You need to get yourself some basic/core books on card magic and learn the foundations. That's where you'll find the basic answers to your questions. Royal Road to Card Magic... Expert Card Technique... Card College... you'll find what you need to know there. Even something as "entry level" as Mark Wilson's Complete Course in Magic contains basic false shuffles that can be used to position a card where you want it.

For a comprehensive "visual" reference, get Daryl's "Encyclopedia of Card Sleights" DVD set. You'll have more than enough false cuts and shuffles to keep you busy for a while.

As to what's "natural" with respect to card handling, this is sort of an ongoing debate in magic. Some argue that your card handling should resemble the card-handling of a layman as much as possible; others argue that laymen expect magicians to handle cards differently than they do, so why deny that expectation if you want to be perceived as a magician? Others argue that it really doesn't make any difference. I say it depends on how you want to be perceived.

Different people handle cards in different ways. Some laymen handle cards differently than other laymen. Magicians handle cards differently than laymen. Gamblers handle cards differently than magicians. Do you want to look like someone with great skill with cards or just a guy who does "nothing special" with the cards but ends up doing amazing things? Do you want to be thought of as a card sharp or a magician? I don't worry about doing what is "natural." I simply try to avoid doing anything overly suspicious and try to keep my cardwork relatively linear.



Yes... it's called "riffle stacking," and it isn't easy. Darwin Ortiz's books & videos are one place to start learning this sort of stuff. You might also want to look at Ortiz's annotated edition of Expert at the Card Table.

I've seen Brian Tudor saying in a video that the most desired card control is to do a move and know where every card is in a deck; well, it's obvios that he hasn't figured it out yet
What i do is spit double the card, let the audience shuffle the card,me going through the deck(face down - no one ever feels suspicious) and then culling the card.Pretty convincing since they can't see a crimp or a mark.

You could try using a nailnick. It's VERY discreet and allows you to identify the card at any stage

When you mix up a deck you dont need to do many flashy cuts or many shuffles. What I do which i talked to wayne houchin about since he lives a couple miles away is:

1. Get the card on top
2.Split the pack in half like you were to shuffle
3.Do a normal shuffle making sure that the top card (there card) lands last on top
4. Bridge the cards
5. Fake cut

Try to swing cut the top half into your left hand then set the right hand bottem packet down then your left hand packet down. seems stupid but is extremely convincing.

Remember this is coming from a pro.

Also controlling cards just takes practice.

Sometimes i put the card in my armpit shuffle up and make a distraction and put it back on top. the funny thing about this is it can be really effective.
All in all just have fun with it.

try the breather crimp,a gambling technic, mickael vincent use it, easy and very smooth

try the breather crimp,a gambling technic, mickael vincent use it, easy and very smooth

The easiest way to do most o what you want is what jenandfam wrote. Get the card on top! There are numerous controls from this point that will help keep it there. If your goal is to let the spectator do most the shuffling then practice some crimps, and or Palms. If your interested in a mentalist themed card trick(IE. spectator says stop and they stop on their signed card) then work on a strike second deal.

I recommend steve Forte's Gambling protection series which has just been re-released on DVD. It shows lots of flase shuffles, cuts, deals, peeks, etc which are undectectible to laymen and hard to catch even if you know what you are looking for.

The moves aren't taught as such, but are exposed and shown from several angles in slow mo so if you study them you can pick them up.

I know they are not the real shuffles you are after but no one will know anyways