Card Trick

These instructions will teach you how to do a simple, fun card trick. I made this instructable for school. *Note that when we speak of the spectator's left, it will be your right because they will be sitting opposite you for this trick. (And if we speak of the spectator's right, it will be your left.)

Have a spectator sit so that you are facing each other. Have them shuffle the deck of cards and then give them back to you.

Flip the stack of cards over (face up).

Tell that the spectator that the cards are in random order and show them this by quickly scrolling through the cards. Make sure you start with the card on the bottom left first and fan through the others (from left to right). Pay attention to which card is 4th from the left and remember this card. (Fan through the cards slow enough to see the 4th from the left but then cover that card as you quickly fan through the rest of the deck). In this example, the card you would remember is the 7 of hearts.

Once you are done showing the cards, bring them back to a stacked position. Now comes the tricky part. Say, "Let's do one more quick shuffle" and shuffle the cards one more time, but keep the top four cards (or more) on top of the deck while you shuffle so that the card you are remembering is the 4th one down.

Tell the spectator to cut the cards (remove some of the cards from the top of the stack and place them in another pile). Tell them each stack needs to have at least four cards, but other than that they can choose how to cut the cards. Tell them to place the new stack to the left of the other stack (spectator's left).

Tell the spectator that by looking at one card in the pile to the spectator's right (the 4th card down), you will be able to predict the 4th card down in the other pile.

Take a look at the fourth card from the top in the pile to the spectator's right (like you said you would). Don't show the spectator and don't look at the other cards. It is not important that you remember this card. The one you are remembering is in the other deck.

Place any removed cards back in the pile you removed them from.

Tell the spectator that you now know what the fourth card in the other pile will be. Name the card you have been remembering (in this case, the 7 of hearts).

Turn over the top four cards from the stack on the spectator's left, one at a time, until you get to the fourth card. This should be the card you predicted (7 of hearts).