Many versions of the You Do As I Do effect have come to my attention but so far all have used two decks. In this arrangement only one deck is used and but a moment is needed for the preparation, if it can be called that.
Take any deck and note the two face cards as you hold them facing you. These should be preferably a red and black card. Run through the deck and pass to the top or back of the pack the two cards of same value and color. Thus, for example, the top and bottom cards might be the fours of clubs and spades, and the second card from the top and second card from the bottom might be the tens of hearts and diamonds.
Start by dovetail shuffling the pack so as to retain the top and bottom pairs in their respective places. Then place the deck on the table and ask the spectator to cut it into two piles. At this point you pick up each half and shuffle it overhand style and there is a bit of skullduggery in this that is far from being difficult. Pick up the top half first and overhand shuffle, running the two top cards one at a time and shuffling the rest on top. This puts them on the bottom in reversed order. Shuffle once more but the fingers (of the hand holding the cards) against the face or bottom card, hold it there while the rest of the under portion is drawn away and shuffled off on top to the last card which is left on top, and this half of the pack is replaced on the table. The other half is picked up and given only one shuffle. The fingers of the hand holding the cards rest against the face of the packet and retain the bottom card while the under portion of the packet is drawn away and shuffled off on top to the last card. Replacing this half on the table, both halves are now apparently well mixed. However, the top card of each packet (if arranged as described before) is a red ten, and the bottom card of each is a black four. Up to this moment everything has been perfectly above board as the deck was genuinely shuffled to start, then cut by a spectator, and each half shuffled again.
The spectator is asked to pick up a packet and you take the other. Each of you deal a card at a time into a face down pile together until the spectator wishes to stop. Immediately you prove an unseen force at work by turning each packet face up on the table and showing two red tens.
Now you ask him to count the remainder of his cards onto the table singly in a pile and at the same time you do likewise. If he has the most, he is to place his top card (as the deck stands now) face down on the table without looking at it. You turn over your top card (making a two card turnover), show it, turn it over again with back up and deal it on the table. Now he turns up his card and it is a black four. You look surprised and say that to be correct your card should also be a black four. Turn your card over and it is seen to have changed to match his card. If you had the larger packet in the counting, you merely do your turnover first and lay the card out, asking him to turn over his after and finish the same. If both packets have the same number of cards, you call attention to the fact that he cut them himself and that the two packets have a strange attraction for each other. Any way you have him, the cards match and the number of cards in each pile only serves as the excuse for the counting to reverse the packets and make possible the last part of the trick.
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