Thinking outside the Erdnase box- To Get Sight of a Selected Card

Before I get into the nitty gritty on this topic, I’d like you to read this excerpt and visualize the move.

“have it (the card) inserted at the end and prevent the spectator from pushing it quite home by squeezing the deck. Then, with the card protruding about a quarter of an inch. covertly turn the deck: partially over by passing it to the other hand, and get sight of the index.”

Play with it for a while, hopefully you haven’t already seen anyone perform this move and you can establish your own interpretation.

Are you done? Okay, get ready to have your mind blown.

The general consensus is with the card partially protruding, the deck is gripped by the short end farthest from the performer by the right hand and turned end for end, so the deck is face up in the left hand. The index is then glimpsed and the card is pushed flush with the thumb of the right hand.

There’s three reasons I don’t think this is the correct interpretation of Erdnase:

A) Erdnase uses the word covertly. By performing the move this way, you are doing the opposite and openly turning the deck over.

B) Erdnase instructs to turn the deck partially, not completely, over

C) Erdnase says the cards are passed to the other

(right) hand, and in the aforementioned method, the deck stays in the left.

Okay so now we’re back on square one. How do you turn the deck over covertly without being incredibly obvious? I toyed with it for a while and came up with this solution:

The deck is in the left hand, with the same hand positioning of the DPS, with the card protruding about half an inch. In passing the deck to the right hand, the left hand starts turning palm down but stops when the deck is perpendicular to the ground, back of the cards facing right and the long side facing the performer. With the right hand grasp the sides of the deck in the following manner: Right thumb on bottom of the side facing performer, second finger grasping the opposite side (next to the left pinky) and forefinger curled on top, nail against the top card. Here comes the sneaky move:

Bend the cards by applying pressure inwards with both hands. This will allow the performer to “covertly” glimpse a sight of the index of the protruding card. (see image)

You obviously don't want to be in this position long, so as soon as you spot the index the left hand releases its grip and the right hand turns the face of the deck towards the audience. I justify this by explaining that I want to push the card flush as fairly as possible with all angles visible to the spectator to “prove” there is no funny business. I position my right pinky on the short end of the deck closest to the ground and push the card flush with my right forefinger. If you have small hands though, you could just tap the card flush with the left hand. Try it out, it's bold but it works!

Erdnase was a swinger?

Topic of the day is Blind Cuts- To Retain Bottom Stock- Top Losing One Card

There has been a lot of debate on this technique, and many have dismissed it as obsolete in it’s entirety. I’d just like you to give it a fair shake before tossing it curbside.

The picture is what kills the technique. It’s easy to look at the figure and think this cut is garbage.

Now, Erdnase says to raise the deck “slightly” off the table. Seeing the figure we would assume that it’s several inches, but let’s try focusing more on the text as oppose to Marshall D Smith's interpretation of a millisecond in time. How much does slightly mean? Erdnase is specific to 1/8 of an inch in other parts of the book (who can tell me where?) so hypothetically we could even assume he means less then that, to the point where being specific isn’t practical.

Just something to think about, let’s get into the meat and potatoes of this post.

What I want you to think about is the following line:

“Immediately drop the left-hand packet on the table and bring the right-hand packet down on top with a slight swing”

What does Erdnase mean by swing? Does he mean just slapping the packet on top? What direction should the packet be swung? Realistically that could make a big difference in covering the action of the left hand, even if it is a foot off the table.

Some different swings:

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.

Thinking outside the Erdnase box....

Maybe we’re all wrong with the way we think the Open Shift is to be used as a transformation. Erdnase never says to hold the deck back to palm to start with. He says “with the face of the deck turned upward...” Could he possibly just mean with the face turned upwards toward the company?

With the SWE as a transformation he openly says “with the deck face up”
And in other parts of the book he uses the phrase “back to palm” when he wants the deck face up.

The point of this post is to make you look at Erdnase with fresh eyes. Get your own opinion of what Erdnase is saying- don’t take other peoples word for it.

When I first started studying Erdnase I didn't have anyone to talk about it with. I always pronounced it Erdnasey. Haha- who knows?