Just to clarify:
Darrel wrote:On page 24, it states:
"The riffle shuffle is probably the most widely used method of shuffling cards;
More common than the overhand? Yeah, right.
I'm not a cardie, but I always thought there was a riffle shuffle, as described, then a table riffle shuffle.
Nah, there's a riffle shuffle, and then a riffle shuffle without a table. The one with the table is what most people mean when they say "riffle shuffle". Most shuffling is done while playing card games (not while doing magic), and most card games are played while seated at a table, so it figures. The only reason to do a riffle shuffle without a table is either because the circumstances demand it or you want to show off. Anyway, the standard riffle shuffle is the one with the table.
I'm absolutely boggled that any published work would claim otherwise.
Because this is a little off-topic for the book review thread, I will not add extra posts on the subject of shuffling. Instead, I will edit this post to append a response to anything that is subsequently said on the subject. Watch this space.Part-Timer wrote:I'm not a cardie, but I always thought that the table shuffle was the one where you run your thumbs up the 'innermost' corners of the two packets of cards, causing them to interweave. You then push the packets together.
That is
definitely what most people call a riffle shuffle.
A riffle shuffle (with or without a table), is where you put pressure in the middle of the backs of the two packets, springing them downwards, so the whole of the innermost short ends interleave. The packets are then pushed together, although they are already largely there.
I suppose that would also be a kind of riffle shuffle, but a different one. However I am unfamiliar with it.
Cardza wrote:I've always referred to the end-end as the riffle shuffle (which is the one most laypeople seem to know and do, alongside the overhand shuffle) and the corner-corner as the dovetail shuffle. The riffle shuffle done in the hands as an in the hands riffle shuffle.
I have recently read Marvin Kaye, who says "
there are two shuffles used commonly in America, dovetail and overhand". My thought response was, "
Why don't you call it a riffle shuffle like everyone else?". One answer could be that a riffle shuffle is any shuffle that involves the same basic principle of making the cards interleave, so it's just a matter of being more precise, i.e. dovetail is to riffle as apple is to fruit. I am honestly astounded by the claim that end-to-end riffle shuffling is even remotely as widely known/used among laypeople as corner-to-corner riffle shuffling (let alone more so) and I do not believe it for a second.