Tuesday, March 25, 2008

To Ascertain the Top Cards While Riffling...

Erdnase says to slightly injog to assist in glimpsing the top card at the end of a riffle shuffle. He provides the following illustration:

Okay, so just jog the card over to the right and take a peek during the end of the shuffle, right?

Wrong.

Jogging the card to the right does not assist in ANY way the glimpsing of the top card at the end of the riffle. Instead, it looks retarded.

Erdnase instructs to “slightly injog the top card... as explained in treatment of "Blind Riffles," under caption, "No. 1 to Retain Top Stock."

So what does he say in the Blind Riffles section? Let’s take look at page 33:

“Raise the thumb corners, and at the same moment injog the top card of the left-hand packet by drawing it in a little over the left thumb, with the first finger of the left hand”

So the top card should be injogged to a position on top of the left thumb. In this context, the thumb is used like a ramp angling the card further upwards, so the index can be glanced. Observe the following crappy picture from my cell phone:

Putting that photo up here from my phone just cost me $.35. How’s that for dedication to my readers?

Need more verification? How about the image Erdnase uses himself to demonstrate the jogged position for the top card during "No. 1 to Retain Top Stock"

That’s not a tumor Marshall D. Smith is drawing, that’s a card above the left thumb.

2 comments:

Amir said...

man I really cant understand what all is about..in jogging the top card does make it possible to glimpe it, and it is done exactly as described in Riffle shuffle retaining top stack.. just push it a bit foward with left index finger and you will notice you can glimpe it

bellend said...

Great blog, and to Amir, the point is that most people (including you) read it incorrectly and push the card to the right and not towards the body