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The Expert at the Card Table

S. W. Erdnase · 1902

Artifice, ruse, and subterfuge at the card table. S. W. Erdnase’s classic study of card handling, illustrated by M. D. Smith.

Begin reading →58 sections · Open to everyone

Contents

Front matter

  1. Title Page
  2. Preface and Introduction
  3. Table of Contents

Card-table artifice

  1. Professional Secrets
  2. Technical Terms
  3. Position For Shuffle
  4. Blind Shuffles
  5. Blind Riffles
  6. Blind Cuts
  7. Fancy Blind Cuts
  8. One-Handed Fancy True Cut
  9. To Indicate the Location for the Cut
  10. Bottom Dealing
  11. Top And Bottom Dealing With One Hand
  12. Second Dealing
  13. Ordinary Methods Of Stocking, Locating And Securing
  14. Stock Shuffle
  15. Erdnase System of Stock Shuffling
  16. The Erdnase System of Cull Shuffling
  17. The Erdnase System of Palming
  18. To Maintain the Bottom Palm While Dealing
  19. To Hold the Location of Cut While Dealing
  20. Shifts — Card-Table Artifice
  21. To Ascertain the Top Cards While Riffling and Reserve Them at Bottom
  22. Mode of Holding the Hand
  23. Skinning the Hand
  24. The Player Without an Ally
  25. Three Card Monte
  26. Mexican Three Card Monte

Legerdemain

  1. Legerdemain
  2. Shifts — Legerdemain
  3. The Blind Shuffle for Securing Selected Card
  4. Forcing
  5. Palming
  6. The Back Palm
  7. Changes
  8. Transformations-Two Hands
  9. Transformations-One Hand
  10. Blind Shuffles, Retaining Entire Order
  11. Methods for Determining a Card Thought of
  12. To Get Sight of Selected Card
  13. The Slide
  14. Favorite Sleights for Terminating Tricks

Card tricks

  1. Card Tricks
  2. The Exclusive Coterie
  3. The Divining Rod
  4. The Invisible Flight
  5. Tricks With the Prearranged Deck
  6. The Traveling Cards
  7. The Row of Ten Cards
  8. The Acrobatic Jacks
  9. A Mind-Reading Trick
  10. Power of Concentrated Thought
  11. The Acme of Control
  12. The Card and Handkerchief
  13. The Top and Bottom Production
  14. The Three Aces
  15. The Card and Hat