Shuffling the Deck

In this next lesson, we are going to teach you how to shuffle the deck. Now, the first thing that you need to do when shuffling the deck is learn how to hold the cards properly. So let's get a single deck out and place it so that way it is going horizontal. And when you are holding the cards, I want you to put your four fingers at the front, your thumbs at the back, and your middle fingers on the side. So your pinky and your ring finger are not doing anything. And they're sort of curled in and they're letting these three fingers do all the work. So you're going to hold the deck like this.

Next step is to learn how to riffle. Now a lot of people, when they say shuffle, think riffling is shuffling. When it is something completely different. So riffling is when you have two halves of the deck together, you lift up and you lace them together. Riffling is also known as shuffling. In order to riffle the deck, you're going to hold the cards. You're going to cut the deck in half by lifting with your thumb. So that way half of the deck is slightly higher than the other. Hold the cards apart and push them together. Now that the cards are together, if you have petite hands like myself, what you're going to put your hands in an A position. So that way, your two fore-fingers come together to form a point. Same point that you would see on the A and that your thumbs come together so they mimic the middle portion of the A. So you could see how my hand is in an A position and you're going to hold down or put pressure on the top corners of the deck. Place your palms right here at the bottom right-hand corner and the bottom left-hand corner, I should say the bottom outside corners. And you're going to put pressure with the bottom outside corners with this portion of your hand right here. So you're holding the deck down. And then with your thumbs you're lifting up the inner corners and letting the corners fall into place. Now if you try to force the deck to do this, the deck is going to make it very, very hard to riffle the deck. You don’t want to fight the deck. You want the corners of the cards to gently fall into place.

Now this is what you do if you have small hands. What if you are, let's say a six foot guy that has very large hands. This would be pretty awkward to do, much, much harder to riffle the cards like this. If you are a larger, guy. So what you're going to do is you're going to use a claw. Put your hands in a claw. And when you riffle the cards, you're still putting pressure points on the corners, and you're still using your thumbs to lift up and let them fall into place, but your hands are more of in a claw position rather than in a flat position. Do what feels comfortable for you. You know you're doing it right when you feel comfortable. If your hands hurt, if it feels awkward, if you feel like you're forcing the cards and the cards are fighting back, then you know you're doing it wrong and you need to rethink what you're doing.

Now, one of the things that you need to look for in order to determine if you're doing it properly, is do you see any chunks? Are you chunking the deck? Or are you lacing the deck? You want to lace the deck. And when I say lace the deck, I mean, when the deck comes together, there's no chunks or spaces in between the deck. Everything is perfectly laced together, and you don't see any big sections in the deck. Now let's see what chunking looks like. Chunking would be, where clunks of cards are not properly riffled together and you see spaces in between the deck. So you can see these spaces right here. And the cards are not properly shuffled or riffled together.

If you are having trouble, let's go through some troubleshooting techniques that could possibly help you. One of the things I noticed my students doing, is they try to go too fast. They try to match the speed of an experienced dealer when they're a newbie. When you're learning this, you want to go slow. You want to be accurate. You want to make sure that every single time you do that action, you're doing that action properly. And it's not so much about speed as it is about doing the correct procedure. You don't want to do the wrong thing over and over again, because then you just learned a bad habit that you're going to have to unlearn later on. That's why it's really important to go slowly and make sure you know what you're doing. And just so you guys know, speed does come. But it comes with time, which means you have to practice over and over again. And after a certain amount of time doing it, that's when you build up your speed.

The other thing that might be hindering you is if you had recently put on lotion before you started shuffling the deck. Lotion makes the card slippery and makes it hard to grip or use. So, if you have lotion on your hands, this might be what is making it hard to shuffle the deck. If you are one of those people that absolutely must have lotion on, but you also need to shuffle the deck, here is a trick that might be helpful to you. Put the lotion on the back of your hand. And with the other back of your hand, you're going to rub the two backs together. That way you're only putting lotion on the back of your hand and not your palms. And this keeps the palms dry. This way you can easily use the cards without having to worry about getting all that lotion on the cards.

Another thing that might be hindering you from riffling the deck properly is if you're holding the cards too tight or too hard, or you're forcing it. When you're forcing the cards, the cards are going to make it really hard for you to shuffle them. You want to be really easy on the cards. You want to be light, airy. When you're riffling the deck, you're literally letting the cards fall into place, so there's no forcing about it. If you are holding the deck too tight, this could cause you problems.

One other thing that might cause you problems is if your cards are really old. Every single time we use the cards, the oils and dirt and grime from our hands are transferred to the cards. So if you're using a deck that's ten years old, for example, and it just keeps chunking and it's not riffling properly, best thing to do is to throw it away and get a new deck. You want to use a new deck when you're learning how to shuffle. This will make things, a bit easier for you than using, say, a ten year old deck.

Something else to think about, is if you have a deck of cards that you bought from a casino. Most used decks have the corners cut off. If you're trying to riffle to a deck that has the corners cut off, this is going to make it near impossible to properly riffle the deck. So take a look at your cards, make sure that they have all four corners and that none of your corners are cut off. Again, cut off corners will make it harder to shuffle to riffle the deck.

Okay, so now that you know the basics of riffling the deck, let's do some at home practice. When you're starting off riffling the deck for the very first time, what I want you to do is I want you to take a full 52 card deck, and I want you to put at least half of it, maybe three fourths of it off to the side. Now, with this small portion that you have in front of you, I want you to go ahead and practice riffling the deck. Do it. Nice. And. Easy. Let the cards fall into place. And when you feel comfortable with this small amount of cards, I want you to add just a little more to the pile. Now, with this additional amount added to your deck, I want you to go ahead and try to riffle the cards again. Keep doing this, over and over, until you have a full deck. When you feel comfortable riffling the single deck. I want you to start doing the same thing but with the double deck. Keep doing this until you can properly riffle a full double deck, with no clunking.

Now, for your homework, I want you to riffle the deck for a minimum of 30 minutes every night or until you feel comfortable. After you feel comfortable, I want you to practice riffling a double deck, if you are ready for a challenge, try to riffle as quietly and as quickly as possible. Make sure is completely laced. If you could do this quietly, quickly, and completely laced, you know you are at a professional level. Dealers who have been in the industry for a long time always say that the quieter you can riffle the cards, the better of a dealer you are.

The next thing you want to learn is how to strip the deck. So when you're stripping the deck, you're going to hold the deck in place, slightly lifted off the table, but not too high, you don't want the bottom card to be showing, but slightly off the table. You want to angle it at a slightly downward slope. Take chunks of cards off the top of the deck and place it on the table. Do this about 4, 5, or 6 times, depending on where you're at, what your casino requires of you, or what your casino party asked you to do. And that is what stripping the deck looks like.

Now, one of the things that I noticed some students doing, which is not accurate, is when they're stripping a deck of cards, they take a chunk off the bottom of the deck and put it on the table, at the bottom of their new deck. This doesn't really do anything, because then you're just placing the cards in the same placement they were before. Instead, what I want you to do when you're stripping the deck is to take the chunk off the top and place it on the bottom. Keep doing this until you have no more left in the deck.

Now for your homework assignment. I want you to strip the deck for at least 15 minutes per night or until you feel comfortable. This is really easy to learn, so if you feel comfortable pretty fast, that's a normal thing, so don't worry about it. But again practice for 15 minutes every single night until you feel comfortable.

After you feel comfortable stripping a deck of cards, now let's work on boxing. Now, some people have a problem with boxing because it's just a little strange when you first get started, but after doing it many times, it will feel a lot easier to do. When boxing a deck of cards. I want you to take a chunk off the bottom, like a quarter to a third off the bottom of the deck and I want you to turn it 180 degrees and place it on the top of the deck. This is known as boxing the deck. Once you feel comfortable boxing the deck, this is what it's going to look like. Keep doing this over and over again until you feel comfortable. I know it's a little weird doing it first, but eventually you'll get used to it and you'll be able to box the deck pretty smoothly without having too many hiccups. For your homework, I want you to practice 15 minutes per night or until you feel comfortable with boxing the deck.

The next thing we're going to learn is how to wash the deck. Now, washing the deck occurs when a brand new deck of cards is put into play. So if you're on a single or double deck and the cards are switched once every two hours, then you're going to wash the deck every time you get a new deck of cards. Same thing if you're on the shoe. If you have a new deck of cards, you're going to wash the deck. Now, washing the deck, it doesn't matter if you're doing a single deck, a double deck, or a multi deck shoe. So you're going to take two decks, put them in the center of the table, and then spread them around in a circular motion using both hands. You're going to lay them out flat, with all of your fingers spread out. That way you cover more area and you are going to wash the cards by swirling your hands around in a wax on, wax off kind of motion. Wax on, wax off. Wax on, wax off. My students are very good at this because it is so easy. Do this for, let's say, about 10 to 15 seconds. And after you feel like they are washed enough, you're going to bring them together, flip them up in a way where the back of the cards are facing the players, and the front of the cards are facing the dealer. And then you're going to let them fall into place. Using your thumbs you're going to quickly put them in order. Now you have completely washed a deck. For your homework I want you to practice this. do this for about five minutes, maybe ten minutes, or until you feel comfortable. It really just depends on you. This is a really easy, really fun, and simple method to shuffling the deck.

After you feel comfortable with all of the those components that we just learned, I want you to put those components together and create a shuffling routine. So for example, on a single deck, you would:

• Riffle
• Strip
• Riffle
• Box
• Riffle

All of those components put together create the shuffling proceed. Now you are ready to cut the deck. I want you to practice this at home for at least 30 minutes every night until you feel comfortable. Now, if you want a bit of a challenge for your homework, I want you to complete the single deck shuffle in 90 seconds or less. The goal is to get this done in about, like, 30 seconds. Do it again, and again, and again, because we are working on your muscle memory. The only way you're going to get this is by lots of at home practice.

Keep in mind that when you get to a casino, every casino is different and they'll all have a different shuffle for you to learn. So you're going to have to unlearn what I am teaching you now, and relearn what your casino or your casino party company wants you to shuffle. If there is no particular way to shuffle, go ahead and use these shuffles that I'm teaching you now.

With a double deck shuffle, we are going to:

• Split the deck into two separate stacks
• Then split it again, so we have four stacks
• Taking the diagonal stacks and put them together
  • Riffle
  • Strip
  • Riffle
  • Box
  • Riffle
• Place it right here in the middle.
• Next we're going to take these other two diagonal stacks and join them together
  • Riffle
  • Strip
  • Riffle
  • Box
  • Riffle
• Take both the stacks, put them together
  • Riffle
  • Strip
  • Riffle
  • Box
  • Riffle

And you have now just completed a double deck shuffle. I want you to practice that at home for your homework for at least 30 minutes or until you feel comfortable. If you want a challenge, if shuffle a double deck in 90 seconds or less.

Now when you're doing the multi deck shuffle, the first thing you're going to do is plug the deck of cards. And, of course, this depends on what casino or casino party business you're working at. Some casinos don't care whether you plug the deck or not and will just want you to put the plug at the very top of the discard rack. Others do care, and you'll have to put the plug somewhere in a random place in the discard rack. The amount of cards that are left in the deck is known as the plug. And you're going to take it and plug it into one of these areas in the discard rack.

Next you will take the cards out of the discard rack and place them in the middle of the table.

• Split all 6 or 8 decks in half
• Split those two stacks in half again
• You now have four piles of roughly equal cards
• Place the four piles on the side where they're pretty much similar to the insurance line
• Bring each pile in and you're going to:
  • Riffle
  • Strip
  • Riffle
  • Box
  • Riffle
• Do this for each pile
• Take a chunk from each of these four decks and put them together, creating a new double deck. With that new double deck:
  • Riffle
  • Strip
  • Riffle
  • Box
  • Riffle
• Place the finished pile on the insurance line in the center
• Do this 3 more times until every pile have been shuffled and placed on the insurance line in the center

And remember, as you do this, as you practice, your hands will get better with time. But it takes a lot of at home practice. If you need a challenge, then complete a multi deck shuffle in 120 seconds (2 minutes) or less. Complete the multi deck shuffle as quickly and as quietly as possible. You don’t want to hear the cards riffle. You want it to be silent.

If you were at a casino party, the next step would be just to roll the deck and start dealing. If you're a new casino dealer in a break-in house, you have to call “Rolling” and get permission to roll the deck. Once you're ready to move on, roll the deck and offer the cut card to the player.

Now that you know how to shuffle a deck of cards, let's go over the other policies and procedures that have to do with shuffling a deck. One of the things that we briefly touched upon was cutting the deck. One of the things you never want to do when cutting a deck is you never want to hand the cut card to the player. You always want the cut card to be on top of the deck and then extend the deck over to the player so they could take the cut card and cut the deck. Don’t go past the insurance line.

You never want the wide side of the deck to be facing the player. You don't want the player to see this part of the deck. You always want the deck to be perpendicular to the player. So that way the player can't see the wide side of the deck.

Another thing you have to be careful of when you're a dealer is players who run the cut card alongside the edge of the deck. Technically, at a casino, you're not supposed to do this. You're just supposed to cut the card and be done with it. At a casino party, it's a little more relaxed, so if someone's doing this, it's not a big deal. Just know that if you do go into the casino industry, you are not allowed to run the cut card on the edge of the deck. This is for game security and table protection.

Also, you never want to extend the deck past the insurance line. Never go over the insurance line. Always keep the deck at the insurance line and no further. And this is the same for both a 4, 6 or 8 deck shoe or a single or double deck.

Now, when you're using the cut card, the cut card has two objectives. One, it notifies the dealer of when they need to shuffle the deck. And two, it covers the very last card in the deck. So that way none of the other players could see what that last card is. And that goes for both a single deck, Double deck, and multi deck shoe. So again you're going to put one card in the back to cover up the back card. And another cut card is going to be placed in the deck, indicating to the dealer when they will need to shuffle the deck.