REVEALED The UNEXPLAINABLE Penn and Teller Card Trick - Sigfried 

There's no force or peek, and only half of the deck is memorized! When you see the full extension of the cards you can see that every odd card belongs to Mnemonica 0:39 (I think there's another card trapped between the 4 of clubs and the 2 of hearts, but you can see that every other card belongs to the stack up until the king of diamonds). So when it's dealt in two piles, one of them ends up in Mnemonica 8:59. So with that pile he can look for the odd card and also look for the missing one in the stack! You can check that where the 8 of hearts should be, there's an 8 of diamonds. It's very clever to only use half stack and obtain two informations. The dribble and the movement to simulate a peek are red herrings

There's a nice way to confirm this theory, in his second appearance the order of cards in all his decks on that trick was remarkably similar. The 9 of hearts turned up after he showed the 6 of spades then 5 of spades, for example.

More videos!!! Best walk-throughs !! Been looking for something like this and not just same ol’ stuff on reveals

I learned this principle in Card College Light. It is taught the red/blue stacked way in Card College Light, but I use odd/even (counting the red Aces as even to make it 26/26) so I can reveal the cards to my spectators before I begin and just before the reveal and have them appear random and ordinary. You sit their with two stacks of all blue and another of all black cards after the reveal, and if your spectators have any interest in those piles after the reveal, you are left really dirty if you do it the red/black way.

The comment section is gold. Ppl take the red/black example literally.

The cards were not shuffled before the waterfall at all and when he spreads them out on the table you can clearly see the two red 8s next to each other roughly in the middle of the deck before the waterfall. Only thing I can think of is he knew the entire order and, if you look at the cards laid out at 0:52 there are a lot of patterns to the pairings of cards next to each other. It would not matter where it was stopped if he knew the entire pattern and was able to identify exactly where the stop was. I do not think it mattered where the stop was, he knew the card order and knew what 2 cards were picked no matter where the stop was and had some way of identifying the exact stop point. The trick was in being able to identify the stop point and knowing the order of the cards. No card force needed. Edit: The finger wave at 4:10 would be easy enough for him to glimpse the 6 spades to know that the 2 cards were the two red 8s. Think you are over analyzing the trick. The moment he glimpsed the 6 spades he knew the cards, the rest was just a pony show.....

He has the deck memorized. After teller takes his card he flashes the next card 4:10 as he's staring at Allison. He now knows what cards penn and teller chose

There seems to be three continuous refrains about this trick: (1) he peeked at the card when talking to Alyson, etc., etc; (2) that it's some kind of force. All he "forces" is that Penn & Teller's cards are adjacent and reversed; there's never any riffling, and dealing them into separate piles also separates the cards. If you memorize the deck, then the cards in the wrong stack are indeed the cards, and you don't need to have forced anything, and you don't need a key card peeked. In any case, what no one ever mentions (if he's peeking) is that he turns over three cards from each stack while he's chatting. If he wants to know which "half" he's looking at, that is all it takes. Also, I really dig this guy.

I thought the trick was that at 4:10 he is looking at the bottom card. (we all get to see it too). If he has the deck order memorized, he can guess the 2 chosen cards because they are the two previous ones. But the method you describe seems most likely.

Good one. You guessed correctly that it is stacked deck. Order will not change. So it was easy for him to find the odd card which do not follow the order as par stack. He only had to ask whose card in which pile as this was not possible.

My favorite order of cards is Chased. It’s easy to figure out, but for more simplistic tricks that really don’t require showing the deck, it’s a great setup. CHSD. This can be paired with counting up by any number do the Colors are the only issue, which you could block push, but there is no sequence of numbers noticeable. For example CA, H4 , S7, D10, CK, H3, S6, D9, CQ, HA, and so on. That way you can look at any card and read the entire deck in seconds

This trick is called "Neither blind nor stupid", by Juan Tamariz. It's explained in Tamariz's book "Sonata". You are welcome.

Just helping out the algorithm. Thanks, Gef

I think judging by his next time on the show he stacked the deck and memorized every card

I have been searching for a stacked deck and do not believe it is or a mesmerised deck so the easiest way to do this is simple, half the pack as a very subtle mark on the back and the trick is done using the black and red method described in this tutorial, he would need too count at what position the card out of place in the one pile is when he deals them out to know where both are although he was speaking while dealing which i am not sure if that is possible as i cant do that but without speaking a have duplicated it, also duplicated by creating a seemingly random stacked deck by pairing even low cards with odd high cards (above and below 6, black kings being odd) also worked well.

clear presentation, 100 mate!

WHAT?!?! Your guess is as good as everyone else's...lol!

I'm one of those people who prefer knowing the complicated engineering behind the trick anyways. If I don't know how it was done, I remain unimpressed.

very good explanation!

A much better explanation is that it is an impromptu card trick where no set up is done just tells penn to select a totally random card , what he does is that he remembers the last card on upper half as penn says stop and both card are placed on top of bottom half, now he just needs to see the remembered card and the card next to it would be penn's card... and tellers card would be at the same count on the splitted half...

Great observation man...

Rather than memorize anything, to organize the cards in an "undetectable" way, I sort 2 stacks which consist of: Stack one: evens spades and diamonds + odds hearts and clubs, shuffle cards (EsdOhc stack) Stack two: odds spades and diamonds + evens hearts and clubs, shuffle cards (OsdEhc stack) Then combine both stacks into one by alternating cards one-by-one from each stack. Card trick ready to begin. After the trick, an OsdEhc (ie 8 hearts) card will then be in the Esd0hc stack, and an Esd0hc (7 clubs) card will be in the 0sdEhc stack. (not as hard to detect as it sounds). The beauty in Siegried's trick is he doesn't even look at the second stack, therefore, he not only identifies the card that didn't belong in the first recreated stack, but also figures out which one is missing to identify the second card.

This is brilliant

Rather than go red/black, which would be obvious to an observer if you fanned it out, you could put all hearts and spades in one and all clubs and diamonds in the other. They can be randomised otherwise and so there would be no easily discernible order.

This is a way he could of done it but I'm still convinced he saw the bottom card and he "memorised" the deck. We all know it was the 6 of spades after P&Ts cards and we see it when he lifts the deck between him and Alyson while he has them looking at there cards. Good trick but nowhere near the greatest pick a card tricks PS his second P&T appearance was literally "memorising" every deck over like 70 days of lockdown so I think this guys just a huge brain

I do like how a lot of the successful performers on this show have flashed decoy methodology during their acts. I've seen this be as little as one, like here with the waterfall force selection that never actually was (well, I didn't catch anything else, but I'm not an expert either) to one I watched the other day, who swapped at least three red herring props during his trick (all of which the performer ruled out as being the method in the comments on the video... many of these go up on the performer's own RU-vid channel). It's an ingenious idea. If you're using misdirection to conceal anyway, why not also use it to make them guess incorrectly? Seems like a solid strategy to employ. Edit: As I read the comments I see a lot of people mention the card flash at about 4:10, but I don't think that was how this was done either... another laid decoy trap like I'm talking about here... I missed it the first time I watched it.

thanks for sharing the general idea of how it works. This act was a joy to watch, as that guy was fluid and really funny.

Dude.. I can't understand why you have so many dislikes. I am genuinely thankful that I watched this. I am the kind of guy who enjoys magic more when I know how it's done.

Your expectation makes a lot of sense.

What I dont understand is, what happens if one cuts the deck right between penn's and teller's card? Wouldnt that shift the order? Sorry, I'm not a magician nor understanding anything XD

I noticed he also got a peek at the bottom card, whether this was integral in his trick or to throw P+T off I don't know

Ok I understood you can identify the two cards. But how would you tell which 1 belongs to whom?

Loved the explanation. You've explained it and yet didn't allow non serious ones to understand. Good job.

If he didn't peek when gesturing to Alison, there is a simpler way than memorising the whole deck. For example you can alternate (black-even and red-odd) with (red-even and black-odd) so in the end you should have one pile with all black-even/red-odd cards and one with all red-even/black-odd cards. I don't know if that is the method but it's easier than memorising and almost impossible to notice.

Title should be “Guy who doesn’t know trick tries to explain trick”

I worked out how to do this trick and it is not a stacked deck. It's actually a lot simpler than that. He could of got them to shuffle the deck and maybe didn't so they would think its a stacked deck aswell and lead them in the wrong direction. I figured it out when watching it straight away.

I did the same routine but with a different method I used another card as a mark

I love how people in commends spamming with peeking card at 4.10 because they don't understand simple math. :>

I think you're wrong: at 0:50 you can see that the cards are not stacked in a simple black/red order, BUT he doesn't shuffle the deck before letting Penn and Teller pick a card. This means that he could simply memorize the order of the cards in the deck, so that if he knows Penn's card he also knows Teller's card. How? simple: at 4:09 he can see the card that was on top of Penn's card.

Again, Penn selected the 8 of diamonds & Teller selected the 8 of hearts

You don’t just need a deck break you can have a card short but that wasn’t the case

You're wrong he has the deck memorised. All the trick resided on seeing the card on the bottom after has pen chosen in his left hand.

There would be no way to guarantee the 'red/black' order when cutting. You could easily grab it at a spot that leaves you with a red top card and a red bottom card. So...

I am surprised this fooled Penn and Teller. Maybe they knew it was one or the other and had to guess, but if they did, I feel like the two stacks dealt out would have given it away.

More videos plss

Evens and odds. Thats what he did.

The move I'm referring to happens at the 2:07 minute

I think it was a force ,, when he said stop he went to where he wanted and not wheretthe stop was ,, plus the next card

I'm surprised Penn & Teller didn't notice that the deck was not shuffled so it was clearly set up 🤔

The cards selected were the eight of hearts and the eight of diamonds

At 9:06 you can see the mnemonica stack order

Good explanation but wouldn’t it be easier if he knew the identity of the card that he places on top of the two cards and then when he splits them he’s looking for the identified card and it would be the next card

On 4:10 he is showing the next card to the public. Some of them could pass the information back to him. That’s it.

I disagree I think its a form of chased order and you can see when he sneaks a peak at the bottom card when penn and teller have their cards in hand

I wonder how many of you watching this explanation could perform the trick? NONE!!!!! Nice walk through that lasted just as long as the trick itself, and taught us nothing. Thanks.

This Is a Tamariz effect.. there Is no force, so simple yet so powerfull 😂

easier solution... at time 4:10 he shows the 6 of clubs to the audience. Penn and Tellers cards were directly below that. by knowing that and the order of the cards, all that needs to happen is he needs to have some feed back from someone who saw that in the audience and all the rest is meaningless.

4:08 Sigfrieds waves his hand so he can see the card above the 2 cards already taken. If he remembers the order the trick is sooooo easy!

The cut could have separated the cards. Then, they would not be next to each other. The deck was cut four times, meaning that there is about a 1 in 13 chance that the cards were split up and no longer reside next to each other. Now, the nature of cutting means that even if they were split up, one would become an odd card and the other an even one. Obviously, if he knows which card Penn selected, he automatically knows which one Teller selected. But how does he find out which one Penn selected if the cut split the cards up? There has to be some mathematical mumbo jumbo wherein he could tell from the disrupted pattern which was Penn's card, no matter what the cuts did to the deck.

Quite simple method! I wonder if p&t are ever kicking themselves later after a show. I learned the red black trick and return them together in the deck reversed trick when I was a little kid!

You said that Penn had red and Teller had black. But they both had red 8’s.

He probably used odd even instead of red black

The magic happens at 4:10 when Sigfried holds up his hand towards Alison and can see the card in his hand. This card ends up on top of the cards from Pen and Teller. The rest is discrete card counting.

Its tamariz mnemonica order

He flashes the bottom of the cut deck revealing the 6 of spades which was next to the 2 8s at 4:10, I think everything else was just show.

Como lo veo yo es diferente

The “impossible” part happened at home when he memorized the deck. But the trick happens at 4:10 of this video. He knew the order of the deck and he simply looks at the card in his hand when he tells “Allison I’m still on you right”… Done… he now knows which cards they are holding, the rest is all for show.

I have tried to improve the trick and want to share my thoughts. First sort the cards to this order - it looks really random but it isn't at all: Hearts 10 Spades 6 Cross 5 Diamond Jack Hearts Ace Spades 2 Cross 9 Diamond 7 Hearts 4 Spades Queen Cross King Diamond 3 Hearts 8 Spades 8 Cross 3 Diamond King Hearts Queen Spades 4 Cross 7 Diamond 9 Hearts 2 Spades Ace Cross Jack Diamond 5 Hearts 6 Spades 10 Diamond 10 Cross 6 Spades 5 Hearts Jack Diamond Ace Cross 2 Spades 9 Hearts 7 Diamond 4 Cross Q Spades King Hearts 3 Diamond 8 Cross 8 Spades 3 Hearts King Diamond Queen Cross 4 Spades 7 Hearts 9 Diamond 2 Cross Ace Spades Jack Hearts 5 Diamond 6 Cross 10 Then you have to remeber Hearts - Spades and Diamond - Cross are pairs. Jack is 11, Queen is 12, King is 13 and Ace is 14. Now if you take a random card from the list. Check if the card is black and has an even value or if the card is red the card plus 1 is even. If true, the card below is 16 - the cards value and it is the opposite card of the pair. The card above is the card below + 9 (if over 14 then substract 14), the same color but the other sign. If the check was false, the card above is 16 - the cards value and it is the opposite card of the pair. The value card two below is the card - 9 (if under 10 then add 14 first). The card below is 16 - the card two below and the same color but the other sign than the card. Only exception is Spades 10 is followed by Diamond 10 and the other way round (you will see the calculation above is failing for these two cards). Why do you need these rules? Because after you have found the first card, you just need to think if you are searching the card above or below and you are able to tell the other card without having a look at the cards. To find the first card: The card values (red ones + 1) are even - odd - even - odd.

at 4:11 he raises his left hand to make a gesture that he is looking at Alyson's eyes. But by doing that, he sees the card that comes before Penn's card. If the order is pre-determined, he knows at this point which card Penn took.

you are thinking too complicated. When Penn and Teller took their cards he only hat to have a peek at the last card of the upper part of the deck (which is the 6 of spades, you can see it at 4:10). When he has separated the cards in 2 piles he starts to count the cards until the 6 of spades appears (6:54 it is in the left pile and it is the 3rd card of the pile) and now he knows that the choosen cards are at the position 4 in the left pile and in the right pile. There is no need of memorizing he only has to count.

Pens card was not black it was the eight if diamonds Tellers was the eight of hearts.

Think simple. Stack

Your theory might be spot EXCEPT at point 6:52 when he flips over 3 cards cards from both separated deck they are ALL black (6:64) hence proving you wrong. I think he marked each card with a tiny piece of something sticky...notice how tactile he is when handling each decks...he's definitely feeling for something. BUT, here is a simpler answer which I think is BANG on: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-ugkhaJ2-QFc.html

1 red 1 black... Then 2 red 2 black.. then 3 red 3 black.. and again repeat the order.

Not read full comments and this is definitely not the way he did it

The problem with the card order being red black red black, etc. is that when the cards are spread out on the table initially, they are not in that order. There are a number of places where there are multiple red cards and multiple black cards together in the spread.

Genius fyi penn said abt waterfall shuffle..he was wrong..

You still didn’t get it.

But they are not ordered "red, black, red, black" because you can see the cards when he spreads out the deck....

Nice i like ur explinations and one more thing he could just simpy memorize the deck and at 4:09 he loos at the card,6 of clubs (might be 6 of diamonds its a little bot not clear), and the to beneath cards are pen and tellers😌️

i think penn and teller whold have note is it if it whut u says it is and they dont so ar u better on magic then penn and teller dont think so how did he fool them dont gett it explane that

What if jerry do magic?

NOT REVEALED, STILL UNEXPLAINABLE

Mneomonica stack

I think it's some kind of mnemonica stack order...

wow, this took less skill than even a force! haha. P&T got really fooled on this one.

Ok. Initially, both 8s were next to each other. I think this magician took a pick 👀 at the bottom card in his left hand while he was looking at Allison. I was unable to zoom to see the card. All I can tell it was a Black 6. In the minute 9:54 you can notice the 8 of Dymond next to the 6 of space. All he needs to do is count the spot of the card and the other 8 will be in the same order but a +/- a number. That's my theory. It's a trick with a great deal of skills. 👍

can u prof that i belif u

The cards selected were the 8 of diamonds & the 8 of hearts

Yea, the issue with your analysis is that they ended up with two RED CARDS. He is doing it at a very high level and sophistication.

So, what you're saying is you don't know how he did it, but here's how he would have done it if he hadn't done it the way he did? This was ten minutes of my life I'll never get back.

If you look @ 2:56, seems to me, he marked the back of the card with some type of substance on his middle finger of his right hand. Then as he's separating the deck @ 6:00-6:50 he never take his eyes off the cards searching for the marked cards, also counting the position of the marked cards. @ 6:54 he turns over random cards, one from each plow to guarantee his count position of the chosen cards, when he turns them face up

On 4:10 he look the card before the 2 chosen cards.

They both picked red cards... Penn 8 of diamonds and Teller 8 of hearts. When Sigfried first spread out the cards on the table, both of those cards are next to each other. He only have to remember "pairs", not the order of all cards in the whole deck. So much simpler than your red-black-red-black theory. When he found out what card Penn choose, then he allready knew that cards matching pair. That's why he didn't have to look at the cards when "guessing" Tellers card.. Duh!

I think it's not done like that, but with a key card

basically you had no explanation. thanks

You all have a safe in Christ Thanksgiving Jesus Birthday Christmas New Year fun time John 3 16

That's one of the first trick i ever learned but he does it way better.

No, no, no thats not the ...?

the deck order is called Mnemonica created by the best magician Juan Tamariz who is from spain and the competitor is his fan so he uses his deck order thats the trick the two 8ts are at the middle stupid people play back and you will see they are at the middle. in Mnemonica the magician knows every position of every card he doesnt need this stupid thing red black red black He knows every fucking card where it is in the deck in witch position