So this post isn’t about Leonardo DiCaprio’s amazing performance, it’s actually another trick that involves deception. This one takes surprisingly little slight of hand, but still requires a master to perfect, one that I learned from Teller (the silent one of the amazing duo, Penn and Teller). I’m going to first run through everything that happens during this trick, then explain its secrets.

We begin with a deck of cards.

I shuffle the deck a couple times, letting you see that its a full deck of cards every now and then by showing you the deck while shuffling. I think split the deck three times and put the piles down in front of you, inviting you to pick any one of the three piles. Picking up a card, you memorize it, and put in back into the deck, where I shuffle the cards and make it clear I don’t have a thumb on the corner or know what the card is. Now I’m going to ask you want your card was, and let’s say it was the two of clubs.

This is where it gets a little strange, but I bite down on the deck and give it a couple shakes in my mouth, almost as if some card is moving down my mouth and through my body. I then take the deck out my mouth, lift up my right shoe, and lo and behold, the two of clubs is underneath my foot! Then I’m going to give you the deck of cards and encourage you to go through it and attempt to find two to clubs, which will be the only card missing from the deck.

Now for the trick’s dirty secrets.

There is a lot of preparation for this magical illusion, long before you’re watching me perform. So from the beginning, I’m “shuffling” a deck of a card in front of you, but I’m very actually setting it up so I know the position of three cards: the queen of hearts, the two of clubs, and the ace of spades. Other than that, it’s a completely normal deck, and this could be done with any three cards, but I’m sticking to the one’s I learned from Teller.

When I put three piles in front of you, I place each one of those cards on top, and I’m very aware of where each card is, so that way as soon as you pick, I already know what you’ve chosen. Then all the cards go back to the deck and I genuinely shuffle them. When I place it in my mouth, I swallow the correct card and wait three to four days for it to follow my digestive track.

Just kidding, the whole cards-in-the-mouth thing is just an act. I pretend as if the card is traveling through my body and out my right foot, where the two of spades is hiding. What you don’t know, and never would, is that I have the queen of hearts under my left foot and the ace of spades in my wallet in my back pocket. I would’ve modified the trick slightly to have you find whatever card you had originally chosen.

As you are amazed and picking up my card, I switch the deck in my hand with another one in my pocket, which is a full deck of cards, except for the two of spades. Also in my pocket I have full decks of cards with everything but the ace of spades and the queens of hearts. So you then check through the deck I give you, not finding the two of diamonds, and your audience is thoroughly amazed.

And it only cost you four decks of cards.