Low-Odds Convincers Explained

In magic, a convincer is any action intended to convince the spectator of something that furthers the method. If you've ever spread a deck of cards face up to show they're all different before letting a spectator choose one, congratulations; you've used a convincer in your magic.

Convincers do not always need to be lies. You might be showing the spectator that they genuinely had a free choice of cards. Sometimes, a convincer will involve its own kind of method in itself. For example, you might want to rattle a cup with a coin inside before vanishing it, and the fake sound of the coin rattling inside acts as a convincer, but that's a trick in and of itself.

You might wave your hand over a floating dollar bill to prove that there are no strings above or below it, and this acts as a great convincer. But to pass a solid ring over the floating bill as a convincer, you'll likely need to rely on an additional method like a gimmicked ring or sleight-of-hand to pass the ring over it.

Successful magicians use different types of convincers, and the more you learn about each type, the easier they are to apply to your magic. Almost every trick can be enhanced with convincers. Some convincers are more enhancing than others – for example, telling a spectator that a card box is empty isn't as convincing as shaking out all of its contents in front of the spectator.

There's a type of convincer in magic called a low-odds convincer, and it's absolutely genius and so satisfying. This form of convincer is left to chance in some ways, which is why it's so fooling. Even so, there's also an element of multiple-outs (another great magic principle), which means the low-odds convincer works every time.

Here's an example of a trick that relies partly on a low-odds convincer. In its simplest form, you can tell each of your friends which candy flavour they are chewing from a randomly selected tube of Mentos that's in a proven mixed-up order:

You're with four friends and open up a multipack of fruit Mentos. There are six individual tubes of the Mentos in the multipack. You ask one of your friends to choose any of the six tubes of Mentos and open it up out of view. Here's the fun part: While you look away, each of your friends will take one of the fruit Mentos, remember the colour, and then place it in their closed mouth, but they should not chew it just yet.

You turn around and pick up one of the remaining five tubes of Mentos. You open it and place the random assortment of coloured Mentos onto the table in a line. There's a pink one, yellow, orange, another two pink, a green and a yellow one.

Finally, you ask your friends to chew on their fruit Mentos.

All you have to do is look them in the eye, and without saying a word, you can place a correctly matching coloured Mento from your packet in front of each of the four friends. Yellow, yellow, pink, orange. It's a perfect match.

That's the trick! Now, let's get into the method and find out exactly why a low-odds convincer is used to enhance this trick.

Essentially, a low-odds convincer enhances a one-way force with what feels like an entirely fair choice – because it is, and the odds of them choosing the convincer are relatively low.

For example, if you had a deck that only included the four hearts, it wouldn't matter which card the spectator chose from the face-down deck; they'd always choose the force card. To add a low-odds convincer to this trick, include seven different playing cards at the bottom of the deck. The chances of a spectator choosing from this small section are reasonably low, but it means that once a card is selected, you can collect up the spread deck and flash a handful of the face-up cards to the spectator – convincing them that they are all different.

In the example with the Mentos, you've taken the time before the trick to set up five of the six candy tubes such that the colours are in an identical set order inside the tubes. The order must be mirrored so it does not matter which end the spectator opens the tube from.

Having memorised the order, you'll know which colour each of your friends is chewing on when they remove them from the tube one by one.

This trick uses Mentos because the way they are packaged means the spectators take the candy pieces out individually. A bag of candy would not produce the same forced order.

But of course, this effect is not as fooling if you cannot prove that the other five tubes of Mentos are packaged in completely different orders. You might try memorising six different orders of colours, or you could rely on a low-odd convincer. To do this, the sixth candy tube in the multipack should hold a random and noticeably different order of colours.

Be sure to mark this tube so that it is easy to track visually – perhaps tear part of the packaging or add a small Sharpie mark to it.

When the spectator chooses one of the five force candy tubes, you can open the low-odds convincer and show the candy in random order inside. Don't draw much verbal attention to the fact the colour order is random; use the candy to indicate the colours you believe each spectator has in their mouth – placing a corresponding colour in front of them on the table. By doing it this way, you're getting the spectators to lie to themselves – if you made a big deal about the candy being in a different order, they would likely ask to open the other packets. You can also open the packet to remind yourself of all the colour options available.

Of course, there's always a chance that the spectator will choose the low-odds convincer, and if this happens in this particular trick, you have two options. The first and easiest is a fun use of multiple-outs:

Reverse the presentation – take the first tube they choose and open it up, placing the candy on the table in order and showing them all of the colours in the pack. Then, ask another friend to choose a second tube, which they'll take candy from and place into their mouth.

The other option in this instance would be memorising the candy order inside the convincer packet. You'd need to memorise two candy orders in total.

You always need a backup when using a low-odds convincer, and nine times out of ten, the simplest thing to do is reverse the order of the trick and present the convincer earlier in the routine. Have fun with it and embrace the idea, and you'll end up coming up with even more fooling presentations.

You're taking what is essentially a one-way force or a dumb force and enhancing it in a way you would otherwise not.

Say you need to force a specific year, take out a handful of change and ask a friend to choose one of the coins randomly. Then, pluck two 'random' coins out of the handful and ask a second friend to confirm the dates are random. Then, go back to the original spectator and see which year they chose (this is the force year).

The next time you consider performing a trick that could improve with a very natural convincer, consider this low-odds variation and see if you can use it to enhance your magic.