Imagine:
The magician introduces a deck of cards; he spreads it face up to show that all the cards are different. He then gives it to a spectator and asks them to thoroughly shuffle it. After they are done shuffling, he asks them to cut off about a third of the deck. The spectator does that. The magician then sets aside the remainder of the deck and tells the spectator to just focus on the third they cut off.
The magician tells the spectator that they can shuffle the third if they want (not that it's necessary because moments ago, before cutting off the third, they shuffled the entire deck). After they're done shuffling it (if they choose to shuffle it), the magician says "I want you to make a free selection from that third. Simply give it a complete cut, and then either peek at the top card or peek at the bottom card." So the spectator gives the third a complete cut, and then looks at either its top card or its bottom card. The magician emphasizes the fact that he could have no idea what card they peeked at (after all, he hasn't even touched the third).
At this point, the magician draws the spectator's attention to the remainder of the deck that was set aside at the beginning. He tells them that they can shuffle it if they want (again, not necessary as the entire deck was shuffled at the beginning). He then asks them to bury their third anywhere in it. The spectator does that. The entire deck is reassembled at this stage.
It should be impossible to find the spectator's card ... but wait, there's more ... The magician asks the spectator to give the entire deck a few complete cuts. They do that. He then invites them to give the deck a riffle shuffle, followed by a few more complete cuts. They do all that.
And only now the magician locates the card. He takes the deck, spreads through its faces, and finds 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, the spectator can shuffle both the third that they cut off and the remainder of the deck.
- At the end of the effect, before the magician locates the selected card, the spectator gives the deck a legitimate riffle shuffle.
- The magician never touches the third that the spectator cuts off (which they use to make a selection).
- The magician doesn't know what the selected card is until he looks through the deck at the end. So it's not as if he peeks at it somehow while the spectator is looking at it. Furthermore, because of this condition, a force is also ruled out.
1st edition 2023, PDF 7 pages.
word count: 2331 which is equivalent to 9 standard pages of text
