Mr. Erdnase,

What do you feel is the most useful sleight / move described in your wonderful book and is there any particular real world improvements to that sleight or move that have come along since your great work was originally published?

Mr. Brooks,

For artifice at the card table, we would still "unhesitatingly" decide in favor of bottom dealing. Of course, modern procedures rarely allow us this luxury, but if it will pass the company it is still the single artifice from which the greatest advantage may be derived.

For conjuring purposes, our system of blind shuffles and our system of palming are as useful today as they were in our time.

Your question regarding improvements to our published methods is an excellent one, and one to which we will give some thought.

S.W.E.

Very much looking forward to your thoughts on this subject.

Mr. Brooks,

Bill Kalush was kind enough to provide us with access to his Ask Alexander database recently. Appropriately enough, he granted us "Erdnase Level" access. In searching through his massive online collection, we arrived at the following conclusions regarding improvements to our work.

In the intervening 100-plus years, it would be a terrible shock to discover that no one had made any improvements to our original techniques. Quite the contrary, we expected to find improved handlings and we have not been disappointed. In fact, virtually every category of manipulation has improved in small, but meaningful ways.

Palming has been refined, even if we still feel our basic methods are excellent ones for palming multiple cards from either the top or bottom of the pack. If we were to recommend a palm for a single card from the top of the deck, we would probably endorse Dai Vernon's "Topping the Deck" palm. It is the pinnacle of artistry in the realm of palming technique.

Although we do not feel that the methods of riffle shuffling that are in our book have been significantly improved upon with regard to holding small stocks at top or bottom, we did not (and could not) anticipate the utility of full-deck false riffle shuffles at modern "table magic" distances. If we were to compile our treatise today, there would be full explanations of the various types of push-through and strip-out shuffles. We would also include a section on the wonderful "Zarrow" shuffle. Although we have a conceptually similar shuffle on p. 162 of our work, the mechanics are completely different from Mr. Zarrow's and he deserves full credit for the procedure which bears his name.

False dealing is much the same today as it was in our day. Some recent developments include workable methods for dealing the third card from the top, cards from the center of the deck, and cards from the position directly above the bottom card. All of these ideas were known prior to the publication of Artifice, Ruse and Subterfuge at the Card Table, but alas we did not have workable methods for any of them.

Finally, the old-fashioned hand shuffle was old even in our time. There have been many minor improvements to our system, although we still maintain that the basic techniques are presented as well in our text as anywhere.

There are other improved handlings for various techniques scattered throughout the literature, but we feel the categories listed above are where the largest strides have been made.

S.W.E.

Thank you kind sir for your imput and please give Mr.Kalush my thanks.