Pharoah Shuffle

[thaiboxerken]

How is it that something that seemed to be very complex to do, and was very hard to do about 3 weeks ago is extremely easy to pull off? Granted, I can't get a perfect shuffle everytime, but I only get a couple of double shifts in each shuffle now. Is it like writing, once you learn it's hard to forget? I get the feeling that I can to 8 perfect ones in a row with only another month of practice. That'll be cool.

[polkablues]

It's like learning to whistle. It's only hard when you haven't figured out the right way to do it yet.

A question for you, though: do you find the shuffle easier to do with a brand-new deck, or one that's broken in a little bit?

[thaiboxerken]

Brand new deck is much easier for me. The older the deck, the more doubles I get in the shuffle.

[Azrael 5]

Faro. :)

[Cain]

It helps to train the deck. Once you learn the faro you can do one of the most powerful card tricks in magic: Unshuffled.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=GNzwCicdVyg

[firecoins]

Faro. :)
this needs repeating

Faro. :)

[Brown]

I too wondered what the heck a "Pharoah Shuffle" was.

I'm not a big fan of the faro shuffle (or its many variations: in-faro, out-faro, partial faro, double faro, etc.). I can do it, but not rapidly and consistently enough to make it worthwhile. Also, in virtually every decent trick in which you do a faro, you need a faro to make the damned thing work, and a single mistake will blow the trick with virtually no chance for recovery. Furthermore, the move looks fishy as hell, even when performed by some people who perform it well. I've seen a couple of performers who use the technique, and when they perform it, they might as well tell the audience, "Okay, I'm stacking the deck now."

[thaiboxerken]

I just did unshuffled for a friend and she was pretty impressed, I TOLD her I was stacking the deck to find her card. It's all about the misdirection. Yes, the faro looks fishy, but by telling them that your stacking the deck, it makes them think less about it. It only takes practice to get good at faro shuffling.