Magician’s ‘mesmerizing’ card trick attracts 45,000 views on Instagram

Some things never fail to amaze or inspire awe, and that includes classic magic tricks.

Alexey L., who goes by kriod on Instagram, is a performance artist specializing in card tricks. A master manipulator of the deck, he can seemingly transform cardsmake cards disappear and even balance them in unconventional ways. 

The artist flexed his dexterity in a video he captioned, “The mesmerizing power of cards.” For the simple (yet effective) trick, Alexey holds a full deck of cards in his hand. Using only his thumb, he pushes the corner of the bottom of the stack to perfectly fan out every single card. It’s the kind of thing that looks easy, but if you actually tried you’d just make a mess.

Alexey’s trick was watched over 45,000 times on Instagram. The commenters were overall very, very impressed.

“Me: suddenly has a brunch of cards on the floor,” one user wrote

“Whoa, that takes time. Congratulations. Wow,” another person said

“So satisfying to watch,” a user commented

For as long as there have been cards, there have been tricks, it seems. Historians believe playing cards were invented in China or India possibly as far back as 800 A.D. They were likely introduced to Europe in the 14th century. The Westernized deck, depicting kings and queens, was created in France in 1480. But card tricks were actually invented by cheating gamblers who used sleight of hand to gain advantages in bets.

All these hundreds of years later and card tricks are no less impressive to the naked eye!

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