I’ve recently rediscovered Kostya Kimlat’s The Single “Double Thought”. This is a one deck version of Marlo’s “Double Thought.” The weakness of this version is that you do not predict the exact cards, but rather the cards’ mates. This leads to two slightly awkward moments where you have predicted two cards, but the spectators know you have predicted wrong because they go through the deck and find the correct cards. While the trick ends triumphantly, there is still the small possibility that the spectator will walk away thinking the magician got lucky. This is my introductory patter for the trick which helps make these awkward moments logical.


"Have you ever played the lottery? Did you win? So even though you did not win, you are familiar with how to win? For Powerball you must match all six numbers. Did you know that if you only match 5, you still win one million dollars? That’s pretty neat. Do you know what happens if you are off by only one number for each of the six winning lottery numbers? That’s right, you get nothing. I should know. It has happened to me four times. Four times in my life I have picked the winning PowerBall numbers, except I was either one too high on each number or one too low. I realize this sounds unbelievable, but I can prove it to you with a card trick. Would you like to see?"

"A typical magician can have you pick a card and find the exact card or make a prediction and it will match perfectly. I just try to get close because just like the lottery, I never get it exactly right…"

Check out the trick, it’s great.