Many fine card feats depend on the fact that the pack has been arranged in a certain order familiar to the magician. To retain that order while apparently mixing the cards thoroughly, proceed as follows:
- Begin an overhand shuffle by undercutting half the deck.
- Run five cards on to the original upper half of the deck. That is to say,
pull off five cards singly with the left thumb, then throw the remaining
packet on top making it protrude about half an inch beyond the outer end of
the cards in the left hand (Fig. 5). [Note: you can also use an injog here – RJW]
- Press the tip of the left index finger against the face of this protruding packet and seize the cards below it by the ends, between the fight thumb and middle finger. Lift them, again run five cards, and throw the remainder on top. The whole pack will be in its original order. The action consists simply of reversing the order of five cards in the middle of the deck and then, by reversing these same five cards again, bringing them back to their original order, the rest of the cards not having been disturbed. Done smoothly and rather rapidly, not looking at your hands and while addressing the spectators, the shuffle is completely deceptive.
Again check your work. The original top card should now be the fourth from the top of the pack. If that is the case and you have made the shuffles smoothly, you have made excellent progress toward acquiring this most useful of all card sleights. Practice until you can make the shuffles without looking at your hands, and at the same time keep up an easy flow of conversation. With the simple principles explained in the preceding sections, which can be learned in the course of a pleasant half-hour’s toying with a pack of cards, you have a golden key which will unlock the door to many of the most entertaining card tricks it is possible to perform. Since the best way to learn to do magic is to do magic, in the next section several tricks are explained in which the principles you have already learned are put to use.