A no-gimmick ACAAN routine.
The magician first takes out 9 cards and tells the spectator that these cards will locate their selection. The spectator then freely selects a card and shuffles the deck. The magician arranges the original 9 cards into a 3×3 matrix on the table and has the spectator freely choose 3 cards. These 3 cards not only reveal the selection's color, suit, and value, but their values also add up to the exact position of the selection in the deck.
1st edition 2026, video 10:17.
Performance transcript:
- Set these 9 cards aside for now.
- As I riffle, have the spectator call stop and select a card.
- Suppose they stop me here. Remember this card.
- Shuffle the remaining cards.
- Insert the spectator's card into the middle of the deck.
- Then interlace the two packets with a Faro shuffle.
- Set these cards aside for now.
- These 9 cards will help me locate the spectator's card.
- Arrange these 9 cards into a 3-by-3 matrix.
- Have the spectator freely choose one.
- Suppose they choose this one, a 10.
- Eliminate all the cards directly above, below, left, and right of the selected card.
- As you can see, the spectator didn't select any of the other values.
- Now have them freely choose another card.
- Suppose they choose this one.
- Again, eliminate the cards above, below, left, and right.
- Now there's no choice left. We're down to this 7.
- These three are the cards the spectator freely selected.
- They don't seem to follow any pattern.
- But they may tell me something.
- For example, the first card is red, which tells me the selection is red.
- The red suits are Hearts and Diamonds.
- The second card is a Heart, so the selection must be a Heart, right?
- Now, what about the value?
- The last card is an 8.
- So the spectator's selection is the 8 of Hearts.
- So where is the 8 of Hearts?
- I mentioned earlier that these three cards would help me locate the selection.
- What do the three values add up to?
- 7 + 10 = 17, and 17 + 8 = 25.
- Let's look at the 25th card.
- It's the 8 of Hearts.
