Wednesday, May 30, 2012

How to Shuffle Cards - One Handed Shuffle


How to Shuffle Cards - One Handed Shuffle


It is time for a bit more unique technique to shuffle cards. The one handed shuffle is actually the riffle shuffle only by utilizing 1 hand, sounds pretentious? Let's find out:

Take the deck within your hand and keep it with the regular grasp: Index plus pinky on the shorter edges, middle fingers around the longer ends, after doing that take the index finger and put it inside the deck, separating the deck into two more or less even packs.


Here you slip the top pack on the index finger and create Two parallel packets aided by the index finger between them. Work with the finger nail to slide the top packet upwards, don't do it using the tender fingertip, it could result in one or even more cards to slip in addition to it, and produce a tangle, trust me with this.


Here it might be a bit of challenging, shift the pinky towards the longer side of the packet. You have to connect the two packs together, how you can make that happen? Okay, this would require a lot of exercises, however the secret is always keep the packs parallel and fixed, soon after this begin intertwining the initial 2 bottom or top cards. Considering that your packets straight and firm up properly, the cards are going to interlace on their own like a zipper. Don't try and mush the packets with each other, it doesn't do the trick that way.
How to Shuffle Cards - One Handed Shuffle
Put the close together and weave

Step 2 will be to bend the 2 packets against each other, and create kind of a bridge (similar to the riffle shuffle) and then turn your hand face down. After you have done that, take away the index finger, the strain of your bent preserves the cards with each other.
How to Shuffle Cards - One Handed Shuffle
Keep them tense and in formation
How to Shuffle Cards - One Handed Shuffle
Remove the index finger and let them drop


Now the final step will be to let go stress a little bit and expand the area in between and put on a little bit force with the thumb plus middle finger on the ends. The packets the cards will naturally drop on your center tips of the fingers, with a waterfall sleek action. Good Job!

That's it; you learned the one handed shuffle as well, congrats!

For the full tutorial and additional guides to how to shuffle cards check:

Easy Card Tricks - Upside Down Trick


Today we are going to learn a brand new, amazing and very easy card trick. I name it the upside down trick, because I don't know any kind of official label for it. So let's get started:

First you need to prepare the deck, remove all of the cards which are identical from both sides, and leave the ones that you may make out if they happen to be "Up" or "Down", what does it mean? Well, the deck has many cards which are completely identical, face up or down, from either side you look at them. Some of them aren't, for example, glance at the ace of spades, the spade is pointing up or downward, some cards, such as the 7's have the majority of shapes aimed upwards or downwards. Pick the cards you can discern between them, there should be 22 of these.

Easy Card Tricks


At this point the deck (1 / 2 of it anyhow) is prepared. The secret as you might suspected is to place all the distinguishable cards with the identical direction.

For the execution itself: Allow the spectator choose one card, or 2, or 3. Now it's the most important move - when you take back his card\s reverse them to point the contrary direction of the rest of the deck. Shuffle the deck preferably using the overhand shuffle. Well, how you can finish the trick is up to you truly, as you already can easily distinguish what cards the spectator selected, those in your deck which are inverted :)
Easy Card Tricks

TIPS

    You may let your spectator shuffle the cards after you have gotten them from him and reversed them, to improve the trick, yet be ware he will not change several cards himself, or maybe make some unusual shuffle.
    Be cautious whilst reversing the cards to avoid suspicion. Don't look at your hands, look at your spectator and engage in some conversation while doing the invert. You may invent your personal misdirection.

Wednesday, April 25, 2012

Custom Playing Cards

Hi again! today I'm gonna talk to you about custom playing cards

Ghost & Karnival Decks
Types of custom playing cards
This decks called by edition names and sometimes come as part of a series.
This decks are more costly than the usual decks but they usually designed for more seasoned (and little richer :) ) card magicians. They frequently used in shows and performances due to their design and special illustration. The quality of this decks is often superior to the usual decks in terms of smoothness, thickness and other little adjustments that important for the professional performer). As I mentioned before, the most visible thing about this cards is their design (often there is a secret writing on the side of the deck or something stylish about the design of some cards). The back of the card has it’s own special decoration and some face cards & aces get their own feel.
There are some custom playing cards that provide special magic cards (like the Gaff deck) . This cards have their unique illustration on the face of the card. What’s unique about them, is that you can use them in combination with a usual deck and create new and creative magic trick. If done well, the trick can have a great impact on the audience, and turn a good show into a great.

continue reading about  custom playing cards and get free tutorials and info visit my site!

Wednesday, April 18, 2012

Fan Spread

Ok, so today I want to share with you my guide to fanning, it's a nice card trick and it looks awesome, even the basic thumb fan.
XCM
Thumb Fan

1) So take your hand, fingers tight and the thumb parallel to the finger line. Next, Do the same thing with the deck held between the thumb and the palm as in the Before.

2) I want you to make a little adjustment: Tilt the deck a bit to the wrist side, while keeping the thumb and fingers straight and in the same position. You need that in order to create a wider and more impressive fan tilt the deck to leave more space for the fan to spread. After the guide just try and see for yourself the change.

3) Next we'll do some beveling, I recommend you to learn the ribbon spread , it’s the same principle only in a semi circle motion. You put some pressure on the whole deck and guide the motion with your thumb in a semi circular way. You’re not sliding card by card, but allow the pressure of the deck deploy the cards. The moving hand is the thumb hand, while the other hand, that holds the deck, stays more or less in the same position, only towards the finish you give a slight adjustment to help end the fan.

4) When  you complete the fan you can extend her a bit by pulling with the thumb from one side while the index and middle fingers pulling from the other side.

5) For the close just push the cards from the start point towards the end in an arch. Of course, you may do it the other way around but it’s just seems better that way, and it’s a good position to start a new combo because the deck is in your palm and in the  basic mechanic grip for many card tricks. You may try and close the fan with one hand by pulling the cards toward your palm with the index and middle fingers.

For the full tutorial including pictures please check the fan spread guide.

Sunday, April 15, 2012

Welcome to House of Cards Blog

Hi, my name is Sin and welcome to my blog!

This is my first post here on blogger, and I want to introduce myself and explain what I will talk about here.

House of Cards
So, like I mentioned above, my name is Sin, I'm a photography student and a card enthusiast.
What does that mean? Card enthusiast? Well, I'm glad you asked (even if you didn't :P).

From an early age I fancied card games and tricks, I collected different kind of decks because I liked the different illustration on them. When I grew up I enlisted to the army, there I met a friend who was a card expert.  He knew many tricks and did some very cool stuff with his hands. I got intrigued and started to learn from him. Today, 3 years since then, I learned a lot more and got better. I found it a great and beautiful art, a great way to relax and focus because it requires peace of mind and concentration in order to perform well. 

Here in this blog I want to reveal for you the wonderful world of cards tricks and magic, from a point of view of a beginner, the same spot that I started from. I hope you will find in this world a great hobby and maybe even more.

I created a site - House of Cards, just for that purpose, to help beginners and enthusiasts in their first steps, show them other forms of the art and hopefully create a small community of card handlers and magicians.

In this blog I will post the news about my site and a more personal notes, and of course  some of the tutorials I publish on my site.

With this introduction I welcome you to my blog and site, have a nice blogging!