Let Them Find Thier Card

This is a really simple magic trick.  It is simple to perform, but what makes it so effective is that the volunteer does the trick for you!

The key to really making this trick work well is the performance, as is often the case.  The trick itself is dead simple to do.

To perform this simple card trick, first hand a normal deck to a volunteer and ask them to shuffle the deck.  Then simply follow these steps:

1. Ask them to cut the deck roughly in half and put both halves on the table
2. Have them choose one half and pick it up.  You take the other half
3. Turn around so your back is to the audience, and ask them volunteer to go through his or her deck and choose a card, show it to the audience, then place it back face up on the top of the deck
4. While they are choosing a card, secretly set up your half of the deck by turning the bottom card face up, and the 2nd card from the top face up
5. When the volunteer is done, turn around.  Ask them to hold out their half of the deck, and place your cards on top of theirs
6. Inform them that they will perform the trick for you by finding their own card.  Have them place the deck behind their back
7. “Now take the top card..no wait let’s not use that one..i’d hate for you to think I set it up.  Put that on the bottom of the deck and take the next card.  Flip it face up, then insert it somewhere in the middle of the deck.”
8. Once they have done this, ask them to bring the deck back out in front of them
9. “Now if you did this trick properly, and I have faith that you did, you will have found your own chosen card.  Fan through the cards please until you find the face up one you stuck in the middle of the deck
10. When they come to the face up card, ask them what their card was.  Then have them turn over the card following the face up card.  It will usually be their card

NOTE: Occosinoally through some stroke of amazing luck, they will actually place the ‘false’ face up card between the real face up card and the chosen card.  In this case, simply go to the next card and say “Well you did pretty well, you were only off by one.”

This simple magic trick is a great one to do on a whim as it requires no prep.  The key here however is to make sure the audience can’t see you setup your half of the deck, and that when the volunteer does the trick behind their back they can’t see what they are doing, and neither can the audience.