Grab-Bag Card

This is an ingenious use of the palm which is made when all attention is diverted from the pack and from your hands. For that reason, this is a good trick for you to use while gaining confidence in your ability to palm.

1. Ask someone to step forward to assist you in your next feat, and when some obliging soul has done so have him shuffle the pack and remove any card, showing it to everyone. Take the pack, and in having the card replaced control it to the top by means of the overhand shuffle control .

2. Hand the deck to your assistant, saying, "Kindly deal ten cards into my left hand, then place the remainder of the pack to one side." Count the cards as he deals, so that all may be assured that there are no more and no less than ten. Hold the ten cards high as he discards the pack, but with their backs to the audience so that no one can see the chosen card at the bottom of the packet; then place it in your outer right coat pocket with the face card innermost, thus bringing the chosen card nearest your body.

3. Say: "I'll wager you haven't taken a chance on a grab-bag in years, sir. Let's try it tonight with the ten cards in my pocket. Here's how we'll do it." Dip your right hand into your pocket and remove the selected card at the bottom, placing it face downwards in your left hand and being careful that no one sees its face. "I'll take a card, number one. Now you take a card from my pocket–any card–from the top, the bottom, or the middle, just as you like." When he removes one, count, "Number two," and have him keep the card.

4. "You see how simple it is? You don't know what card you'll get, neither do 1." Remove another card, counting, "Number three!" and slide it face downwards under the one you already hold in your left hand.

5. Have him remove another card, counting "Four." Dip your right hand into your pocket to remove another card and as you do so turn the two cards in the left hand face upwards by tipping them over with the thumb. Do not make a sleight of this; everyone will be watching your right hand and in any event what you do with the cards in your left hand does not seem important. Count "Five," as you place the card face upwards on those already in the left hand.

6. Have the spectator remove another card, urging him always to take any card he likes. Count it as six; then remove one yourself, counting it as seven.

7. As your vis-a-vis is removing the eighth card, palm the selected card from the top of those you hold. This is an easy palm as you naturally turn your right side forward to enable everyone to see him remove his card, and your hands are forgotten. Count "Eight," as he adds his card to those he holds.

8. Place your hand with the palmed card in your pocket, and drop the card. Take the other two remaining cards, square them, and remove them as one card, counting "Nine." Place them on those you already hold.

9. Have the spectator name his card. "Let me point out that you have had a perfectly free choice as to which cards you would remove from my pocket," you recapitulate. "Yet if our grab-bag has been a success, the last card remaining in my pocket must be your card!" Have him remove the last card. It is his chosen card!