Show your audience two playing cards. Give the audience a chance to examine them thoroughly. Tell your audience you are going to attempt to link the two cards together. Explain that while playing cards may look solid, in the hands of a magician their atoms can momentarily separate, allowing the cards to link.
Fold the first playing card in half along its width. Make a 2 centimeter (1 inch) rip in one side of the playing card about 1 centimeter (1/2 inch) from the corner. Make the rip near one of the corners which is facing you, rather than the audience. At this point, if your sleight of hand skills are still developing, you may choose to distract the audience with a question such as "Did you know playing cards could do this?" or "Have you ever seen David Copperfield perform the linking rings trick?" By engaging the spectators directly, you encourage them to look at you and not the cards.
Fold the playing card along its length, so it's been folded into quarters. Now fold the second card in the same way but do not rip it. You now have two cards, folded into quarters, one of which has a tear at the back near one corner.
Tear out the center of each card. As the cards are folded into quarters, this should take two larger rips in each card. Unfold the cards, and you are left with a thin border of each card. The rip you made in the first card should extend to the hole in the middle of each card.
Unfold the two cards, holding the first card by the rip. Now tell your audience you are going to link the cards. Subtly shift your grip and allow the second card to slide through the rip in the first card. The cards are now linked.
Forcefully pull the cards apart and hand them to your audience for examination. The more effort you put into separating the cards, the more your audience will associate the tear in the first card with that separation. Slightly exaggerate the separation movement, as though it was a physical effort.