Easy card tricks: Best of Fives

Here’s a great easy card trick for beginners and kids. In fact it’s one of the best. What I like about this trick, even though it is a variation on the old “find a spectator’s card” trick, is that it has a double climax at the end that goes far beyond your garden variety card trick for beginners.

This is why it’s one of the best card tricks around, and it’s easy enough for kids to learn and perform. This great trick that employs a spectator’s card and four aces is something of secret.

Effect:
A spectator selects a card and returns it to the deck. You spread the cards and find that one card is now face up. However, it’s not the spectator’s card.

Thinking fast, you state that the face-up card is an “indicator card” that tells you how many cards to count to find the spectator’s card.

Since the “indicator card” is a “five,” you count down five cards and sure enough, it’s the spectator’s selected card.

But wait, there’s more. When you turn over the four in-between cards, they turn out to be the four aces. This is indeed the best of five, a great card trick for beginners and kids.

Materials:
A deck of cards

Preparation:
A bit of setup with the deck ahead of time.

Ahead of time, before you perform the trick, setup the deck in the following manner:
Collect and place the four aces and a five of any suit.

Turn the aces face-down and place the five, face-up, on top of the aces. Place the rest of the deck on top of the setup.

The next page will show you how the cards should be set up.

Here’s how the setup of the deck should look.

Ask the spectator to freely select a card from the deck. Just be sure that the spectator doesn’t select from the five bottom cards.

As the spectator is looking at the card and showing it to others, rest the deck on the table.

To return the card, either you or the spectator can cut the deck as shown in the picture. The spectator’s card goes on top of the pile that was just cut from the top of the deck.

Lift and place the original bottom of the deck on top of the spectator’s card and the rest of the deck.

The spectator doesn’t know it, but your setup with the aces and “five” are now on top of his card. This is the secret to the trick.

Spread the deck on the table to reveal the face up card.

When the spectator states that it’s not his card, mention that it’s only an “indicator” card that tells you how many cards to count below it to find the card.