Imagine:
The magician introduces a deck of cards. He invites a spectator to thoroughly shuffle the deck. Once the spectator is done shuffling, the magician spreads the deck face up as he asks them to verify that all the cards are in fact different. With this done, he closes the spread and turns the deck back face down. He then instructs the spectator to cut the deck into 3 piles. Furthermore, he promises never to touch the deck again until the end.
The spectator takes the deck and cuts it into 3 more or less equal piles: top pile, middle pile and bottom pile respectively. The magician then asks the spectator to turn the middle pile face up and to spread it out. After they've done that, he says "I want you to think of any card in this pile. You can see all of them there. Simply think of any one that you like. You are going to remove it in a moment when my back is turned to you." He then turns his back to the spectator, at which point the spectator removes their thought of card from the face up spread of the middle pile.
The magician (while turned away) says "Since I'm turned away from you, I can't see your selected card. Even if the cards were marked, that wouldn't help me as I'm turned away. Now, if I were to ask you to place your selected card on top of the middle pile, you may think I could use the top card of the middle pile as a key card. After all, before I turned my back to you, I could have seen that top card. So, in order to eliminate this idea, square up the face up spread of the middle pile, turn it face down and shuffle it. And then place your selected card face down on top of it." The spectator shuffles the middle pile, after which they place their selected card on top of it.
The magician (while still turned away) explains, "Now, if I were to ask you to place the top pile on top of the middle pile in order to bury your selected card, you may think I could use the bottom card of the top pile as a key card. Perhaps while you were cutting that pile to the table earlier, I accidentally saw its bottom card. So, in order to eliminate this idea, shuffle the top pile before placing it on top of the middle pile." The spectator shuffles the top pile, after which they place it on top of the middle pile in order to bury their selected card.
The magician (while still turned away) continues, "Your selected card is now lost somewhere in between the combination of the middle and top pile. But there is one pile left over, the bottom pile. Perhaps, for all you know, I have a key card in there. So, in order to eliminate this idea, shuffle the bottom pile as well." The spectator shuffles the bottom pile, after which the magician asks them to place it underneath the other pile (the pile that is the combination of the middle and top pile).
At this point, the entire deck is reassembled. The magician turns back around to face the spectator (the first time that he's turning back around ever since he turned away) and says "The only thing I can possibly know about your card at this point is its approximate position in the deck. So, to eliminate this idea, cut and complete the deck a few times. In fact, if you want, you can do this under the table in case you think I can visually track the cuts." The spectator does this.
Now, for the first time since the beginning, the magician touches the deck. He takes the deck, spreads through its faces and locates the spectator's selected card.
Some important conditions of note:
- The spectator shuffles the entire deck at the beginning of the effect.
- During the effect, as is evident in the description above, all 3 piles are individually shuffled by the spectator.
- The magician never sees the back of the spectator's selected card (the one that they remove from the middle pile), AND, after the spectator is finished shuffling the middle pile, the magician never sees the back of the (new) top card of the middle pile (the one on top of which the selected card is placed). So, if the cards were marked, the markings would be of no use in the aforementioned matters - because, remember, the magician is turned away during all that.
- The method for this is completely different compared to the method of Three Pile Location: On Steroids. But the effect and conditions are very similar.
1st edition 2023, PDF 9 pages.
word count: 4369 which is equivalent to 17 standard pages of text
