I have shared various zig-zag card trick secrets, including Mickael Chatelain’s ZIG ZAG, ZIG ZAG 1, and TRISECTION.
Plus Tenyo T-141 Side Track; Mini Zag Tenyo T-141, Jumbo Zig Zag Card; and Ultimate Zig Zag Card by Magic Wagon.
Many have claimed that Jay Sankey’s ZIG ZAG card trick is one of the most visual card effects ever created—often described as looking like a CGI special effect and a stroke of pure genius.
This 2022 magic card by Canadian magician Jay Sankey does not use any flap, magnets or with invisible elastic threads.
Instead, it relies on a specially crafted card that cannot be restored to a normal, plain card.
Welcome to another post from the Info Ruckus Magic Trick Secrets Revealed series.
Jay Sankey ZIG ZAG Routine:
Take a normal playing card, fold it up into a small square pack, then open it up.
The with a quick abrupt pull at the creased card, the middle section is now visibly out of alignment with the top and bottom sections.
In short, the normal card has magically transformed into a actual zig-zag card, that can be examined by the spectators.
Watch Craig Petty doing Jay Sankey ZIG ZAG trick.
ZIG ZAG by Jay Sankey Trick Secret Explained
Again this is just my speculation how this zig-zag trick works based on viewing the above video and Jay’s promo site.
It appears to me it does not use any gimmicked card hidden with flaps, magnets or invisible elastic thread.
It is just a specially-crafted zig-zag card folded up and palmed it in the hand.
Then with a smooth switch from the normal folded-up card to this Jay Sankey Zig Zag Card.
At 1:00 from this demo, you can see Craig Petty switches a palmed card from his right hand, then at 1:26 he disposes the other folded card.
From 1:49, his left thumb is gripping the folded-in section of the specially-crafted zig-zag card at the center.
At 1:56, he mimics a sudden, forceful pull, creating the illusion that the middle section of the card is sliding to his left.
In reality, no sliding occurs.
He is simply using his right thumb to unfold and open the concealed section of the customized zig-zag card.
The handling mirrors Jay Sankey’s approach in his own demo, where he pushes out the folded-in portion of the card rather than actually shifting it.
I think this this is how Jay Sankey ZIG ZAG card looks like before unfolding the hidden piece:
Related Trick: Pocket Illusion By Astor Secret
It is not a traditional Zig Zag magic trick, but rather a picture puzzle enhanced by a magical transformation.
Astor Five Cards Self-Working Trick Routine:
When the magician lines up the five cards in the correct order, they form a complete image of an attractive lady in a red dress.
Visually, the picture appears whole and undisturbed.
Next, the magician gathers the five cards and rearranges them to display the back view of the lady in the same red dress.
He then collects the cards again, apparently mixing them at random, and spreads them once more into a row.
This time, the image appears jumbled, as clearly shown in the illustration below.
The magician then picks up the top card and stacks it onto the remaining four, one card at a time, in a deliberate sequence.
After turning the stack over, he makes a magical gesture and lays the cards out again.
The image now reappears correctly assembled, showing the back view of the lady restored.
Finally, he spreads the cards into a line to reveal the restored front view of the lady in the red dress..
The key to the trick lies in deliberately rearranging and altering the card sequence to confuse the viewer’s perception of order.
So, the secret behind this puzzling routine lies entirely in understanding and controlling the dealing sequence of the five cards, rather than in sleight of hand or mechanical gimmicks.
👉 Read the zig-zag bill trick, Tenyo T-179 Trisector.
Pocket Illusion By Astor Secret Revealed
First, the back view of the image does not follow the same order as the front view, with the exception of the first card.
The true card arrangement works as follows: Front 1 (Back 1), Front 2 (Back 5), Front 3 (Back 4), Front 4 (Back 3), and Front 5 (Back 2).
In other words, when the five cards line up to display the correct front view of the lady, the image on the back is inherently out of sequence, as shown below.
Next comes the secret handling, which involves deliberate rearrangement of the card sequence.
The first key moment occurs at 0:20, when the magician lines up the cards to display the back view of the lady.
After turning over the first card to show its back, he secretly rotates the remaining stack of four cards before placing them onto the table one by one.
As a result, what appears to be the second card in the sequence is actually the fifth card from the original stack.
This subtle reversal quietly alters the order while maintaining the illusion of fairness.
When he arranges the back view of the lady on the table, the front view of the picture actually looks like this:
You can observe how he does it in the demonstration video of Pocket Illusion by Astor below.
You can try other variations from these demo videos: Link 1, Link 2, Link 3