I recently bought a few 12 deck bricks from Sam's and just opened 2 decks to break them in.

Here is what I noticed about the two decks I opened. First, they were cut more square (meaning not off center) than a lot of decks I bought from Sam's in the past, but since I've only opened two decks so far... the jury is still out on whether they are doing a better job of centering.

The 2 BIGGEST differences I noticed about the cards were... first, that they faro shuffled perfectly right out of the box and second, I was able to do the faro starting the shuffle from the bottom of the deck (which is the way I learned the faro way back when) instead of having to start the shuffle from the top.

Also, with these decks I can do a one handed faro with the deck face down instead of having to have the cards face up.

In recent years, I had to faro from the top of the deck down and do one handed faros with the deck face up. Maybe it's just a personal preference, but I think the faro shuffle looks better (at least in my hands) when I start the shuffle at the bottom of the deck.

So, my guess (because of the above stated differences) is they probably are cutting the decks in a different manner, but personally I like the change.

Has anyone else noticed these differences?

Glenn

I personally like the current batch too. As you said, they faro shuffled perfectly right out the box! The current decks also have a somewhat slimmer feel to them, compared to the previous batch...