Checking if a File Pointer is NULL in C, Pointer Vs Variable - c

Question

I have a relevant question that highlights my weak understanding of how to work with pointers. I declare a pointer variable called
FILE *MEMORY_CARD = fopen("card.raw", "r")
In my understanding, I have just declared a pointer called MEMORY_CARD that contains the information from a file called card.raw. Ok, now I would like to check if this pointer is NULL.
Do I do it like this:
if (MEMORY_CARD == NULL)
{
exit(1);
}
Or like this:
if (*MEMORY_CARD == NULL)
{
exit(1);
}
It seems like the first case is correct because I have seen it done this way, but based on my current understanding, I thought you would need to do it as per the bottom way. This is because I thought that every time you want to check a value at the address that the pointer is pointing to, you need to use the dereference operator such that *MEMORY_CARD is a reference to the information at that location which is what you want to check for null. I would think that the top way would be invalid as it is asking "Check if what is inside the variable MEMORY_CARD is NULL (Which I never declared. I declared a pointer called *MEMORY_CARD) Variable would be something like int i = 1, where I do not use a pointer.
I get the same confusion by the way when I need to check if what I declare with malloc is Null. Do I reference it with * prefixing the name, or just reference it like I would with a variable. Perhaps I am still confused to the basic definition of pointer vs variable. Hopefully these examples shed a light into a bigger picture concept that I am a bit foggy. I've looked at a few resources myself, but they do not seem to deep dive enough into minutia of this. Hopefully someone can help me clear this up. Thanks in advance!

Answer 1

MEMORY_CARD is the address of your opened file in memory
*MEMORY_CARD is the data of your file structure itself
so you should check MEMORY_CARD

Answer 2

This is because I thought that every time you want to check a value at the address that the pointer is pointing to, you need to use the dereference operator
This is true but does not apply. There is no need to to "check a value at the address", just the address.
The proper check below tests the pointer.
if (MEMORY_CARD == NULL)
{
exit(1);
}