“Pick a card, any card.”

She does just that. I move the deck from one hand to the other, rotating it 180 degrees as I do so.

“Put it back, and give these a shuffle.”

She does, and gives the deck an overhand shuffle like she always does.

“Set the cards down now, and give them a cut. Alright, so let me give them a shuffle, and… shit. Did I leave an ad card in?”

“Yeah, I saw it,” she says. “I thought it was on purpose.”

“Ok, hang on. Or actually, should I take it out with magic? How impressive would it be if I could find the ad card right away?”

“I mean… it has ads on both sides…”

“You’re right. Here,” I say, and set the deck down on the countertop. “Cut off about half the deck.”

She picks up half the deck.

“Turn it over?”

She does, and screams in delight. There’s the ad card, staring her right in the face.

“Thanks for getting rid of that for me,” I say, and pluck the ad card away before continuing with my effect.

I’ve been having fun with this, and I’m happy to share it, but I have to caution you (if the title didn’t tip you off already) that it’s not a breather crimp. There’s a lot of amazing things you can do with a breather deck, or just a stripper deck with a breather in it, but I’m here to talk about something fun you can do with an ordinary edge stripper deck. Ideally, you want a deck that has a 0.5 mm difference between the top end and bottom end. Most professional card cutters should be able to give you this cut. You don’t have to use a professionally cut stripper deck, but it helps make it more deceptive.

Basically, if you have two or more reversed cards in an edge stripper deck, and someone cuts the deck holding the sides rather than the ends, it’s highly likely that they will cut to one of the reversed cards. Especially if they cut holding the narrow end, which is fairly easy to set up.

At least, it seems like it to me. I’ve done this twice with only one reversed card, and it still worked both times. With two cards reversed, I’ve tried it a few times, and it failed once. You should try and get the cards near the middle of the deck when doing your shuffle, but it isn’t necessary. In my retelling of the first time I tried this above, I actually had two chances since she cut twice, though you need sharp eyes to tell when they’ve cut to the right card without having them turn the cut portion over. More on this later.

Yes, this isn’t surefire at all, but if framed as a throwaway moment it can become something truly impressive when it hits. Which, based on my sample of performances, is much more likely than you might think.

So, here’s the breakdown. You already have the ad card reversed. When they return their card to the deck, now you have two reversed cards. If they’re someone who always overhand shuffles, you can of course let them shuffle. If your stripper deck doesn’t have an ad card, use one from another deck and it’ll serve the same purpose.

Then, you set the deck down with the wide end butting against something else, like the box or anything else with a straight edge, to force them to cut the deck from the sides and not the ends. Assuming it hits, the reversed card will now be on the bottom of the cards they lifted, and you just openly ask them to turn the cut cards over.

(According to a reader, this subtlety of positioning the deck to force the participant to cut a certain way was published by Barrie Richardson in Theater of the Mind. Thank you to this reader for writing in.)

As I mentioned, if you have good vision you can manage to see if they cut to the right card without this check, but this is going to be a lot harder if you aren’t using a factory-made deck.

Either they cut to the ad card or they cut to their chosen card. Both are great outs, but you don’t know which one will hit. So it’s important to not specify that you’re asking them to find the ad card, just that you want them to give the cards a cut. If they hit their chosen card, you should know by their reaction, or because you saw them cut to it with your sharp eyes. If they hit the ad card, you’ll both know. If it’s their chosen card, just say something along the lines of “Wow! I thought that wouldn’t work with the ad card in there, but you must be really good at this!”

If it misses completely, just briefly console them and say that you were expecting too much out of them, then continue with your effect.

This is one of those throwaway moments in tricks that turns into a climax of its own when it hits. Don’t underestimate the power of having them cut to their own card, or the ad card you just drew attention to.