Help me figure out this card trick

April 7, 2011 7:13 PM

Help me figure out this trick from some drunk guy at the taqueria. He asked me to pick a number from 1 to 4. He had a stack of handwritten cards with him, and he took one out and put it on the table in front of me. He asked me to say what number it was, and I answered 3. He flipped the card over, and there was a handwritten 3 on it!! It was just the one card, I didn't see multiple layers where he could have hidden the other options. He did this again with another person, successfully. How did he do this? What am I missing here? Was he just lucky?
posted by Xere to Grab Bag (19 answers total)

Did the other person guess 3 as well?
posted by 4ster at 7:15 PM on April 7, 2011 [1 favorite]

Most people guess three if asked to choose 1-5. If given a choice 1-10, most people guess 7.

Think of a country that starts with the letter D.
Now think of an animal whose name starts with the second letter of that country you just thought of.
Now think of a color.

Are you thinking of a gray elephant in Denmark?

(Most people do. This is a popular playground "magic" trick. I was always that weird kid who came up with a purple ostrich in the Dominican Republic, and didn't understand until years later why the asker always got pissed off at me.)
posted by phunniemee at 7:26 PM on April 7, 2011 [10 favorites]

Best answer: Most people pick 3.
posted by procrastination at 7:27 PM on April 7, 2011

Most people pick three, it usually works. Another fun one is making people do repeated math equations that equal nine each time (7+2, 10-1, 4+5) etc for awhile. Then ask them to name a vegetable (and make sure they don't take time to think about it). They usually say carrot. Though some say tomato and you get to make fun of them for that.
posted by haveanicesummer at 7:39 PM on April 7, 2011

Yep, most people pick three. My grandfather used to do a variation involving colors; most people pick blue over red.

Are you thinking of a gray elephant in Denmark?

A blue emu in Denmark actually! We can be weirdos together. :[
posted by plaintiff6r at 7:42 PM on April 7, 2011 [2 favorites]

I was always that weird kid who came up with a purple ostrich in the Dominican Republic

When this was played on me, I picked Djibouti. Because how can you not pick Djibouti?
posted by endless_forms at 7:59 PM on April 7, 2011 [11 favorites]

Previously.
posted by John Cohen at 8:02 PM on April 7, 2011

Yes, he was lucky. For whatever reason, most people pick 3. Just as an added note, when asked to pick a basic geometrical shape inside another one, most people pick a circle inside a triangle.
posted by Gilbert at 8:30 PM on April 7, 2011

One of my classmates used to ask people to choose a number between 1 and 10, then to forget that number completely and pick a different number between 1 and 10. He'd then guess that the number you picked was 3, and be right the vast majority of the time.
posted by LionIndex at 8:46 PM on April 7, 2011

I used to have a printed card I got somewhere which had this on one side:

"Pick a number between 1 and 4. Then turn this card over."

The other side said:

"Why did you pick 3?"
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 8:46 PM on April 7, 2011 [7 favorites]

The way you describe it he could have had an out if you said a different number. The cards could have been sorted with other numbers so that if you said "two" he would have counted out two more cards, the top one being the number 2. (Or other such tricks. It's like those "take your age and divide by 10, add the letters of your name [.......] and you end up with the number 17!" tricks.)
posted by Ookseer at 11:06 PM on April 7, 2011

(I thought of Dahomey.)
posted by Ellemeno at 1:10 AM on April 8, 2011

If you really want to screw with the asker, you could pick a pink jaguar from Djibouti.
posted by essexjan at 1:38 AM on April 8, 2011

You can take this up a notch with the Magician's Choice.
posted by obiwanwasabi at 3:11 AM on April 8, 2011 [1 favorite]

Chocolate Pickle, I just freaked out my students with that card trick.

Thank you!
posted by robocop is bleeding at 4:49 AM on April 8, 2011

They usually say carrot.

Huh? What am I missing here? Is this a random joke or is carrot connected to nine?
posted by milestogo at 8:58 AM on April 8, 2011

Is this a random joke or is carrot connected to nine?

"Nine carat (carrot!) gold" ?
posted by pharm at 11:45 AM on April 9, 2011

milestogo: I have no idea. It's not a joke, it just works. Maybe they say carrot most often regardless of whether you make them say nine? I've never tried it that way. Maybe rabbits love math?
posted by haveanicesummer at 11:12 AM on April 11, 2011

The carrot thing works remarkably well when you use numbers that add up to 14. Or did when I was a kid anyway. I have a feeling that bugs bunny cartoons are implicated, and it may be less likely to work these days ... maybe using 24 would work better.
posted by not_that_epiphanius at 10:03 AM on March 6, 2012