The Online Magic Store Blog: Sleight of Hand

A deck inside a wooden practice tray with a felt lining

Card magic for intermediate magicians: a buyer’s guide

How to choose your next step in card magic once the basics feel easy, with four card books from working professionals and two free classics…

A backstage prop table with wands, hats and boxes in dim light

The history of the multiplying billiard balls

Where the multiplying billiard balls come from, from de Kolta’s billiard-ball trick in Hoffmann’s More Magic (1890) to August Roterberg’s f…

a deck cut into two halves on a mat, both packets squared

How to do a two-card transposition

Learn a classic two-card transposition: two cards swap places, one of them under the spectator’s own hand, using the double lift.

a pair of hands squaring a deck, soft rim light

How to do cards to pocket

Learn cards to pocket, the classic routine in which ten cards travel invisibly from your hand to your pocket one at a time.

A card sticking out of a squared deck, jogged halfway

How to crimp a card to find it again

Learn how to crimp a card: put a small secret bend in a corner, then find the chosen card again by sight, touch or a cut, even after the de…

A deck in dealer’s grip in one hand, thumb on the top card

How to glimpse the bottom card

Learn how to glimpse the bottom card of a deck secretly: when squaring, passing it between hands and other natural moments, plus timing tip…

A relaxed open hand beside a worn silver coin on a walnut table

How to classic palm a coin

How to classic palm a coin: the grip, the best coins to learn with, how to load it, honest progress and the drills that make a palmed hand …

A hand lifting the top card of a face-down deck over a green close-up mat

How to do the Ambitious Card routine

How a beginner builds and performs an Ambitious Card routine, from the signed card to a clean finish, using the double lift and a simple co…

A hand holding a face-down deck in dealing grip over a green close-up mat, cards dealt beside it

How to do the glide

The glide lets you show the bottom card and secretly deal the one above it instead; here is the classic outline, a practice plan and two ol…

A silver coin resting across the knuckles on the back of a hand

How to do a coin roll across your knuckles

A beginner’s guide to the coin roll (knuckle roll): which coin to use, the steps, a practice plan and the mistakes to avoid.

A magician’s raised open hand in a spotlight while the other hand rests in shadow

Misdirection principles: how magicians manage attention

The working principles of misdirection, from where you look to offbeats and time delay, and how to practise them.

Two hands at the moment of a coin vanish, one reaching to take a silver coin from the other

How to do the French drop

A step-by-step guide to the French drop, the classic coin vanish, with the mistakes that give it away and how to practise it.

A magician’s hand holding a red-backed deck while a spectator’s hand takes a card

Card forces: overhand, Hindu and cut

What a card force is, and how the cut, Hindu shuffle and overhand families work, with a learning order and the mistakes to avoid.

A thumb lifting the corner of the top cards of a red-backed deck on a dark close-up mat

Double lift mastery: showing two cards as one

What the double lift is, how the get-ready and turnover work in principle, where to use it and how to practise until it looks like a single…

Hands dealing a red-backed card onto green felt beside three dealt cards

Dealing seconds, bottoms and centres: false deals explained

What second, bottom and centre deals are, where they came from, why magicians learn them and why they never belong in a real game.

Cover of Professor Hoffmann’s Modern Magic, the 1876 textbook that teaches the pass, as a free ebook

False cuts and the pass

What a false cut and the pass each do, how Erdnase and Hoffmann taught them, and why most magicians learn false cuts first.

Title card for The False Shuffles and Cuts Project video download

False shuffles explained

What a false shuffle is, how overhand, riffle and Hindu versions keep cards in place, and how to learn one without getting caught out.

The Expert at the Card Table by S. W. Erdnase, 1902, cover showing two hands handling playing cards

Palming fundamentals: how magicians hide a card in an empty hand

What palming a card means, the top palm, bottom palm and gambler’s cop explained, and how to practise until your hand looks natural.

Cover of The Royal Road to Card Magic by Jean Hugard and Frederick Braue

Card control techniques: how magicians keep track of a chosen card

What a card control is, how the key card, overhand controls and the pass work, and the order to learn them in.

Absolute Zero, a gimmick-based magic trick

Self-Working vs Gimmick vs Sleight of Hand: The 4 Ways Magic Tricks Work

Self-working, gimmick-based, sleight of hand or hybrid? How each type of magic works, what it demands, and where beginners should start.

Open book, Giacomo Bertini’s System for Amazement, showing a portrait of Giacomo Bertini

What is misdirection in magic?

What misdirection really means in magic, why it is more than “look over there”, and what eye-tracking research has found.