Somebody takes a card, remembers it and pushes it back into the deck. You spread the whole deck face down across the table and one card is lying face up in the middle. It is theirs.
✨ Level 2: Conjurer
⏱ 10 minutes to learn
🃏 Cards
🎒 Ages 6+
A bit of setting up, or ten to twenty minutes of practice.
What you need
The secret
Get ready, before anybody is watching
Turn the bottom card over before anyone is watching, and keep the deck squared until you need it.
Most beginner card tricks use a secret "key card" that you know, or a special order the cards are in before you start. Your friend picks a card, the secret quietly leads you to it, and then you reveal it in the most dramatic way you can think of.
What is misdirection?
Misdirection is deciding where people look. If you look at your right hand, your audience looks there too, and your left hand can do the secret. A question or a joke at the right moment moves attention just as well as a big gesture.
Somebody takes a card, remembers it and pushes it back into the deck. You spread the whole deck face down across the table and one card is lying face up in the middle. It is theirs. It's a level 2 conjurer trick for ages 6 to 11 (grades 1st–5th), takes 10 minutes to learn, and needs one thing you already have. Flick, the shop's rabbit, reads every step aloud with a picture, so a child can follow it alone.
The secret
Before you start you quietly turn the bottom card of the deck the other way up. When you turn the deck over to spread it for them, the whole deck is secretly face up with one card face down on top, so the card they push back is the only one going the wrong way.
What you need
A deck of cards
Get ready, before anybody is watching
Turn the bottom card over before anyone is watching, and keep the deck squared until you need it.
How to do it
Hold the deck out and fan it so somebody can take a card.
While they look at it, lower your hands and quietly turn the deck over.
Hold the deck out again and ask them to push their card back into the middle.
Put the deck behind your back, turn it over once more, and bring it out.
Spread the deck across the table. Their card is lying face up, all on its own.
Magic words to say
“Cards know things. Push yours back in anywhere you like, I won't look. Somewhere in there it's going to tell the others, and when a card tells a secret it goes red in the face and turns right over.”
Pro tips
The turn in step 2 must happen while they are looking at their card. Say "have a good look, don't forget it" and use that whole beat.
Spread slowly at the end. The reveal is better when they see it coming a second before it arrives.
Square the deck up and put it away afterwards. A deck left spread is a deck somebody turns over.
If something goes wrong
If their card is not face up, you missed the second turn. Say "it's shy", turn the deck over and spread again. It is there.
Safety notes
Only from the front.
No fire, no flames and nothing sharp in a child's hand anywhere in the Magic Shop. Nothing ever goes in a mouth, a nose or an ear.
What kind of trick is this?
🔀 Transposition. Something jumps from one place to another. Almost every trick ever invented is one of eight kinds, and knowing which one you're watching is how magicians work out how a new trick is done.
The skill it teaches:Misdirection. People look where you look. Perform it and it counts towards the Card Keeper badge.
Questions about the upside-down card
How do you do a card trick?
Most beginner card tricks use a secret "key card" that you know, or a special order the cards are in before you start. Your friend picks a card, the secret quietly leads you to it, and then you reveal it in the most dramatic way you can think of.
What is misdirection?
Misdirection is deciding where people look. If you look at your right hand, your audience looks there too, and your left hand can do the secret. A question or a joke at the right moment moves attention just as well as a big gesture.