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Effect: After shuffling the deck of cards, the performer holds the deck in his left hand and asks a friend to cut the deck and place the top portion of the cards in the performer’s right hand. The friend is then asked to take the top card from the portion in the performer’s left hand. The friend looks at the card without showing the performer. The performer uses his (or her) mind reading capabilities to tell what card has been chosen.

Card Trick:

Set up the deck beforehand: Separate the suits into four piles. Sort each pile in order from king on top to ace on the bottom. Lay the piles face up so that from left to right they show the aces of spades, hearts, clubs and diamonds. Cut the spade pile so that the king is showing (with the ace beneath it). Cut the hearts so that the 10 is showing. Cut the clubs so that the 7 is showing. Cut the diamonds so that the 4 is showing. Turn the cards face down on top of each other to make one pile, starting with the king of spades, then the ten of hearts, the seven of clubs, and finally the four of diamonds. Continue with the rest of the cards in the same order of suits. The deck is now set. While introducing the trick, cut the deck in half several times to appear to shuffle without actually changing the order.

Now practice your mind reading skills: Hold out the deck and have someone cut it and remove the top card from the left pile. Place the right half of the deck under the left pile. Glance at the bottom card without making it obvious. Add 3 to the value of the bottom card. This tells you the value of the chosen card. For example, if the bottom card is a 9, the chosen card is a queen. If the bottom card is a queen, the chosen card is a 2 (queen, king, ace, two). To determine the suit, remember the sequence CHSD. The letters represent Clubs, Hearts, Spades, Diamonds. (Think of the word “CHaSeD.”) If a spade is showing on the bottom, then the card chosen is a diamond. If the 6 of diamonds is the bottom card, the 9 of clubs is the chosen card. If the 10 of clubs is on the bottom, the king of hearts is the chosen card.

Hints

You can repeat the trick, but always replace the chosen card on top of the deck and cut the deck once or twice before going on to each new card,. If the audience asks to see the cards, flip them over and quickly run through them, as they appear to be in random order, but don’t let the audience shuffle the deck. Once you have performed the trick a couple of times, really shuffle the deck well and hand it back to them. While doing this trick, make a few mistakes to throw the audience off. After all, it’s 80% your game, 20% your trick.