A stooge in the audience does all of the work, but you can fool magicians with it, and sometimes that’s a lot of fun and satisfaction.

Someone shuffles the deck and cuts it into two nearly equal piles. A spectator is asked to take a card from the center of one pile, remember it, and place it on top of the same pile. Another spectator (who is your stooge) is asked to do the same with the other pile. Spectator number one may now place either pile above the other, and cut the pack several times.

You now ask for the names of the two cards, and announce that you will cause them to come together in the deck. If you are performing before magi, present it as a feat of second dealing (that is, holding one card by second dealing until you reach the other). Deal the cards rapidly onto the table face up. When you reach one of the chosen cards, pause for effect, then deal the next card which (if your stooge has been faithful) should be the other chosen card.

Here’s the how. When the deck was shuffled, the stooge noticed the bottom card of the pack. If he didn’t get the glimpse then he insisted on shuffling the deck a bit himself. After the deck is cut into the two piles, it is the original lower half from which the stooge is asked to take his card. Of course he forgets the card he draws and remembers only the bottom card of the pile. It is this card that he later names as his. Regardless of how the piles are gathered and cut, the spectator’s card and the card the stooge names as his will come together.

You will be amazed at the gullibility of some members of the profession!