The above is a shuffle which is easily acquired, and when done neatly and quickly, the effect is very good. It looks exactly like a genuine shuffle. The only difficult part of the manipulation is placing the four cards from right to left. There is not much time to count them. With a little practice however, the operator can feel that the right number of cards go into the other hand. The best practice is to pick out all the cards of one suit, and shuffle them into the others in the manner described. Then when the cards are dealt out, it will be seen at once whether the shuffle has been correctly performed or not. The passing of the cards from side to side must be quickly done, and without pausing between the movements, if the trick is to escape detection.
This one instance will serve to give the reader the basis of all the other shuffles in which the cards are arranged. They all consist in the main principle of placing certain cards all together in some convenient position in the pack, and then arranging them with a proper number of indifferent cards between each one and the next. The nature of the game of course decides the manner of their arrangement.
The reader may very possibly find some difficulty in quite grasping the details of these explanations, but if he will take a pack of cards and follow the instructions step by step they will all become clear. If these older forms of shuffling are thoroughly understood, it will be a great help towards arriving at the full significance of the more modern manipulations which are about to be described.
At the present day the foregoing trickeries would be inadmissible owing to the fact that only the most juvenile card players would ever use the form of shuffles they involve. No player would ever think of taking the two halves of the pack, one in either hand, when about to shuffle. That style of thing is quite out of date. Indeed in a smart game the dealer would not be even allowed to raise the cards from the table when shuffling, although in the ordinary way they are more often than not simply shuffled from one hand into the other.
The principal shuffles of modern times are three in number:—
1. The 'Over-hand Shuffle.'
2. The 'Riffle' or 'Butt-in Shuffle.'
3. The 'Écarté Shuffle.'
The over-hand shuffle is that in which the cards are taken in the left hand and shuffled, a few at a time, into the right. It is familiar to all, and requires no more than the mere mention of it to recall it to the reader's mind.
The riffle, or butt-in, as it is called in America, is the shuffle in which the pack is laid upon the table, the top half is taken off with the right hand and laid near it. The fingers of either hand then press upon the cards of the respective halves of the pack, whilst the thumbs 'riffle' or bend up the corners of the cards, allowing them to spring down, one or two at a time, from right to left alternately, those of one side falling between those of the other. Finally the cards are levelled up and the shuffle is complete.
The écarté shuffle is one in which the cards are laid on the table with one side of the pack facing the operator. The top half of the pack, or rather less, is taken off with the right hand and shuffled into the remainder of the cards held by the left as they lie upon the table.