my favorite peek

My favourite peek.

I’ve recently got into the habit of peeking at cards, even though I don’t have too.
It’s a good habit to have, because it always give you the ultimate out. I.E, naming a chosen card. Now there are many different peeks at our disposal, but the one I find most useful, is the following.
Maybe it’s new, maybe its not, but I tell you dear readers, its well worth learning.

Have the deck shuffled. Holding it face down in the left hand, you rifle the corner of the deck, in time honoured fashion, and have them say stop.

Now, you cut the deck with the right hand, and tip it up towards the spectator, asking them to remember the card at the face. You turn your head away from them as you say this, as you don’t want to see it. In fact you don’t have to see it. Well, not yet anyways.

Once they remember the card, you place the two halves back together, performing the Kelly bottom placement movement as you do so.

The chosen card is now on the bottom of the pack. Now, you start to give the deck a shuffle. It can be over hand, or riffle. Its up to you, just as long as you keep the chosen, and as yet unknown card at the bottom of the deck.
Now as an afterthought you look into the spectators face and say..” You give the cards a shuffle; you can cut it, or shuffle it to your hearts content”. During this you have raised the cards up into your eye line, and gestured with the pack, gaining a brief flash of their card whilst doing so.
As soon as you have seen their card, the deck is bought back down out of the eye line, and you illustrate the way they could shuffle/ cut the cards, burying their chosen card somewhere in the deck. Thus you are now as clean as a whistle and ready to reveal their card in as mysterious a way as you wish.