How to Perform the Fan Card Trick

The fan card trick is one of the oldest and simplest magic card tricks. It involves having someone pick a random card in a deck that is fanned out in your hands, and you being able to guess what that card is. There's a very simple move to knowing the card before you even fan the deck.

Difficulty: Easy

Instructions

1. Cut the deck in your hands. As you do this, take a quick glance at what the new bottom card is.

2. Fan the cards out face down. While controlling the fan with one hand, grasp and pull the bottom card from underneath the deck with your other hand. Hold the deck at a downward angle so no one can see this.

3. Ask someone to touch a card in the fanned deck (not just select it). You don't need to know which card this is; all you need is the pulled card in your hand.

4. Cut the remaining cards below the picked one to the top of the deck. Close the cards back into the deck, secretly moving the grasped card back under the picked one so it's back on the bottom.

5. Turn the face down end of the deck toward the other person so they can see the bottom card. They should think this is the card they touched and that you have not yet seen this card.

6. "Guess" what the card is to complete the trick. You can do this a number of ways, including drawing the card on paper or touching it to your head facing away.

Tips & Warnings

• You can add extra tricks to this move to make it seem more like you can't see the magic card, like closing your eyes or turning your head away while closing the deck.