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Hello,

Can anyone help with a little problem?

When doing an overhand shuffle, should the cards be held face into palm or face out?

The reason i ask is perserveance with the svengali, and can do an overhand shuffle but can only do it where the face of the cards are seen, which does not matter, but wanted it to look natural.

I hold the cards in my left hand, face towards my palm and shuffle with my right to my left,
Have order long and short of it, but impatient waiting for postie man lol.
Ive never been able to shuffle any cards before so not sure on what natural would look like?

Any help appreciated.

Fairie x

Try shuffling using a regular deck first until you can do that.

Why have you bought a svengali deck if you are so new to cards that you can barely even shuffle? Perhaps you should learn to crawl before you try to sprint. I dpn't mean that in a nasty way, but I think you are throwing yourself in the deep end here.

FairieSnuff wrote:I hold the cards in my left hand, face towards my palm and shuffle with my right to my left

Is this really what you do? If the cards are in your left hand, a routine overhand shuffle would involve shuffling into your right hand from your left ... or are you keeping the cards in your left hand throughout No problem, just trying to understand.

Hello,

I have practices shuffling, but have found that the svengali deck is much much different (more tension) to the ones i had been playing with so have decided to just use that one rather than having to learn twice.
Not trying to sprint - just trying to learn basics.

I keep them in my left through out take some with my right (whilst retaining a few in left) and shuffle the rest back to the left.
Sorry for the confusion.

FairieSnuff wrote:I have practices shuffling, but have found that the svengali deck is much much different (more tension) to the ones i had been playing with so have decided to just use that one rather than having to learn twice.

OK. I'll just say this one more time and then you can ignore me and go off to do whatever you want regardless: Put the svengali deck away. Get a normal deck and learn some basics with it first.

What are you practicing anyway?? Are you only interested in svengali effects? Do you even know that the svengali deck is a specialist piece of kit?

You remind me of someone who wants to learn how to juggle but they refuse to start with the beanbags because they've already bought chainsaws and they're used to how they feel.

Good luck.

A Svengali deck can be riffle shuffled.

A Svengali deck was one of my very first tricks over 40 years ago. I would think a decent beginner's trick because you can do some nice magic with it, without it requiring a great deal of skill.

I do agree that you should learn how to generally handle and shuffle a deck of cards, but I also think a Svengali deck could be a good beginner's trick...

Get yourself a copy of Encyclopedia of Card Tricks by Jean Hugard. This has a full chapter on handling and effects for a Svengali pack (which as Steve says should be riffle shuffled) and also a chapter on basic sleights for ordinary cards, including the overhand shuffle.

Barry

queen of clubs wrote:You remind me of someone who wants to learn how to juggle but they refuse to start with the beanbags because they've already bought chainsaws and they're used to how they feel.

I personally don't think the Svengali is even a good deck. Sure it works fine, but it's un-examinable, the handling is awkward (for me at least) and it only works with one card so you have to switch it in and then right back out, which isn't the easiest thing in the world. In fact, I don't use any gimmicked cards, and even as a beginner, I'd advise you to do the same. Maybe, MAYBE, when you've convinced people that you don't use trick cards, you can go out and get an ID, which I believe is the only trick deck worth using, but that's only if you really feel comfortable with a regular deck. So take Queen of Clubs' advice, and learn to do some great stuff with a normal deck of cards. There are loads of books out there on how to use a normal deck, maybe the most notable being Royal Road to Card Magic. Good luck.

Firstly, the Svengali is a great deck in the hands of a good magician but unfortunately, too many novices get hold of one and don't ever come close to realising half of the potential that this deck has.

I fully agree with Queen of Clubs - you really do need to have some basic card skills before moving onto using gimmicked decks to be convincing.

You remind me of someone who wants to learn how to juggle but they refuse to start with the beanbags because they've already bought chainsaws and they're used to how they feel.

Gave me a goode chuckle too

I expect Mr Lewis to be along shortly to set the world to rights