What's The Most Popular Playing Card To Force?

I studied media as a teenager. Some of us loved the class, but the majority were only there expecting the class to be easy. It was much easier than the science and math classes. Media is a great subject I recommend anyone take. You’re forced to question the media in every format—why things are the way they are and what the producers' intentions might be.

I can strongly recall my media studies teacher getting into an argument with a girl in the class. It was over a specific red dress worn by an actor in a movie. We were being taught that red connotes lust and romance, and that’s why the costume department and director chose the color and fit.

The unruly student was having none of this: “maybe they just liked the red dress, or it was cheap, or it was the only one that fit.” The teacher insisted she was wrong and that everything you see on screen is carefully decided upon by a professional because of the way it will make the viewer feel to see it.

I was the consultant for a TV show a few years later. One of the tricks required a dress. If you, a magician, watched the show, you might correctly assume that the production carefully selected the dress. You might guess the choice of shape and cut were specific to the method, camera angles, and to enhance the impact.

The truth is we painstakingly spent hours searching for the right dress. The team exchanged many emails. Executives had to be involved in the decision, and we had to get sign-off from the chief operating officer at the production company. The search was motivated by one thing alone—cost. We had to find the cheapest dress available. Our budget was £140, leaving us no chance to care about the color or fit.

The girl was right all along.

I’ve learned that while most things you see on television are the product of decisions by humans, the majority of these decisions are purely cost-based. Be that location, lighting, costumes, props, celebrity contributors, etc. The idea that everything on screen is intentional can only be blanket-applied to animated films.

What’s the best playing card to force?

Still—sometimes cost doesn’t define a decision. Sometimes, the same decision gets made across a career spanning decades and by several performers. One of these simple decisions that magicians must often make is which card shall I force.

Forcing a card on somebody is exactly what it sounds like. You ask the spectator to choose a card, but you force them to pick the one already pre-selected by you.

Sometimes you absolutely must use a particular card for a method to work. That’s not always the case. Most of the time, you have a lot more agency when selecting the card you force upon the spectator.

I don’t think everyday magicians spend much time considering which card they should force on a spectator. Magic consultants seem to, though. Most consultants will quickly tell you their recommended suit and value for each possible scenario. They usually have good reasons.

Before we go any further, a big fat disclaimer: there is no way of knowing if all of the examples referenced in this article are card forces or natural selection. We sprinkled in a few I know are natural selections. Safe to assume that most are card forces, so the data is somewhat actionable.

Even on occasions when we didn’t need to force a card for a magic trick to work, we did—because we cared about ensuring the trick was easy to follow at home and that the card was memorable and instantly recognizable. I’ve even chosen to force cards to add variety to one TV show. We forced different cards and compiled the clips together to overprove the fact that any card could have been selected—yes, I see the irony.

So let this article be the definitive guide to choosing which playing card to force. First, I’ll go through each of the three most popular playing cards to force, and detail when to force them and why. Then we’ll look at the data gathered from watching hundreds of big-name magicians force playing cards, and see which card gets forced the most frequently. Get ready for some pie charts, baby.

a. The King Of Hearts

Magic consultants will choose a court card when a tear marks a card. I’ll write about ways of marking cards in the future. Tears are often the best option for cards to impossible locations; they are visually more stimulating and better for wide shots. I highly recommend the Intercessor 2.0 by the genius Gaetan Bloom, which allows you to make identical tears in cards that can even be signed.

The limited white space on a court card means that the tear works much better visually as a convinced. There’s more artwork that you can line up across the incision.

Use the King of Hearts when the card gets torn.

b. The Three of Anything

If you need a card that’s easy to identify and remember immediately, go for a three. I would usually recommend avoiding clubs if you’re performing somewhere with any language barrier. People who don’t handle cards don’t always know what they’re called. But three black clubs are readily and instantly recognizable, even at a distance and in low light.

We get taught to think in threes—it’s how our minds process information. Say your phone number out loud, and you’ll automatically split it into three parts. A five is also popular and easily recognizable. At a glance you can quickly count the pips on a five or three.

Use the three of anything when the selection is not signed.

c. The Four Of Hearts

If a card is going to be signed, you’ll want lots of blank space in the center of the card. The four of hearts provide this blank canvas, and the red suit doesn’t conflict with the black sharpie signature. If you’re performing on stage, with bright lights, the red can be hard to see—but on telly, red is a winner.

Use the four of hearts if you’re getting the selection signed.

The results are in…

We reviewed a lot of TV magic clips and made a note of which cards got selected. The first pie chart below displays all of the card values chosen on more than five occasions. That big fat red chunk is cards with a value of three.

Next up, we’ve got those selected cards with the value of three divided by suit. Spectators did not select spades enough to be included in the chart. It looks like the three of diamonds is our winner.