The first five tricks are all simple ways of finding the card chosen by your audience or of making them take the card of your choice while thinking they have selected at random. This is known as 'forcing' a card. Although these tricks can be done on their own, they are best kept as part of more elaborate tricks. As most tricks depend on knowing the chosen card in the first place, it is best not to let your friends know how you have found out what it is.

1. This is the most simple yet often the most effective. It uses what the professionals know as a 'key' card.

Fan the pack out face downwards in your hands and ask a member of your audience to select a card. As they are taking the card from you to look at it, open the pack up a bit and make a note of the bottom card in the top half of the pack (say it is the Ace of Spades).

Tell your friend to replace the card in the gap, without you seeing what it is, close the pack, and let someone cut it. Turn the cards face up on the table, spread them out. The chosen card will be the one following the Ace of Spades.

If you want to stop there and do this as a trick on its own, make a bit of play about identifying the card. Don't go straight to it. Say something like - 'I think it's black - yes it's black - there is something special about it - it's the King of Clubs!' It's important to add as much mystery as you can, even to the most basic trick.

2. This trick can only be done when sitting behind a table. Fan the pack face down and ask someone to select a card without showing you. Ask someone to shuffle the pack.

While they are looking at the chosen card, lower the pack to your lap. Quickly turn over the top and bottom cards while they are looking at their choice. Bring the pack back in front of you, holding it firmly together. The audience will see the face of a card on the bottom of the pack in your hand and the back of a card on the top. They won't know that all the other cards in the pack are now face up. Replace the selected
card face down anywhere in the pack. Again lower the pack out of sight and turn back the top and bottom cards so they run the same way as the rest of the pack. The only back to front card then is the one chosen. It is essential you develop a good 'patter' for this trick, but even so it can seem amateurish as the cards keep going out of sight. If you are going to use it as a trick on its own introduce the mystery by playing on this. As you identify the selected card (say the 9 of Hearts) while the pack is in your lap, put it in your right hand with another card held exactly in front of it.

Hold the pack in your left hand and bring it onto the table. Then with a great flourish and a proud smile bring your right hand up, revealing to all the selected card. The audience will be delighted by your apparent mistake and will roar with laughter. Look upset and disappointed and put the pack down on the table. Put the cards which are in your right hand (which must look like one) quite obviously down on the top of the pack.

Say something like - 'I am not going to let this happen to me!' Take the top card off the pack and put it face down on the table. (This of course is the 9 of Hearts, but it looks like the card you have just shown them.) Make a member of the audience put their hand on the card and tell them to hold it down hard so it can't escape.

Then, picking up the pack hold it very close to their hand and flip the top of the pack to make a rushing noise. Then say, 'Good, you didn't hold it hard enough. I have put it right now. I have made your card jump across' When they look at the card under their hand they will be astonished to see it's become the 9 of Hearts.

3. This is another way of using a key card to find the selected card. It's far more impressive as you never take the cards out of sight of the audience; in fact you hardly touch them at all. Yet it is very simple.

Ask someone to shuffle the pack thoroughly and hand it back to you. Glance at the bottom card and secretly make a note of it as you put the pack on the table. (This is your key card; let's say it's the 9 of Hearts again.)

Ask someone to take a card from the pack and show it to everyone except yourself. Then, ask them to put the card on top of the pack and cut the pack a couple of times.

Take the pack in your hands, fan it out so you can see the cards. The chosen card will be the one to the right of the 9 of Hearts. This is a very good method of finding a card and is often the one used with more complicated card tricks.

4. This is one of the most popular ways of 'forcing' a card, or making your victim choose the card you want chosen. Let us assume that the card you want to use is the King of Clubs. Secretly put it on the top of the pack. To be more effective, it's better to get the audience to shuffle the pack and then secretly steal a glance at the card on top by sliding out a corner very slightly and quickly. Either way, be sure you know what the top card is.

Shuffle the cards, keeping the King of Clubs on top. With practice, you can always do a most convincing shuffle and still keep a chosen card in place on the top or bottom of a pack. Now, using a big handkerchief which must not be see-through, cover the pack which should be held face down in your left hand. As you put the handkerchief over, turn the pack face up in your hand. Ask someone to cut the pack under the handkerchief. As they lift what they think is the top half of the pack, turn what is left in your hand over again. Take the handkerchief and its contents from the person and put it to one side, revealing half a pack of cards face down in your left hand.

Ask the victim to look at the top card without showing you.

It is the card he has cut to, therefore it is the card he has chosen at random. You of course know it is the King of Clubs.

You can use this deception in any number of tricks as you will see. At the very least, you can now put both halves of the pack together, have a member of the audience shuffle and then deal out the cards, stopping miraculously when you get to the King of Clubs.

5. Another method of 'forcing' a card is again to note the bottom card of the pack after it has been well shuffled by the audience. Hold it in your left hand. With your forefinger pull the bottom card back about half an inch from the front edge of the pack. Start dealing quickly from the bottom of the pack, putting the cards face up on the table. Tell your audience that when they shout 'Stop' that card will be their choice and their secret. When they do shout 'Stop; bring out the very bottom card which you have been holding back.

Keep it face down, put the pack on the table, ask them to look at it without showing you and then, as you turn your back, tell them to replace it anywhere in the pack and shuffle. You, of course, know the chosen card and can go on to do several other tricks.

As a simple trick on its own this one has a stunning effect if, when the audience shout 'Stop, you slam the next card face down on the table and shout out what it is. When they turn it over and see you are right they will be most impressed.

Now that you have read this far, you have the knowledge to go on to what appear to be very complicated tricks. Also, use what you have learned to embellish other card tricks you know, or even develop some of your own.

Remember as you go along to keep practicing your dexterity, your chatter and your fake shuffles, in particular, how to move a card from the top of the pack to the bottom while appearing to shuffle.