If you’ve ever watched the movie Rounders you’ve seen this card trick. The character of Lester “Worm” Murphy, played by Edward Norton, is showing doing this trick in a scene during the movie. It’s not a hard trick to learn and it isn’t anything flashy, but when someone catches you do it out of the corner of their eye they’ll think it looks pretty neat. I don’t know if the trick actually has a name so I decided to call it From the Top.

Tutorial

Hold the deck of cards in the palm of your hand. You thumb should be placed over the top of the cards and the rest of your fingers come up around the side of the cards.

Push the top card away from your palm and towards your fingers. Bring your index finger underneath the top corner of this card and keep the rest of your fingers along the edge of the card.

Life your index finger up and push on the card. At the same time, pull your thumb back towards your wrist. This should allow the card to start flipping up into the air. The middle, ring, and pinky fingers on the edge of the card or even slightly on top of the card. Keep pushing up with your index finger until the card clears your thumb. Then move the thumb back down onto the top of the deck. Make sure to put enough pressure on the deck with your thumb because it will soon be holding the deck in place.

The single card is now held mainly by the tips of the index and middle fingers. Move these fingers as well as your ring and pinky fingers away from the deck so that they are pointing straight out with an open hand. When you do this, the card flips over so that the underside of the card is exposed.

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