With more than a dozen demos of this oldie on YouTube, you might think it not worth learning, since "everybody" knows it, right? NOT SO! I've baffled friends and family with it many times (not fellow magicians, of course), and it remains one of my absolute favorites to do impromptu with a borrowed deck.

However, I feel that I have found a couple of ways to improve upon the usual YouTube method, to wit:

1. Instead of eyeballing the 4th card in your half of the cut deck, rather close your eyes, hold the cards to the side of your head, and simply "listen" to that tattletale card as it supposedly tells you the identity of the spectator's 4th card. This provides increased distancing time-wise from the importance of your learning the identity of your own 4th card, since you apparently only hear it whispering the reveal to you.

2. The diversion of the "just listening" shtick with your 4th card further allows for some drawn-out byplay while gradually ID-ing the color, suit and value of the spec's 4th card as you feign having to listen repeatedly to make sure that you've heard the whispered message correctly. You can then finally catch a "casual" glimpse of its face as you whisper a quick "thank-you" to it while setting it aside to prepare for a repeat of the trick as often as desired.

Nice idea! This is an under rated trick for sure.

Thanks for the kind reply. The biggest problem I face these days with simple tricks such as this, namely those that benefit greatly from use of a borrowed deck, is that more often than not these days nobody owns a borrowable physical deck of cards anymore. Sure, they all play solitaire and other card games, but they do it on a computer screen instead of with the actual pasteboards. (*sigh*) Perhaps I've lived too long? ...