This is a very simple trick, and works best on kids, but it can be made to look pretty impressive.
EFFECT: Audience member picks a card, which the magician does not see. The audience member inserts the card back into the deck. Next the magician drops the card onto a table top, and the card jumps out of the deck, face up!
HOW IT'S DONE:
-Shuffle the deck so that everyone can see you are not preparing the deck in any way. (Don't comment on this, just do it.)
- Fan out the cards in your hand, and have someone pick a card.
- While they look at the card, you do two quick, easy maneuvers:
1) Quickly move the top card to the bottom, while flipping it face up. You're left with a deck with the bottom card upside down.
2) Turn the whole deck over. You're left with an upside down deck, but because the (now) top card is reversed, it looks like a regular deck.
- Now hold the deck out (make sure you don't fan the cards at all - you don't want to reveal that you're really holding onto an upside down deck.) Have them insert their card.
- Turn around (yeah, this part is kinda cheesy, but it works fine, especially on kids.) Turn the top card back over so it faces the same as the rest of the deck. Scan through the deck to find the upside down card that the audience member just inserted.
- Here's the BIG FINALE, that really makes this trick worth it: put the card on top of the deck, and hold onto the deck from above. You are about to drop it, flatly, onto a table top. BUT slide the top card back off the deck by a quarter-inch (this will be covered by your hand). Then, drop the deck from about two feet up. The deck will hit the table, and the top card (the selected card) will flip over. This is a real crowd-pleaser.
- An alternative ending is NOT to turn around, but just to move the deck back to right-side-up, while moving the inverted top/bottom card back to its former position. Now, you put the deck down, do some Hocus Pocus and tell them you just made their card flip over, inside the deck. Fan the deck out, and their card is the only one reversed (it's actually better if you put the deck upside down and fan it out, so the chosen card is the only one that's right side up) However, a smart audience member will quickly figure you out this way, just because you mentioned "reversed" - it kinda gives them a clue...
Instead of the last three steps tell the person to imagine their card flipping over backwards, then go through the deck and show them the card. (But be careful not to show the bottom card!)