Shuffling a pack of cards
Surely everyone remembers a person who could smoothly and quickly (sometimes spectacularly) shuffle cards and instantly got respected at the table. The Academy of Poker will present you with the basic ways of shuffling cards, the ones adopted by casino croupiers.
At this point it is advisable to emphasize that the techniques we are going to present are the most effective in case of use of professional plastic cards. If you like to meet at home to play poker as often as possible, you’d better invest in such cards – they will remain usable for a long time, and will not get damaged.
- Start of the game.
Most games which involve a full pack of cards start from putting all cards facing up. Every player has an opportunity to make sure that nothing is missing and no cards are doubled.
- Mixing
This is the simplest but also most effective way of shuffling cards, common particularly when unpacking a new pack of cards. The cards are distributed on the table, facing up, and mixed by the croupier through round movements of a palm. It is necessary to make sure cards do not turn or fall from the table.
- Cutting
This is a simple and fast way of shuffling cards. You need to grab some cards from the top and cut them through some cards from the lower deck, repeat this procedure a few times. NOTE! Such operation must never be the only form of shuffling cards before another deal, it must only supplement shuffling.
- „The Riffle Shuffle”
The most popular and reliable way of shuffling cards, although most beginners do it wrongly or carelessly. The pack of cards is divided into two more or less equal parts. Both piles are moved close to each other with internal top corners (from the shuffler’s point of view). Grab the pack with three external fingers of each palm on edges of cards, and press their top external corners with your index fingers. You need to use your thumbs to lift internal corners and gradually release cards from thumbs so that they fall evenly from both piles and overlap. Then you put both parts of the pack over each other and align edges.
Would you like to see shuffling in a video? See the website!
