Have you guys ever heard of "The Archer Shuffle" by David Archer? Simple to learn and angle free...yahoo!

Can be done in both hands and on table (looks best IMO in hands.)

PS: This move can be found in his Lecture notes "Working Alone".

I use the Zarrow for when I'm seated and the In-The-Hands False Riffle Shuffle taught in Card College 3 for when I'm standing. Alternatively a convincing false cut can do equally well, like Up the Ladder or Dante Kings triple cut

I'm with GothicBen on this one. I use The Optical Shuffle all the time with stacked deck work.

Jeff Pierce

There is a good variation of Erdnase's full deck false overhand shuffle in the back of Ortiz's Annotated Erdnase... Not easy to learn but I use it with a memorized deck.

I think this looks really good:

http://www.stevebeam.com/underhand.html

Steven Youell



A tip I always give people who ask about cooler work is to use the Zarrow. If something goes wrong, it almost always will leave a huge block of your stack intact.

Also, don't do it with a slip cut and one card cover. Zarrow in under four cards, hold the break and then Zarrow in under four cards again to restore the order.

(I hope that was hazy enough to avoid
exposure...)

Steven Youell

A new very flashy and unusual full deck control is coming out on DVD entitled "Cradle to Grave" by De'vo. It has 3 phases, and is far from the norm and takes incredible skill. If you like subtle and want it to look like a normal shuffle, then I'd go for Zarrow or the push through shuffle. Bill Malone has some good material also.

Cardjinx

In an earlier message on this thread, I made reference to Lew Brooks' "False False Shuffle" (FFS), from his book "Stack Attack".

As it happens, a copy of this book was just offered for sale right here at the Magic Café:

For Sale: Stack Attack
http://www.themagiccafe.com/forums/viewt......78&0

I have a copy of this myself, and can attest to how convincing, powerful, and easy the FFS really is. The included routines are great, too!

Check out Patrick Redford's work on false shuffles, he's got some neat stuff.

I am curious what anyone out there thinks of the Gordon Bruce false shuffle from 5x5 Scotland? I just got the book from the fritz (great seller, by the way!), and it looks good to me. I'm starting to work on it. Has anyone used it under fire? Experiences with it?

I've recently been working on a quick sequence of 4 false shuffles which I can use with any full deck stack. The full sequence does cut the deck, but other than that, it retains the full deck sequence. I use a locator card (Scallop Short) so that I can cut back to home position if I need to.

The sequence is:
1. An Overhand shuffle which retains the entire stack. There are so many variations of this that I don't think I need to outline the specific one I use.
2. The Haymow shuffle.
3. A legitimate riffle shuffle.
4. A "Slop" shuffle which cancels out the effect of the riffle shuffle. This is explained in Eric Mead's Book, a Tangled Web.

My patter is along these lines: "People shuffle cards in a lot of different ways. Most people first learn this process which is properly called the Overhand Shuffle. Some old timers use this shuffle. My grandfather called it the "Chicken Plucker's Shuffle" but its really called the Haymow. Of course, most card players use a riffle shuffle, with the little spring flourish at the end. But one guy grabbed my cards and did this: Some cards right side up, some upside down, some Topsy, some Turvy, some Helter, some Skelter, some Pell, some Mell. What a mess! Cards going every which way. Fortunately I'm a magician and can fix it. (Snap Fingers and then display the cards are back to facing properly.)

It's important that you know your patter well, and that you don't look at your hands.

I also use the Heinstein Shuffle in my work and a variety of false cuts.

Dennis Loomis

Dennis Loomisr

I wanted to mention that I agree with Scott Cram that the Lew Brooks False-False Shuffle is quite effective. However it does have one drawback. You can only use it once and that's when the deck is first introduced into play. Still, it's a powerful tool at the beginning of a set and may well fool your brother magicians.

Dennis Loomis

Look up also Woody Aragon's "A Book in English"... There are several nice procedures and shuffles to retain a stack. Jan

Hi Dennis,

I'm not sure if the False False Shuffle can be used only when the deck is first brought into play. Consider this scenario: you have your deck set up for the False False Shuffle. For the first effect or even the first couple of effects, you use other false shuffles to maintain the order of the deck, while you use for the effect(s) the stack that is unaffected by the set-up. Then, in the middle of a routine, you perform the False False Shuffle and go on to your other full deck effects.

Wouldn't that work?

Woland

Yes, Woland, that would work. In fact there's another way. At any time where you have a full deck stack, you turn the cards face up and do the reverse of the False False Shuffle with the face up cards. Later you turn the cards face down and you can do the usual False False Shuffle and your deck will be back in order. You must retail the order of the deck in the interim, of course.

If you wish, you might make the face up shuffle seem like a mistake and make a comment that for a good shuffle the deck should be face down.

For those of you that do the False-False shuffle I have a suggestion. As you know there are many variations of it, where most any small number can replace the letters in the format: A-B-C. But you have to be absolutely sure that you use the right three numbers. So, in your practice and performances you may want to always use the same three numbers. (Like 3-4-5.) Since the numbers hardly matter, you can make it even easier by using numbers you know well. My street number is 621, so I might use 6-2-1 for the False-False Shuffle and would use 1-2-6 for the set-up.

I apologize to those of you that are not familiar with this... I know this post doesn't make much sense.

Dennis Loomis

Thanks, Dennis. For those of us who are trying to use the FFS as effectively as possible, your words are pearls. I've been using 3-4-5-3-4-5 but your advice makes a lot of sense.

Hi Woland,
So you shuffle 6 sets of singles? And your set up would be 5-4-3-5-4-3?

Whatever works for you is all that matters.

Dennis Loomis

I always used G.W. Hunter's false shuffle until I stumbled across the Rezvani/Optical shuffle, and I haven't looked back since. This is of course a matter of preference and style. I find the latter to be more casual and requires less "thinking" than the former, which is always a plus when the heat is on!