I’m going to show you one of the oldest tricks in magic history please choose any three cards out of this deck and place them face up on the table while I write down a prediction on this napkin. I see that you have chosen the Ace of Clubs, Nine of Hearts, and King of Diamonds and I have written my prediction on this folded piece of paper which I will give to you for safe keeping - but don’t look at it just yet.

Now, I want you to place your hands over any two of these cards that you desire. You have covered the Ace and the Nine. Would you like to change either one? No? OK, I will put the King away. Now, you can take your hands away. As you can see we are left with the Ace and the Nine. Please pick up one of these two cards. The Ace? Would you like to change to the Nine? No? OK, place the card that you have chosen onto the King over here. That leaves us with the Nine. You could have changed your mind, but you chose the Nine.

Please look at the napkin and read my prediction out loud. The Nine of Hearts? Excellent!

The secret here is the magician’s utility effect known as the Magicians Choice. It can be used to force any object - not just cards. I will explain all of the possibilities from the effect described above as a way of explanation. First, the volunteer could have covered the Ace and King, in which case, you take away those two and say they have chosen the Nine. Second, they could cover the Nine plus one other card, in which case you discard the uncovered card and move on to the next phase. In the second phase, you ask them to pick up one card. If they pick up the Nine, you are done and you take the other card away and say they have “chosen” the Nine. If they pick up the other card, you say, OK, hand it to me and that leaves the Nine. No matter what choices they make, you ensure that the Nine is selected.

I previously mentioned the Magicians Choice in #19. This procedure is so old that I cannot provide a source.

Let’s face it, my attempt to document one effect per day is a failure. I am re-visioning this tumblr as a journal of my magical explorations. I will continue to post effects when I can. This has been a great education in magic and I do not want it to end.

Give the deck a good mix and then I want to show you something. As you can see, I have displayed the top three cards. We will call this one, the Queen, #1, this #2, and this one #3. What I need you to do is to pick one that we will work with, remember it’s numbered position, and the suit and value of the card.

Which one shall we go with? The Nine of Hearts at position #2? OK. Now, I will square up the deck and flip it over as if ready to deal. You chose the second card, so I will take the first card and insert it deep into the deck. Then, I will take the second card and insert it deep into the deck. Does that seem fair? It was fair, but now when I snap my fingers - *snap* - the Nine of Hearts has bubbled up to the top of the deck again. What a mystery!

The secret is that you maneuver an extra card behind the three card fan so that when you count off one, two or three cards as determined by your volunteer, you are always left with the chosen card at the top of the deck.

I stumbled across this one on Wayne Kawamoto’s Magic & Illusion section at about.com. It is a nice simple borrowed-deck-friendly effect, and you can use your favorite card reveal with this one. Check it out the about.com post here.

I am just going to look through this deck for a special card and place it face down on the table here. Every card in a deck of cards has a mate that is the same colour. The Six of Hearts has the Six of Diamonds, the King of Spades has the King of Clubs, and so on. Now I want you to be the magician. You are going to find the mate to that face down card out of this deck of 51. Do you think that you are up to that?

I am going to remove one special card from the deck and place it face down over here for later.

I am going to deal off of the top of the deck as normal, but I am going to hold the deck upside down so that you can see the faces of he cards and assure yourself that they are not arranged in any special order. So I will deal down one card at a time face up like this, OK? Now, whenever you feel the time is right, tell me to stop. Stop here? Are you sure? I can carry on if you want? Now, let’s turn over the deck and see what you have chosen on he top of the deck. As you can see, the top card is the Three of Spades. Now, please turn over the card that I removed earlier. What is it? It is the mate, the Three of Clubs!

The secret? Card selection and one simple sleight. When you look through the deck at the beginning to “remove a special card”, note the seventh card from he top of he deck, then locate and remove its mate. You will now use the sleight to force the seventh card.

Now for the sleight: I guess you could call it a “face up glide force.” The procedure is to turn the deck face up and start dealing off of the bottom in full view. Around the time that the third card hits the table, ask your volunteer to tell you when to stop. Often, they will stop you as the sixth card hits the table and no action will be required as the force card will be on the top of the deck. However, if they have you go past the sixth card, you need to remind them that they can say stop any time and during the pause, execute the glide. The glide involves sliding back the top card of the deck (which in this case is on the bottom closest to the table as your deck is inverted with faces up) with your middle, ring and pinky fingers about a centimeter so that you can deal the second card. This way, no matter when they call stop, the force card will be on top.

Here is a video tutorial on the glide, but of course you should learn he glide and other fundamental sleights from the Royal Road to Card Magic.

This trick is completely impromptu and is best performed with a borrowed deck.