| | Wednesday, October 3rd 2007, 8:55 am | |
| Faro Shuffle... |
The faro shuffle is performed by cutting the deck into two, preferably equal, packs in both hands as follows (right-handed): The cards are held from above in the right and from below in the left hand. Separation of the deck is done simply lifting up half the cards with the right hand thumb slightly and pushing the left hand's packet forward away from the right hand.
The two packets are often crossed and slammed into each other as to align them. They are then pushed together by the short sides and bent (either up or down). The cards will then alternately fall into each other, much like a zipper. A flourish can be added by springing the packets together by applying pressure and bending them from above. The faro is a controlled shuffle which does not randomize a deck.
A perfect faro shuffle, where the cards are perfectly alternated, is considered one of the most difficult sleights by card magicians, simply because it requires the shuffler to be able to cut the deck into two equal packets and apply just about the right pressure when pushing the cards into each other. If one does perform eight perfect faro shuffles in a row, the order of the deck will return to the original order, if there are 52 cards in the deck and if the original top and bottom cards remain in their positions (1st and 52nd) during the eight shuffles.
If the top and bottom cards get weaved in during each shuffle then it takes 52 shuffles to return a deck back into original order (26 shuffles to reverse the order of a deck containing 52 cards).
So why is it called a Faro shuffle? I recently read a small explanation on the Genii Forum posted by the magician Dben / David Ben:
"That put me on the trail of the rules of faro. The best description that I have found of the rules of Faro, how to deal it, record the plays, etc is in “The American Hoyle – Revised Edition” , 1883 edition by Dick and Fitzgerald.
Played by the rules, Faro was the most fair bank game. The dealer’s sole advantage was derived from splits. In Faro, two cards appear in each ‘turn’, one represents a card for the dealer, the other the players. Players place bets on sort of a roulette-style layout, putting bets on either individual values or in combinations.
A split is like a zero or double zero on a roulette wheel. If both cards in a ‘turn’ are of the same value, that is a ‘split’, and the dealer – depending on the house rules – gets half of all bets on the table – all bets, no payouts. That is the ‘house advantage’. The players know that a split will occur once, perhaps twice, naturally, in each game.
As a side note, that is the origin of the faro shuffle. The faro shuffle was designed to be perform just once prior to the deal in order to assure and actually demonstrate to other players that all previous ‘splits’ have been separated."
The original link is here: Genii |
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