Pick a card....

Here's a simple card trick which requires no skill and will be good enough to keep your kids guessing. Take a pack of cards and give it a good shuffle. Then fan it out on the table face down and invite your mark to pick any card they choose, and look at it. Gather up the rest of the cards and square them up. Now tell your mark to cut the pack wherever they like, put their card on top of the cut pile, and put the rest of the pack back on top. So as they have cut the pack, there is no way you could know where their card is, right? You now turn the pack over and fan it out face up and unhesitatingly pick out the card they chose. So how's it done? Well, when you shuffle the pack, make sure that you see and note the bottom card. After your mark cuts the pack, puts their card in and places the rest of the pack on top, their card will end up being the card immediately underneath the bottom card which you have memorised. When the pack is turned over and fanned out face up, just look for the card which is to the right - as you look at it - of the bottom card, and that will be their card. Simple but effective.