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Grrrr, its one of the books I would love to get a copy of!

I've fiddled with some faro work and came up with some intriguing work. Not too many have seen my faro work yet but I am happy to say I fooled a very knowledable card worker with one of my ideas.

queen of clubs wrote:I watched the video, and I have to say that if it really is done using a perfect faro to interlace the selection between the two face up cards then it is ridiculous. You can do an effect that will play exactly the same to a spectator, and even look 99% exactly the same to a fellow magician, using a very simple technique.

I'm not even sure this guy didn't do the simple version. The only thing confusing me is the separation of the two packets with the selection and the sandwich cards. Even so, I could duplicate move for move what you see in that video using a shorted dupe and a pencil dot. But why even go to those lengths? A standard sandwich effect would play just as strong to a layperson and there's no need for a "perfect" faro.

The thing that does not show through the video is that the layman, after choosing his card and replacing it in the packet, can cut it.
For sure you can do a similare trick in your hand by many way. But on table ...

Any way, I love this sandwich trick.

I can do the faro shuffle but im having problems weaving the cards its giving me a headache HELP! lol any pointers to help with my faro shuffle.... i got the basic concept but the cards simply wont weave

I'd recommend Michael Close's e-book on the faro shuffle. He teaches an "in the hands" faro and focuses almost entirely on "the knack". What I experienced with the book was a slight struggle, a leap to near perfection, and then an increasing polish to the point where I can do consecutive perfect faros with relative ease. And isn't it great to have a move that you can do "perfectly"?

Faros are great if you work with a stack - you can start a routine two faros out, give a couple of genuine shuffles, and then start your routine.

I don't use faro as the method for particular effects, apart from a very simple trick where I start with a deck two faros away from new deck order. I get two specs to take a card each, get them to return them to the deck, give the deck a couple of shuffles, and tell them their cards have swapped places. This will get a laugh, or more often a groan as the trick apparently collapses into a gag. Then I show that the deck is in order apart from the two selected cards which have, as suggested, swapped places.

EDIT: Thinking about the last time I did this; it's probably worth remembering that the audience oughtn't care about the faro. I used to do the above trick really to show off the fact that I could faro, to the point that spectators would comment on the shuffle itself rather than the proposed effect. If you're using the faro as a mechanism to an effect, or even to set up a stack, you need to make the faro a normal part of your card handling rather than a fluorish shuffle.