Build the Houses

Deal 3 cards face up in a row, and continue dealing until you have 3 columns of  7 cards each. Then find the card the easy way. Ask the spectator to remember any one of the visible cards and to point out its column. Close up each column and combine them into a packet of 21 cards, putting the selected column between the other two. Again deal the 3 columns and have the spectator point to the one with his (or her) card. Again collect the 3 columns with the selected column between the others, and deal them out again. But this time, when the spectator points out the column, pick up that column first and put the other two on top of it.




Now it is time to build the houses. To build a house, deal one card face down at your left and another card about an inch to its right. Then deal a card horizontally at the top of the first two, and another horizontally about an inch below it. You have created a square with a little square open space in the middle.

In exactly the same way, build another house to the right of the first one, another one to its right, and so on. There will be enough cards to build 5 houses with one card left over. Put that card in the deck. (The spectator's card is the card at the right in the 5th house.)

Now here is how you make the trick seem unbelievable. But don't do it more than a couple times because the spectator might catch on. There are 5 houses. To find the spectator's card you have to eliminate all the other houses and cards. Tell the spectator to pick three houses. If his (or her) three choices include the house with the selected card, take away the other two houses. If the spectator's three choices do not include the card, take those three houses away. Then ask him to pick 2 houses (if there are 3 left), or 1 house (if there are only 2 left). Do this till there is only one house, the house with the selected card. Ask the spectator to pick 2 cards. If he picks the top and bottom, take them away. If he picks left and right, keep them. You know the drill now. Ask him to pick one more card. If he picks the card, keep it, if not, throw it away, and boom, there is his card. Wow, we're all finished.