Three-Card Monte
If, as a kid, you’ve found yourself in one of those birthday parties where either a clown or a magician is, or if you’ve ever stumbled upon a deck of cards and wanted to see how observant your little sister or little brother is, then you’ve probably encountered the three-card monte. It is a simple game involving playing cards, fast hands, even faster eyes, and a keen sense of observation, and the key to winning this game is simple: keen observation skills.
The game works this way: an illusionist sets up for the game. All he needs is a makeshift table – on the streets, this is just a shoebox where he can place the cards – or any flat surface, and three playing cards: the money card, and two monkey cards. The money card is usually a red card, and a queen, the common choice being the queen of hearts; the monkey cards, meanwhile, are the two other choices, which are usually black jacks or any rank of card for that matter, that is not another queen. These cards are usually black cards as well. The illusionist places these cards facedown after showing the player, and the goal is to be able to find the money card after the illusionist shuffles the three cards. If the player guesses right, then he wins.
If you will notice, I call the dealer an illusionist instead of a dealer. This is due to the fact that he does, indeed, use illusions in order to be able to effectively hide the card from an unsuspecting player. The techniques he uses require him to have nimble hands and a good amount of things to talk about while shuffling and placing the cards down. Merely shuffling the cards on the table is usually not enough, especially if your player is very observant; therefore, what the illusionist does is to pick the cards up a certain way and throw them down so that the player has no idea that a trick is being played already. This is because it is harder to observe the movement of the cards when the illusionist is holding them in his hands rather than when the cards are on the table. This ensures that the player does not get the choice right, and this ensures that the illusionist makes money from the game.
In a simple game of three-card monte, though, where these tricks are not applied, the concept of the Monty Hall problem can be applied. Since there are three cards, there is a 33.33% chance of winning, and once the dealer opens a monkey card then one’s chances of winning increase to 66.67% if the dealer offers the player to change cards and the player does change his choice. Then again, no game is ever kept this honest, so the probability of winning is not as promising as in a good, clean game that kids play.