Derren Brown's Poker Game ...

I saw Derren do this on one of his specials. For those poker playing fans out there.

Effect... 10 cards are taken from the deck. These cards are shuffled by the volunteer and handed back to Derren. Derren deals 1 card to the volunteer and one to himself. He then places the remaining 8 cards in front of him. Asking the volunteer if he's a good poker player (the guy is and has ben picked specifically because of this) Derren asks if he thinks he could get the best hand if he got to chose which cards he wanted. He proceeds to hold up the cards 2 at a time and allows the volunteer a "seemingly" free choice to chose which one he wants to keep. I say seemingly because Derren makes out he's using some kind of psychological skills to make the guy chose which card he wants him to take. End result... of course Derren wins.

Explanation... this idea of psychologically forcing a card on someone is a very nice idea and something I'm very interested in... but total nonsense in this case. It's a good patter to have though as it takes peoples thinking away from what's really going on. The volunteer will be looking to double bluff the magician and trying to read signals from him to do the reverse, oblivious to the fact the trick has already been set. It makes no difference what he does.
The 10 cards picked aren't random..... the ones he uses in the special are three aces, three kings, three sevens and a queen - so I'll go with this setup. Basically, all Derren does is when selecting the 10 cards leaves the queen on top. He then palms the top card (the queen) off the top and hands the 9 cards to the volunteer to shuffle, they wont notice a card is missing unless they're really good. When the volunteer hands the 9 cards back the queen gets palmed back on top. He then deals the queen to the volunteer and a random card to himself. Then he goes into the patter of psychollogy etc. It makes no difference what the volunteer choses, beause he has the queen he will lose. It's as simple as that.
To try and explain this - imagine you are the volunteer and you have the queen - the best hand you can possibly have is three of a kind (three aces, a king and the queen). Not bad, but you will still lose because Derren will have three of a kind and a pair (3 sevens and 2 kings). At the start of the game Derren merely has to deal the queen to his opponent, and then he will win no matter what cards his opponent chooses.
You can alter the cards around for this trick to try and vary it slightly (3 two's instead of sevens, a jack instead of the queen etc), but it's always good to have Aces, Kings and a Queen... it brings out the greediness in people. Hope I've explained this well enough.
Enjoy