A rather simple question, really: I'm ready to start learning some sort of bottom deal, and I went through all my books to look at methods. Giobbi's method in Card College is...well...quite different from everyone elses. Using the search engine, I found ONE comment against it. I would appreciate a few more opinions before I choose one to start with.

Gruss,
Jeff
Goettingen

For me the easiest bottom that I actually started out with is on Weapons of a Cardshark 1. It is the straddle grip bottom. It alows easier control even though it doesn't look as pretty as others.

Jeremy

2 cents worth: Vernon raved about Dr. Elliott's bottom deal and I believe it was a straddle grip. It's mentioned on the revelations tape series

DD

Yeah but Dai Vernon also mentioned that Dr. Elliot had big hands so the straddle grip didn't look funny on him and didn't feel ackward. For me as I have regular hands I feel unconfortable with a straddle grip, I prefer the Erdnase grip or Master Grip either one of the is as good as the other.

I've tried the Giobbi's bottom deal and I must say the idea is good but the grip is bad for me, becouse I cannot control the deck when dealing the bottom card. That's the only comment agains the Giobbi's bottom deal I have so far, as I did not experienced with it so much. I'd rather prefer the related bottom deal (Marlo's seconds centers and bottoms) or the Strike bottom deal from Master Grip (Marlo's seconds centers and bottoms).

Best Regards
Pablo

Yes I have played with the Walter Scott's Straddle Bottom Deal, which you can find a description of in “Phantoms of the Card Table.” It is indeed one of the easiest. Here is a not very pretty looking demo of what it looks like.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ca3b6CpBR8

***. I thought it looked great tommy.

It looked great to me too Tommy

Doc

Regarding the demo video, which cards do you think are being dealt from the bottom?

Second, note the use of speed and the poor camera quality. It looks to me as though all the cards are dealt off the bottom with the exception of the four controlled cards. Though the movement and video quality (the combination in particular) make it difficult to tell, I think an examination in this light will perhaps alter your opinion, but truly it is unfair to levvy any kind of judgement against the deal given the poor video quality.

Regarding the Giobbi bottom deal since no one seems to have addressed the issue. His approach seems innovative and in theory works relatively well. He mentions the knuckle flash as the primary tip off for a bottom deal, a point many here would probably contend in favor of the common finger flash, a point he doesn't address at all. His description addresses the point of sound, which is good. He doesn't address performing all false deals from the same grip, a point of varying interest.

My experience with the method is this:

His method of buckling then releasing the card comes with difficulty, partially because it isn't exactly clear how to release the card efficiently without creating a tip off. If you buckle the card then ease up on the buckle it accomplishes nothing. In order to project the card requires dropping the fingers, which is horrible, though the finger flash itself is concealed by the position of the right hand during the immediate release. This seems to create some knuckle flash which he describes as non-existent. The difficulty also tends to increase with old cards and the benefit is questionable if a buckle alone will achieve the same feat. It would be interesting to discuss the topic with him. I suspect you'd find the considered merits on the topic similar to some of the apparent merits of a push-off bottom deal.

The next subject is finger flare. His grip is somewhat unconventional. I found for my hand size the deck needed to be much farther to the right than I'd normally hold it, or involved dropping my fingers in to the point where avoiding knuckle flash was difficult. On the other hand, theoretically, having the deck so far to the right means less finger flare that one might normally experience. In practice I found it didn't make a significant difference, one was still forced to contend with the same issues as with other grips and consider the same potential solutions.

The approach has merits, I certainly wouldn't write it off as a terrible method, but I believe he summarized the grip and approach at the beginning of the section on false dealing. It is designed for those students who wish to use the method in performance, become capable, but not aspire to mastery along with all the practice required. If you examine the section on false dealing as a whole you'll find a reasonably effective system. It doesn't pay vast attention to all the tiny subtleties (it's a two page description and books have been written examining the bottom deal), but achieves its goal and the goal for its readers. I personally don't use it for myself, in part due to hand size, control and adaptability for other sleights (I couldn't perform a heel peek directly and without suspicion using the grip and I doubt he could if the illustrations are at all accurate), but for some people with different aims it might work better.

Consider what your goals are. With regard to what is particularly different about his bottom deal, the release action on the buckle, it would be interesting to see him use it since it's the only location I've heard of it before, but when working on it myself I failed to get any real merit out of it.

As a final note, I personally don't like performing the take between the forefinger and middle finger as is most commmon, I find a better illusion is offered by performing it between the middle finger and ring finger in most cases, along with better cover and control. This is true for the Erdnase grip, mechanic's grip (most major variants), master's grip, shifted grip, Hollingworth's grip/style, standard grip (I'm more willing to perform a take between the forefinger and middle finger on a standard grip than most others), I even find the stability better in a rest grip with the lower take.

Count

Gee wiz!

Of course they are all bottoms, I would have thought that much was obvious. No one could turn over the queens like that from the bottom. Do you think some one like Doc don’t know that or cant see a simple Erdnase shuffle.

Thanks Doc but I can’t find a game without a cut card these days. Years back they played Draw with a strip deck, with just the high cards. So you had about half a deck to deal from. That made things easier, dealing cards on the draw for example. People say the pinky looks ugly hooked around the back but I got away with it. They use that grip in some European casinos so maybe it’s more accepted over here than the USA. Because of the cut card I a’nt used a bottom deal at the table for 25 years or more. The only thing I like about the grip is the deck can’t slip.

I thought it was obvious as well, but I wanted to make sure when I heard people saying they looked great since the finger flare was quite pronounced on some of the deals. If on the other hand someone was just watching the dealing of the queens (incidentally, I'm more used to seeing demonstrations where you deal tops for the majority of the demonstration), I could understand why they'd consider it great.

As an aside, you can deal Greeks and centers from that grip if it's your grip of choice. I've always found it somewhat uncomfortable.

I've never been able to figure out Giobbi's description. He uses words and ideas from Marlo, like the fingers moving as a unit and using a buckle to loosen but not push out, but the description seems to be lacking in details. Neither the text nor the illustrations seem to be entirely clear on how the deck is held, whether the left forefinger is hooked around the outter right corner or not, or what the pressure points are.

Personally, I recommend starting with something like Expert Card Technique, Lessons in Dishonesty, or Gene Maze and The Art of Bottom Dealing.

Andru

Thanks for the responses. I must say, however, that The Count was the only one who really understood my question (the fault is mine: I'm never as clear as I would like to be). All I really wanted to know is whether the Giobbi bottom is worth the trouble of learning.

Buckling the card (I didn't write the method because I wasn't sure about what might constitute exposure) is a bit strange. It requires an entirely different approach to muscle-memory training. Spending dozens of hours on it *might* be worth it, I suppose; but if no one other than Giobbi has used it, perhaps it isn't worth the effort for most people. I don't know. That's why I asked.

Gruss,
Jeff

Imagine how good it would look if I had a foreign accent.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y83IfshF_pQ

:)

Tommy,

:)

Gruss,
Jeff

My impression is that Giobbis description is simply a mechanics grip bottom deal, with one main difference: the buckling action with the 2nd finger is the same, but here is no push-out action. Rather the right 2nd finger contact the card at that very moment. The left fingers only have to extend to create a free passage for the card.
I have toyed with both the usual mechanics grip (as taught by Jason England and many others) and the Giobbi grip. It seems to me that the Giobbi grip can work very well, and actually reduces the finger/knuckle flash. However, it has its limitations. For instance, it seems difficult (if not impossible) to deal stud bottoms from this grip.

When I first saw the title to this thread, "Giobbi's Bottom, it made me wonder why we would discuss someone's "bottom," let alone Giobbi's, on The Gambling Spot, as opposed to say a medical forum. Then I realized it referred to a "Bottom" Deal.

Whew!..What a relief.