that sticks, read how to practise magic, and keep your deck in good shape with our guide to looking after a deck of playing cards.

What helps you take it further?

• Royal Road To Card Magic with R. Paul Wilson. A download course built on Hugard and Braue’s book. The flourishes section of Volume 1 lists The Fan, One Hand Fan and One Thumb Fan, along with Springing the Cards.
• The Art of Magic by T. Nelson Downs. A free 364-page PDF from 1909 whose flourishes chapter covers the card fan and springing the cards.

Keep a practice deck from our playing cards collection, and browse more in card tricks.

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