Methods To Produce Any Four Of A Kind

The production of a four of a kind is one of the most famous plots in card magic. Many beginners approach it through cutting to the four Aces, and later move on to more elaborate versions.

The effect is an excellent training ground for improving as a magician, because it can be adapted to many different styles: some versions present the effect as a demonstration of technical skill, while others are deliberately more "magical."

We’ll follow this distinction to present two different methods for producing four cards in a simple yet deceptive way. These approaches rely on familiar principles—just applied in unexpected ways.

The first method allows you to produce four cards with a distinctly magical flavor, in a virtually hands-off way. The second method is the exact opposite: the production is framed as a demonstration of the magician’s supposed technical ability.

First Method

Performance: The performer takes the deck out of the case and asks a spectator to shuffle it. While they shuffle, the performer asks them to think of any value. In whatever fashion the performer prefers, they can then reveal that the four cards of that exact value have vanished from the deck and reappeared inside the card case.

The effect is exceptionally linear (and linearity is something you should always strive for in your routines, to avoid chaos): the spectator names a value, and you produce the four cards of that value, appearing inside the case.

To accomplish this, we rely on a method that is very simple, though it requires flexibility: a setup with the four cards to be produced, combined with a verbal force. The force has a margin of error, so if the spectator doesn’t say the prepared value, you simply move on to a different effect.

This is precisely why you’d never find this effect in a typical magic company release: the built-in margin of uncertainty. But that’s also where its strength lies—it lets you perform the effect in its most direct and astonishing form. These are the kinds of methods that enable true miracles: used by the world’s top magicians, yet rarely explained anywhere else.

Here’s the setup: remove the four sevens and keep them aside. Place the rest of the deck in the case and close it. Now insert the four sevens into the case as well, but in such a way that the closed flap of the case is between the sevens and the rest of the deck.

This way, when you open the case in performance, you can hold back the four cards with your thumb as you open the flap, then pull out the deck while secretly leaving the four sevens inside the case. Closing the flap afterwards, no one will suspect that cards are still inside.

This is a well-known technique, though it is usually used as a hold-out—to secretly keep cards aside and add them back later when the shuffled deck is returned to the case. Here, however, we invert the principle and exploit it for a revelation.