The performer shows a deck of cards freely and has a participant deal the cards face down, stopping anywhere he wishes. The cards before and after the card at which he stopped are shown to be different. If the participant had dealt one card more or stopped one card sooner, a different card would have been selected. His choice appears to be as free as possible, but the card at which he stopped is a force card. After the card is selected, the performer can show the classified ads from a local newspaper. In the PUBLIC NOTICE section, one want ad says: "On (current date), a person will deal through a deck of cards and stop at the 5 of Hearts."
Another approach is to mail a registered letter to an important person who brings the letter to your show and opens it AFTER he selects a card. Inside is a card that matches the one at which he stopped.
Some performers prefer to have a sealed envelope on display in full view. The performer points out that he never touches the envelope during the presentation. A participant deals the cards and stops at one. The participant gets the envelope and opens it. Inside is a duplicate of his chosen card.
For any of the above effects to become KILLER effects, you have to have a super clean force of a card. It has to be so clean that those who are aware of Svengali Decks and rough-and-smooth decks will not suspect that the card was forced. In cases like these, you need to use the Excalibur Deck.
This is one of the cleanest and strongest forcing decks ever created. There are quicker and easier ways to force a card; but, when you positively want to create the impression that you had no control over the selection, this is the way to go. The Excalibur Deck will convince the most skeptical spectators that the choice was as free and fair as it gets. Save this force for those really impossible tricks.
