Hat & Hare

The Ambitious Card

Their signed card goes into the middle of the deck and keeps rising back to the top. Your first real routine with a sleight.

Category
Cards
Level
Intermediate
Learn it in
An evening to learn, weeks to make smooth
Difficulty

Draft. Awaiting review by our resident magician.

  • TODO: Add the control you teach for getting the selection second from top (step 1)
  • TODO: Review this phase against your own handling and add any phases you'd teach next
  • TODO: Confirm book references and add links

The effect: what they see

A signed card is pushed into the middle of the deck, and with a snap it's back on top. It happens again, and again, no matter how fairly it seems to be lost.

What you need

  • A deck of cards
  • A marker so they can sign their card

The method

This phase uses one sleight, the double lift: turning over two cards as if they were one. Learn it on its own first (see the Double Lift page), then come back here.

  1. Have a card chosen and signed. Have it returned to the deck, and control it to second from the top.
  2. Get ready for a double lift: secretly get a break under the top two cards.
  3. Do the double lift. Your audience sees their signed card and believes it’s the single top card. It’s actually the second card, showing through as one.
  4. Turn the two cards face down again as one.
  5. Take the single top card, which they believe is theirs but is really an indifferent card, and push it face down into the middle of the deck. Never show its face. Leave it sticking out for a moment so they can “see” it going in.
  6. Push it flush. Make a magical gesture or snap.
  7. Turn over the top card. It’s their signed card, back on top.

Performance & patter

The Ambitious Card is about one idea: you can’t keep this card down. Give the card a personality and every phase gets funnier.

Suggested patter: “Some cards are happy anywhere in the deck. Yours is ambitious. It wants the top job.”

Make each time it rises a little more impossible: push it in slowly, let them square the deck, have them hold it. Even if your method never changes, the conditions can grow.

Stop while they still want more. Three times is plenty for a first routine.

Common mistakes

  • A double lift that looks like a double lift. The two cards should move exactly like one. If your fingers fumble or the cards spread, practice the lift alone until it’s invisible.
  • Flashing the card you insert. It isn’t their card. Keep it face down and push it in decisively.
  • Looking at the deck after the insertion. Look up at them, deliver a line, and make them look at you.
  • Too many phases. The plot is simple. If it repeats too often, it becomes a puzzle.

Where to learn more

Origin. A classic plot of card magic with countless published versions. This lesson teaches a simple traditional phase built on the double lift.

  • Card College, Volume 1 by Roberto Giobbi. A thorough foundation for the double lift and card handling
  • The Royal Road to Card Magic by Jean Hugard and Frederick Braue