answer to the ESP test

Is I mentioned in the earlier post, I would post the answer later. Most people that were kind enough to comment on it also gave the correct answer. I thought the trick was pretty sneaky, so I wrote an email to the author of the website:

Cliff,
It took me a few minutes, but I really had to slap myself on the forehead when I realized the trick. The trick being that *none* of the six cards appear after you click the one of the six eyes. The five that appear after the click are all different. The original six has three red face cards: a king, a queen, and a jack, and three black face cards, also a king, a queen, and a jack. When you click on the eyes, then five face cards are shown. However, for each face card that was there before, the suit of each card changes to the other suit of the same color. A king of diamonds is replaced by a king of hearts, a jack of spades is replaced by a jack of clubs, etc. Then you show five of these cards instead of six, and no matter which of the six they chose, that card will not appear with the five. Since the person playing is only paying attention to the card that they picked, they only notice that the card they chose is no longer there: they don’t notice that all the other cards have changed because they weren’t paying attention to that detail. Quite an ingenius little trick.

I’m curious, what percentage of people figure out the trick to this? I’m sure you won’t post this reply (and I wouldn’t ask you to) on your site since it would ruin the trick for everyone, but I’m certainly not a genius and I highly doubt that I’m the first to figure it out.

Also, I find it hilarious that many people claim it didn’t work and thier card wasn’t removed! I guess they remembered thier own card wrong, or something like that.
–Derek

Alas, Cliff never wrote me back.

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