by Ben Highway

Decide upon the 'sandwich pair' you will be using in performance; for reasons that will become clear a little later on, I recommend the two black Aces. You will require a duplicate from a matching deck of one of these Aces (or one of whatever pair you happen to be using). For clarity, I'll assume you are using the two black Aces and that your duplicate comes in the
form of the Ace of Spades.

To set-up have the sandwich pair kicking about anywhere in the deck, the duplicate AS on top and on top of this an indifferent card - which I suggest is the Queen of Hearts (mists starting to clear now?).

Performance is relatively straightforward but there is some not insignificant jiggery pokery to be done. Remove the two black Aces, casually show them around, and then secretly load the top card (QH) in between them. With the cards squared and face-up place them on the table and have someone secure the cards by placing their finger on top of them.

Congratulations! You have now secretly loaded one of the most common choices of card in between the two black Aces. Note how the likelihood of the Queen of Hearts being named has been upped through the use of the other popular choice, the Ace of Spades, as one of our sandwich cards.

Invite someone to name any card they like. If they do name the QH then you have a direct hit; a bit of suggestive waving and you can go into the reveal. The directness of this is marred somewhat however by the fact that a lot of people seem to know about the QH being a popular choice.

So what to do if they name a card other than the QH? The Five of Spades for example? Simple (relatively)!

Say that having them just think of a card is, in many ways, a much fairer means of having a card selected than the classic 'reach into the deck and take one out'. Your words are accompanied by an almost unconscious spreading of the deck, as if to illustrate your point. What you are actually doing is looking for their card - 5S in this example - and culling it to the back (top) of the deck (directly on top of the duplicate AS).

You now flip the deck face-down and double undercut (or preferred method of your choice) the top two cards to the face of the deck. This should just look like you are toying with the deck as you build up to the big finish.

Reverse the lowermost card - the duplicate AS - by means of a half-pass before copping it and the card above it (thought-of card) out, setting the deck aside face-down. Ensure that it is kept quite nearby for cleanup purposes in a moment.

With your free hand gesture above the isolated Aces. Have the spec lift their finger and spread over the cards. To their delight one card has appeared face-down between the two Aces! Everyone knows what it is. Your free hand picks up the cards, keeping them spread, as your other comes up to meet it. The copped cards are loaded directly beneath the Ace-of-which-you-have-a-duplicate.

Casually close up the spread before re-spreading it - only this time the top three cards are held as one and the actual, face-down selection comes into view with the duplicate AS beneath it. It doesn't look like anything has changed however, and all appears to be very fair and direct. Your left hand lifts away the top Ace (and the two cards below it) as your right moves forward towards the spec, inviting him or her to take the face-down card and see for themselves. Your
left hand of course takes this opportunity to make brief contact with the deck and ditch its two
lowermost cards on top, before returning to its mate.

All you have to do now is secretly right the card second from the top and ditch the duplicate! Which is easily done.