- All right, guys. Hold on! Before you go anywhere,
this is not gonna be a boring tutorial.
Today I'm gonna teach you not only how to
perfectly interweave a deck of cards
together in a perfect shuffle,
but I'm also gonna teach you a little bit
of the history behind the mathematics
and behind the discovery of the faro shuffle,
as well as some applications of the
in faro and out faro shuffles.
So, basically I'm gonna teach you a magic trick
that uses this principle but also,
I want you guys to sort of learn
and understand the principle behind the faro shuffle
so that you can go ahead and create your own.
(playful music)
Let's start with some history.
So the faro shuffle was first sort of discovered
by theoretical mathematician Percy Diaconis,
who wrote a huge report on this.
Basically, it was the study of how to perfectly
shuffle a deck of cards in two different ways.
This was better explained by John Maskelyne,
and he would call it The faros dealer's shuffle.
Now, in a faro shuffle there are two types of shuffles.
There is the out faro, where the original
bottom card stays on the bottom,
and the original top card stays on the top.
And then there is the in faro.
These names were first coined by Alex Elmsley,
another great mathematician and magician as well.
Let's look at the differences between
the in faro and the out faro
before we get into teaching how to do it.
Let's start with the out faro, my favorite.
Now, the out faro's very interesting because
as it retains the bottom and top card,
basically what you can accomplish with this
is if you do eight perfect out faro shuffles,
the deck goes back to the original order you started with.
Fun fact: if you add 12 cards to a deck making it 64 cards,
you will only need six perfect faro shuffles
to get back to new-deck order.
Something you should also know is that if you
place a card somewhere in the deck and out faro this deck,
the position of that card will be
multiplied by two minus one.
And the in faro basically is the complete opposite of that,
so instead of eight shuffles to bring it back
to the deck order that you had,
you need 52 shuffles. That's insane.
So, you need to perfectly shuffle
in shuffle a deck 52 times to get back
to the original deck order that you had it in.
After 26 shuffles, you've essentially reversed
the order of the deck completely.
Interesting, right?
Alex Elmsley, as he was a famous mathematician and magician,
would come up with really, really cool ways
of positioning a card, but not only that,
how to actually count them in binary.
So, for instance, if you wanted a card to 23rd position,
he would essentially say,
"Well, that's 22, and 22 in binary is
"one, zero, one, one, zero."
Where the ones are the in shuffles,
and the zero are the out shuffles,
So that would take in shuffle, out shuffle,
in shuffle, in shuffle, out shuffle,
and your card would be 23rd from the top
if it started on top.
Just a little bit of knowledge for you guys.
I know this sounds complicated, but really it isn't.
Once you actually start applying the mathematics to it,
and do the test yourself,
place a card on the top of the deck, in shuffle it,
you'll see that it'll be second.
If you in shuffle it again, it'll double its position again.
So the in shuffle, not like the out shuffle,
the in shuffle it will double a position of the card.
So the out shuffle doubles it minus one,
and the in shuffle just doubles it.
So, try this out yourself
if you already know how to faro shuffle.
If you don't, just stay tuned and we'll
teach that in a second.
But place a card on top of the deck
and in shuffle it once, it'll be second.
In shuffle it again, it'll be fourth.
In shuffle it again, it'll be eighth.
In again it'll be 16th, and so on and so forth.
Now, there are a lot of literature on the
mathematics and applications of the faro shuffle.
And if you guys think at home that
math is boring and not for me,
some of the best principles in magic
are based on mathematics,
and some of the best creators in magic
are mathematicians.
So, let's say you only like the practical application.
It's fun to actually understand the theoretical side
and the application side of this move
before you end up using it,
because then you won't be so confused when performing it,
or even reading a book which says
"In faro, out shuffle, et cetera, et cetera."
You won't be so lost and confused. Thank me later.
All right, so now let's get into
actual tutorial of how to faro shuffle a deck,
and afterwards, I'm gonna teach you guys
an effect that you guys can go out
and perform straight away, super easy,
all you really need to know
how to do is the faro shuffle,
and you can perform this and look like
a master illusionist.
Or mathematician, whatever.
Let's get into the tutorial right now.
So, here we go. I'm going to be using
the Block playing cards by my friend Frank.
I'll leave a link below where you guys can check these out.
They're pretty sick, and they feel great.
All right, so first of all I'm going to
demonstrate what an out faro looks like.
First, you wanna split the deck into two halves,
and then once you faro them together,
basically, the bottom card is the same
and the top card stays in the same position.
All the other cards interweave like so.
And it's one perfect shuffle.
So, satisfying to watch, isn't it?
An in shuffle is the exact same thing,
but instead of retaining the bottom and top card,
these are going to change positions, like so.
Let's go into the mechanics of the faro shuffle.
So, first of all, you wanna break off the pack
into two piles.
Don't get upset if you can't
perfectly split a deck in to 26, 26.
That's a bit of a skill, and a bit of
muscle memory over time,
you just kinda learn how to grab equal halves.
And it's not always perfect,
but for the most part,
it pretty much lands itself every time.
And you can do a test straight away.
So, for instance, if I come here and I start to faro,
I know right now that I have way more cards
on this block than I do over here,
so I can just grab two and bring them over here,
and now I'm pretty much 50, 50.
And the grip is very important here,
because if you just take two packs
and try to shove them together,
you know, this might happen.
Right, and it won't be a perfect faro.
It won't be even close.
So what you wanna try to do is
first of all, grab your two halves,
and here's how you're gonna hold them.
So if you're right-handed-
This is what I do, there are many
different ways that you can sort of faro shuffle.
I'm gonna teach you how I do it.
The right hand, you're going to hold the deck like this,
with your index, little bit of pressure on top here.
The left hand, you're gonna hold it like this, similar.
But instead of having your finger here,
you're going to curl it underneath, like this,
and you're going to apply pressure upwards
with your finger like that.
Because the idea is if these decks are loose,
you're not gonna get a faro.
They have to be absolutely tight.
These two get lined up, and they are
perfectly lined up with no spaces in between,
allowing the faro to happen.
One quick thing you wanna do before you square these up,
Tap that, and make sure that's square,
you can tap that, and make sure that's square.
Just square these up nice and evenly,
because if they're not square, you won't be able to faro.
So square them up, keep the pressure.
Those are two points, right there.
Now, the right hand is gonna come here.
As you can see here, I'm not pressing them in together,
I'm starting on the bottom.
♫ Started from the bottom ♫ Sorry.
These two are gonna connect.
I'm going to-
Once I'm lined up here with this index,
and this index here, once I'm lined up,
my left hand index is going to come to the back,
and apply a bit of pressure,
and this hand here is going to move like this.
So you're kind of going to give it this motion.
Okay, starting with the corner.
And then I kind of move in and back.
And you can rock back and forth.
Don't apply too much pressure because
if you apply too much pressure,
you're gonna ruin your cards and
you're not gonna get a nice faro.
So, let the cards interweave by themselves.
Kinda like this. Okay?
Starting here, you can slide forward all the way,
you can come back ...
Index goes back here,
rock back and forth.
Just like that.
Something important to note,
USPC, the US Playing Card Company,
when they print cards,
some of them are traditionally cut,
and some of them are untraditionally cut.
Now, what this means is that
when you take a fresh deck out of the box,
if this was cut in the factory, face down,
which is traditional,
you will be able to faro from the bottom up very easily.
If they were cut face up in a factory,
then it's gonna be a lot harder to faro from the bottom up.
You'll have to actually faro from the top down.
The other option is to turn the deck over,
and faro from the bottom up,
which essentially means you're faroing from the top down.
Once a deck is broken in like this one,
you'll be able to do both.
But most decks when they're brand new,
will give one way and sort of resist on the other.
So, just play around with that
and see which way works better for you.
As far as the in faro goes,
instead of starting over the bottom card,
you're gonna start under the bottom card
and finish under the top card.
And that's basically your in faro.
Now, let's look at this in a practical way.
All right, ladies and gentlemen, for this effect
I will need you to go ahead and
select any card you like.
This one right here. Perfect. The five of hearts.
We're gonna take that five of hearts
and leave it somewhere within the deck.
Now, I'm actually gonna give that a few cuts
just to make sure it's completely lost.
We'll give it a few table cuts,
and for good measure maybe even a shuffle,
just to make sure that that card
is without a doubt completely lost within this deck.
And there's no way that myself ...
As a magician I could find or locate that card.
Here we go.
One more cut for good measure.
I believe that your card is gonna show itself to me
and reveal itself to me.
Let me know if this is your card.
(gasps)
The 10 of diamonds is not your card, is it?
Huh.
Maybe, you know what, maybe this is an indicator card,
maybe this card is gonna tell me about your card.
Maybe it tells me your card is red,
maybe it tells me your card is a diamond, which it isn't.
More importantly, maybe it tells me
where your card is.
Now that's a ten. Let's count ten cards.
One, two, three, four, five,
six, seven, eight, nine, ten. This card here.
What was your card again? Was it the 5 of hearts?
There ya go.
All right, let's get into how this effect works.
It's quite simple, but you need to pay attention.
So, first, you need your indicator card.
This is the card that's going to
tell us where your card is.
What's great about this is that
no matter what you use, you can use any card at all,
and through the in faro, out faro formula,
you can have their selection end up where ever you like.
So, I like to go with 10, nice and even number.
For their card to be beside the 10 after one out faro,
you're going to need to place it
fifth face up from the top.
All right. So that's the card,
one, two, three, four cards on top of this card here.
So, now if I out faro this right now
that would double the position minus one
of the card bringing it to ninth, right?
Which is no good, we don't want it to be ninth.
But we forgot to add a factor in,
there's gonna be one more card to add to this.
There's gonna be their selection.
So, the way this trick starts out,
you wanna block spread this,
so, get past this-
What a block spread is just basically spreading past that.
So that you don't reveal this,
cause if you spread this, that's no good.
You wanna block spread, have them choose
somewhere from down here, let's-
That's funny!
Okay, I just performed a trick on myself.
We got the five of hearts here,
What you're gonna do is you're gonna
swing cut this packet into this hand,
and have them place the five of hearts
down on this packet.
So, basically you're now
sitting five cards over this card.
Now, what we wanna do is keep a break,
whatever way you wanna do it you wanna keep a break here
making sure you don't lose that break,
and I'm going to double under cut,
basically just dropping half of this pack here,
bringing it on top,
and dropping the other half down and bringing it on top,
Now I do this little false table cut.
This is all false, false cuts.
You can do any false cut you like.
But now, I go into a faro shuffle.
I want to out faro.
I want to make sure the top card
stays the top card, and how do I do that?
I line up the top cards.
And see, right now, I'm two on top, so that's bad.
So what you do is you just keep talking,
but it does not have to be a perfect shuffle.
All you have to do is have a perfect out shuffle
on the top of the deck.
I'm having a little bit of difficulty,
cause I'm looking at my monitor,
but let's do this correctly, here we go.
So, now that I'm out faroed,
we know that the indicator card
is 10 cards away from that, right?
One, two, three, four, five,
six, seven, eight, nine, ten, the selection.
If you calculate the selection,
this card was six cards down, correct?
So if we do an out faro, what does an out faro do?
It multiplies it by two minus one, which makes it 11.
11th is perfect because we need to count 10 cards away.
So, not including this one-
So, if we included this one, that would be 11 cards down.
But since we're starting to count here,
one, two, three, four, five,
six, seven, eight nine, 10, we are 10 cards away.
Okay? That's a little bit complicated,
but let that sink in.
We were six, we multiplied it by two minus one,
which gave us 11, we are now 11 cards away,
so that if we count 10, the 10th card will be
the five of hearts.
Now you're in this position,
all you have to do is cut it into the
middle of the deck and spread, and voila.
This is fun because now, if you don't know their selection,
you can fish, you can say,
"This is an indicator card. Your card was red, wasn't it?"
If they say no, you can go,
"Well, on the back, I mean,"
as a little gag.
(rim shot)
Then you can say,
"Well, it was a diamond wasn't it?"
And they say no, you say-
And sometimes that will hit, which is great.
But if it doesn't you just say,
"Well, maybe the number is telling me something.
"10. Let's count ten. One, two, three-
"10. The five of hearts, 10 cards away."
Play around with the principle.
You know what? Take a card place it on top,
in shuffle it as many times as you can
to see how many times you can actually
double the position of the 10.
Eventually, this'll become muscle memory,
it's a difficult thing to master.
For the most part,
a lot of effects do not require a perfect faro shuffle,
but only a partially perfect faro shuffle,
so, worth learning.
All right, guys, that was my tutorial on the faro shuffle.
I hope I did it justice, and I hope you guys
take this information and sort of run with it.
The faro shuffle can be used both for cardistry,
but could also be used very strongly for magic,
if you guys really take the time to understand
the principle that I explain,
maybe I went over it a little bit quickly,
but once you start actually practicing
and putting in practical time into this,
you will understand the difference
between in and out shuffles,
and you will also understand the applications
therefore them.
It. The.
So, have fun with that effect,
have fun with this and
like this video if this was helpful.
Go ahead and subscribe if you're not already,
and we'll see you on the next video.
Peace!
(playful music)