A few days ago one of my flatmates offered me a book she had won in a Poker tournament. Titled “The Complete Guide to Poker”, I had to take a look at it. Whatever anybody says, poker is a game of skill and there’s a huge amount to learn before you can sit down at a poker table and expect to walk away with more money than you sat down with.

Winning a poker game demands a knowledge of the game, the hands and the players. Which means poker themed card routines are a great way to combine sleight-of-hand, flourishes and mechanical mastery with psychological magic. So if you want to really make a reputation for yourself as a performer whose act is based on skills rather than gimmicks or hollow claims of supernatural ability, I would strongly advise you to develop a poker themed card routine.

There are, in my mind, many advantages to this:

1. Because the routine is themed around poker, the use of cards in any psychology based stunt you might include is totally justified. Without the poker theme it can sometimes seem forced to “read minds” using playing cards, because if you could really read minds, why the name of a playing card? Why not what the spectator had for breakfast that morning? Why not the name of their pet? Because it’s technically harder to do is not a theatrical justification, only a practical one. But in a poker themed routine there’s motivation, a reason why it makes sense to read their mind for the name of a playing card.

2. In magic there needs to be, at leat in a theatrical sense, a process by which the “magic” happens: supernatural powers, psychic ability or whatever. Let it be noted that, in many cases, certainly the two named, this process is theatrical and differs completely from the process by which the apparent magic is actually brought about. A poker routine allows the fusion of mental magic and card magic without either seeming out of place.

3. Because many such routines are dressed up as teach-ins, your audience will learn something, which they’ll always appreciate.

4. Socially positioning yourself as a teacher makes you the master. This is a great way to build a reputation very fast.

The Tricks & Stunts

So what to include in your routine?

I can’t give you the answer to that. What you do in your routine is up to you. Make it your own. But here’s what I do in my routine…

Being it about poker, I usually open with a couple of flourishes. These are not done as a spectacle upon which the audience focuses. I’ll typically perform them while just playing about with the deck during my opening speech. Because they look so impressive, my audience will notice them even if I don’t bring special attention to it and this sets me up straight away as a master card manipulator. Then, may the routine begin…

Start with something simple. Something short. Something to set up the premise. Depending on who your audience is, you may need to give a brief introduction to what poker is and how it is played. Remember, the purpose of this routine is to entertain your audience, not to simply show off with cards, so they need to understand what’s going on.

A simple lie detector effect is an easy way to start, as you talk about tells. It’s short and sweet. Impressive, but not too impressive.

Now, introduce some tension. How? This is a poker routine! Let’s place some bets!

You want to do something involving money. Now, after what you’ve just done – flourishes and lie detection – no spectator who is sane and sober is going to agree to bet their own money against you, but what you can do is give them the opportunity to “win” some money by doing one sided bets with them.

There is also, if you wish, space in the routine to perform some simple card changes. I used to do this but I don’t anymore because you wouldn’t – and there are few who will believe you could – use these techniques in a real poker game.

For the big finish, I like to stack all the odds against me and apparently call out every hand as dealt by a third party from a shuffled deck. I don’t think you can perform a stronger final effect than that.