Questions tagged [cards]

For puzzles centered around playing cards.

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52 votes
5 answers
36k views

A five card trick - How does it work?

At a party last night, my friends Alice and Bob did a magic trick. Any ideas how it worked? Alice shuffled a pack of cards, and asked me to take five. I looked at them. She put the rest of the pack ...
Colonel Panic's user avatar
39 votes
2 answers
2k views

Alice and Bob invent a game

The rain was still falling in Wales, and Alice and Bob were terribly bored of having to stay inside the caravan. With just a deck of cards to entertain them they had played all of the card games in ...
Stiv's user avatar
  • 140k
13 votes
2 answers
2k views

The Fitch Cheney Card Trick Extended

First, here is the original question which was also discussed here in Puzzling Beta: This is a two-person card trick. At the initial stage, the magician leaves the room. The magician's assistant ...
blackened's user avatar
  • 559
16 votes
10 answers
3k views

5 people each have 5 equal cards

A competent logician is playing cards with four of his friends, so that there are a total of 5 people sat around the table. Each player has the same 5 cards, showing A, 2, 3, 4, and 5 (Ace being low). ...
Mike.C.Ford's user avatar
  • 1,369
6 votes
4 answers
1k views

The Great Houdini's awesome card guessing trick (1)

The Great Houdini is performing again! A guy from the audience arbitrarily chooses $52$ cards from a huge stack. He shuffles the cards and announces to Houdini that there are $a$ spades, $b$ hearts, $...
Gamow's user avatar
  • 45.6k
-1 votes
3 answers
1k views

Inheritance by cards [duplicate]

An old farmer passes away in his sleep. After a suitable period of mourning, his three sons find their father's will in his study. Amongst other, simpler bequests is the following: "I wish my small ...
IanF1's user avatar
  • 2,134
40 votes
4 answers
3k views

Multilayer Image Steganography

Alice, Bob, Carol, and Dan are playing a card game. After they all show their cards, Bob notes that by exchanging two cards the order of the players would be reversed; that is, the player with the ...
2012rcampion's user avatar
  • 18.9k
13 votes
4 answers
1k views

Cooperative guessing game

A standard deck of 52 cards is shuffled and split into two piles of 26 cards each. Two players cooperate, they must score as many tricks as possible. The first player draw 5 cards from the first pile, ...
aaaaaaaaaaaa's user avatar
  • 2,079
11 votes
5 answers
2k views

Sorting cards using max 3 stacks

You have a stack of N cards numbered from 1 to N in random order. You want to sort the cards in ascending order using the following procedure: Your initial stack is stack 1. You distribute the cards ...
Florian F's user avatar
  • 29.1k
10 votes
2 answers
2k views

Card trick: guessing the suit if you see the remaining three cards (important is that you can't move or turn the cards) [closed]

Suske, Sidonia, Lambik, and Jerom are in a room. Wiske has them each draw a card of their choice from an open standard deck of cards and lay it face up on the table. The remaining cards are set aside. ...
user avatar
7 votes
5 answers
2k views

The Great Houdini's awesome card guessing trick (2)

The Great Houdini is performing again! Everybody wants to see the famous magician and the magic show is sold out. Today Houdini shows the following sophisticated trick: A guy from the audience ...
Gamow's user avatar
  • 45.6k
4 votes
2 answers
1k views

Five Card Magic Trick with $N$ card Deck

Last week, I saw a magic show, and was the volunteer for climactic act. The magician introduced this act by talking about the Fitch-Cheney card trick, but then explained that she was going to do an ...
Mike Earnest's user avatar
  • 32.3k
4 votes
1 answer
256 views

Can you balance this poker deck?

You are given the digits 0 to 9 in 4 poker suits. Distribute them onto the 8 highest poker hands (make one of each) of 5 digits each. They are Royal Flush (9 to 5 of one suit) Straight Flush (...
Nurator's user avatar
  • 379
3 votes
1 answer
182 views

Prove that we cannot arrange the cards according to the given rules [duplicate]

There are ten pairs of cards with the numbers 0, 0, 1, 1... 8, 8, 9, 9 written on them. Prove that they cannot be laid in a row so that there are exactly n cards between any two cards with equal ...
Hemant Agarwal's user avatar
3 votes
4 answers
409 views

Hiker’s Cabin Mystery | Pt. VII

Congratulations to @GarethMcCaughan for his victory on the long unsolved Part II of this mystery! Kudos! Part VIII will hold a not-so-fun twist! Solve this one quickly, and we can get to it! New ...
Voldemort's Wrath's user avatar