According to the magician John Maskelyne, the above method was used, and he calls it the 'faro dealer's shuffle'. A flourish can be added by springing the packets together by applying pressure and bending them from above.Ī game of faro ends with the cards in two equal piles that the dealer must combine to deal them for the next game. The cards will then alternately fall onto each other, ideally alternating one by one from each half, much like a zipper. They are then pushed together on the short sides and bent either up or down. The two packets are often crossed and tapped against each other to align them.
The deck is separated into two preferably equal parts by simply lifting up half the cards with the right thumb slightly and pushing the left hand's packet forward away from the right hand. A right-handed practitioner holds the cards from above in the right and from below in the left hand. Magicians use these terms for a particular technique (which Diaconis, Graham, and Kantor call 'the technique') for achieving this result. Mathematicians use 'faro shuffle' for a shuffle in which the deck is split into equal halves of 26 cards that are then interwoven perfectly. The faro shuffle (American), weave shuffle (British), riffle shuffle, or dovetail shuffle is a method of shuffling playing cards.
