Hi I'm just wondering does anyone have some statistics on the most chosen card when asked to name a card? I'm guessing there's no statistics but I just wanted to ask around anyways ^^.

From experience can anyone tell me what suit or number/picture card you usually get answered?

I've read a few things and apparently hearts is the most common said suit, but idk I just want to hear from your experiences ^^

Many people name the Ace of Spades because it is the easiest card to remember. Women name the Queen of Hearts on a fairly regular basis. In terms of suits, people rarely name Clubs, usually Hearts or Spades. However, Magicians sometimes select a low value Club to try and catch you out.

It totally depends on the person. For example, if you ask a Bridge player they might name a Spade or Heart over a Club or Diamond because these are the more valuable cards in the game.

HTH,

Marty

I remember when I was first learning the Invisible Deck, I read somewhere that Aces, Queens, and Sevens were the most commonly named cards and that it was a good idea to arrange your ID so that these cards were in the middle. Much to my amazement, the first three times I performed ID for people the cards named were:

Queen of Hearts
Seven of Diamonds
Ace of Diamonds

Yeah, I think people often pick a Seven because the number is considered lucky. Strangley, I find that people very rarely name low value spot cards, e.g. Twos, Threes and Fours, etc.

You can also use psychological suggestion to increase the chances of a particular card being chosen. Derren Brown shares some good tips regarding this on his "The Devil's Picturebook" DVD.

Marty

In Son of Simon Says by Simon Lovell he has work on this most commonly named cards thing.

I mostly get Ace of Spaces or Ace of Diamonds, Queen of Diamonds and Queen of Hearts.

It is not very often I get a spot card selected, almost always at least in the court.

I was really shocked by this when I first started doing "walk around". Most everyone would name the ace of spades or queen of hearts. I almost felt like shouting "pick a different card!".

Jim

As, Qd, 7h...strange but true..(at least for me)...

One of my biggest pet peeves is when doing an effect where the spectator can name any card (Mem. Deck, Brainwave, etc.), you conclude the effect with whatever card the spectator names. Then no matter what the card is they say, "Well of course, because everyone names that card!" You just can't win sometimes!

Strangely [for me], it's mostly been: Ace, Seven or Queen of Hearts or Diamonds.

Jv

In Europe, the ace of Spades is not as significant as in the US. (On "American" playing cards the Ace of Spades is mostly bigger than the other aces. In many European card stocks, the ace of spades is printed like the other aces.
So it is also a matter of WHERE you do the trick.

I performed for more than 30 years the invisible deck and did the trick maybe 5000 times. Without a doubt I can say that in my country (Belgium) the winners are:
Seven of hearts and Queen of hearts. What was also significant is that the suit "clubs" was rarely chosen.

From what I have experienced it does seem as though women will almost alwasy go with a heart or a diamond and as the rest seldom seems to be a low value card. Although I honestly don;t get the Ace of Spades selection but that might also be that if I am doing the Invisble deck I typically patter about them picking a card and mention for them to think of somethign uncommon unlike the AS. So I sometimes try to deirect them from it so it isn't as predictable an outcome.

I think its a universal thing even when I'm back home the first few calls from family was also aces and queens must be some kind of subconsious link us humans have...

I seem to recall someone doing an actual survey on this very subject here on the Café and recorded the stats a year or 2 ago! I have no idea what to search for to find it but if I run across it again I'll post the link!

I always pick the 4C but that's NOT what I use as a key card!

MMc

That's a really interesting topic.

@Mickey: Please let me know if you found it!

TA!

David Blaine's book "Mysterious Stranger" has a little section on this. In order of popularity, men generally choose Ace, then Seven, then Four of Spades. Women generally choose Queen, then Ace, then Seven of Hearts. If you add the word "difficult" to your request, people generally change to the opposite suit and won't think of court cards or aces.

Take everything with a grain of salt, though. I always name the 5D.

In the thirties, the nine of diamonds was never picked because it was considered a bad luck card. You should go read Dai Vernon's mental force in Expert card technique by Hugard. He talks about the cards people pick and do not pick.

Slim

I remember someone getting me with the Ace of Spades commonality. "Pick a card...don't pick Ace of Spades".. I'm like "WOW".

That, of course, was years ago, but I still remember it!

I'm interested in this, so I did a little (unscientific) survey:

I am a High school teacher in Vancouver, Canada and every two days I teach about 150 students between the ages of 13 and 17. I asked each student to think of any card and these are the results I got. Please note that cards NOT listed below did not get chosen even once:
As-21
Qh-10
7h-8
Qs-5
3d-5
2h-5
2s-4
7s-4
8s-4
9s-4
7d-4
8d-4
10d-4
2c-4
7c-4
8c-4
Ah-4
Jh-4
kh-4
5s-3
Ad-3
all these got 2 votes
3s
4s
2d
4d
5d
9d
Jd
Qd
5c
9c
10c
6h
Joker
All these got 1 vote:
6s
10s
Js
Ks
6d
Kd
Ac
4c
Jc
Qc
4h

I thought these were interesting results, certainly not conclusive but interesting non the less

Ace of spades annoyingly as it takes away from such an effect