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Faro shuffle
The faro shuffle (American), weave shuffle (British), or dovetail shuffle is a method of shuffling playing cards, in which half of the deck is held in each hand with the thumbs inward, then cards are released by the thumbs so that they fall to the table interleaved. Diaconis, Graham, and Kantor also call this the technique, when used in magic.
Mathematicians use the term "faro shuffle" to describe a precise rearrangement of a deck into two equal piles of 26 cards which are then interleaved perfectly.
A right-handed practitioner holds the cards from above in the left hand and from below in the right hand. 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. The two packets are often crossed and tapped against each other to align them. They are then pushed together on the short sides and bent either up or down. The cards will then alternately fall onto each other, ideally alternating one by one from each half, much like a zipper. A flourish can be added by springing the packets together by applying pressure and bending them from above.
A game of Faro ends with the cards in two equal piles that the dealer must combine to deal them for the next game. According to the magician John Maskelyne, the above method was used, and he calls it the "faro dealer's shuffle". Maskelyne was the first to give clear instructions, but the shuffle was used and associated with faro earlier, as discovered mostly by the mathematician and magician Persi Diaconis.
The faro shuffle is a controlled shuffle that does not fully randomize a deck.
A perfect faro shuffle, where the cards are perfectly alternated, requires the shuffler to cut the deck into two equal stacks and apply just the right pressure when pushing the half decks into each other.
A faro shuffle that leaves the original top card at the top and the original bottom card at the bottom is known as an out-shuffle, while one that moves the original top card to second and the original bottom card to second from the bottom is known as an in-shuffle. These names were coined by the magician and computer programmer Alex Elmsley.
An out-shuffle has the same result as removing the top and bottom cards, doing an in-shuffle on the remaining cards, and then replacing the top and bottom cards in their original positions. Repeated out-shuffles cannot reverse the order of the entire deck, only the middle n−2 cards. Mathematical theorems regarding faro shuffles tend to refer to out-shuffles.
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Faro shuffle AI simulator
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Faro shuffle
The faro shuffle (American), weave shuffle (British), or dovetail shuffle is a method of shuffling playing cards, in which half of the deck is held in each hand with the thumbs inward, then cards are released by the thumbs so that they fall to the table interleaved. Diaconis, Graham, and Kantor also call this the technique, when used in magic.
Mathematicians use the term "faro shuffle" to describe a precise rearrangement of a deck into two equal piles of 26 cards which are then interleaved perfectly.
A right-handed practitioner holds the cards from above in the left hand and from below in the right hand. 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. The two packets are often crossed and tapped against each other to align them. They are then pushed together on the short sides and bent either up or down. The cards will then alternately fall onto each other, ideally alternating one by one from each half, much like a zipper. A flourish can be added by springing the packets together by applying pressure and bending them from above.
A game of Faro ends with the cards in two equal piles that the dealer must combine to deal them for the next game. According to the magician John Maskelyne, the above method was used, and he calls it the "faro dealer's shuffle". Maskelyne was the first to give clear instructions, but the shuffle was used and associated with faro earlier, as discovered mostly by the mathematician and magician Persi Diaconis.
The faro shuffle is a controlled shuffle that does not fully randomize a deck.
A perfect faro shuffle, where the cards are perfectly alternated, requires the shuffler to cut the deck into two equal stacks and apply just the right pressure when pushing the half decks into each other.
A faro shuffle that leaves the original top card at the top and the original bottom card at the bottom is known as an out-shuffle, while one that moves the original top card to second and the original bottom card to second from the bottom is known as an in-shuffle. These names were coined by the magician and computer programmer Alex Elmsley.
An out-shuffle has the same result as removing the top and bottom cards, doing an in-shuffle on the remaining cards, and then replacing the top and bottom cards in their original positions. Repeated out-shuffles cannot reverse the order of the entire deck, only the middle n−2 cards. Mathematical theorems regarding faro shuffles tend to refer to out-shuffles.