The Memorized Deck
This, along with many other tricks, depends on the key card. However, the key card is very well hidden, making it more deceptive than other tricks of its kind. Have a deck shuffled and then have a card selected. As the card is being shown around, glimpse the bottom card of the deck. This is your key card, remember it. Cut the cards, but hold a break below your key card, and then spread the cards to have the selection returned to the deck. Break the deck under the key card and take back the card at this spot. The selection is now below the key.
Take the deck and spread it face up on the table, from left to right. Tell the spectators that you are going to memorize the entire deck. What you really do is find the key card and memorize the card to the right of it, (this is the selection,) and then remember the values of the top few cards of the deck. Now turn around and tell the spectator to move just his card from the position it is to a new position, then square up the deck so you can't see where the cards are messed up to tell you his card. Take the deck, and then as if you were talking to yourself, say, "Okay, starts with 10, 6, jack..." repeating the three values of the top cards, and spread out the deck. They will see that you were correct, and you point that out, but as you do, memorize the next few cards. Look up at the ceiling and repeat those few cards, and then look down to check. Say something like, "Okay, I've got it now," and then quickly look through the rest of the deck. If you get to the key card say something like, "Okay, I know there's a card missing here, the king and the six weren't next to each other, etc..." Or if you get to the selection, say, "there's an extra one here, I don't know which," and read off the three or so cards around the selection and the selection as though you were running them through your head. When the time is right, push the selection from the spread for all to see.
As you can see, this is mostly acting. But if you can make the procedure seem convincing, this will fool people who know about key cards. This is a good, easy trick to know if someone hands you a pack of cards and you don't want to set up the deck or search through for the four aces or something like that. Enjoy!!
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