How Do You Shuffle Your Decks? Poll

Other - just a shuffle, but I alternate putting a clump over to the front, and under behind the deck. Seems to make it a little more mixed than always shuffling in one direction.
I watched Robert Place do this as he chatted at his Readers Studio table. If it's good enough for him...

Riffling is my baby But I mean, don't others like me use alternating methods of shuffling per shuffle?

Me, I mix the cards up 5-13 times before each draw (depending on the situation), and I mostly riffle but also do a round of Mongean, a round of simple overhand, etc. I also make a few piles sometimes and rearrange things that way.

I mostly riffle (my vote), but I also do overhand and cut into three piles, three times.

Mongean

moon_light said:

The Mongean shuffle sounds interesting, though time consuming. I might try it, though.

Currently, I riffle. Overhand shuffling doesn't give me the amount of randomness I'd like and scrambling just seems inconvenient.

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Yeah, the wikipedia article has some interesting information on randomness. Apparently the overhand is a terrible way to mix the cards if you want them truly mixed. One math site said it takes 2500 overhand shuffles to randomize a 52-card deck.

And, yes, my doing the Mongean is a little slower than the others, but I actually can do it relatively fast now.

I would love to see videos of people rifflling tarot cards, as it seems to be quite popular. I'm wondering what I'm doing wrong. I seem to end up mashing the cards together, and have ended up peeling the front from the back of some cards, or making other kinds of dents and rips.

3ill.yazi said:

Yeah, the wikipedia article has some interesting information on randomness. Apparently the overhand is a terrible way to mix the cards if you want them truly mixed. One math site said it takes 2500 overhand shuffles to randomize a 52-card deck.

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And that's exactly why I riffle. Thanks for adding that bit of info..

Both overhand and riffle, but usually riffle.

I don't riffle the rare stuff, though. It's usually the mass-market decks that I riffle.

Overhand, riffle, overhand, cut, riffle, cut. Combinations of this generally.

Mostly overhand, interspersed with a few rounds of pile shuffling (7 piles) if the deck feels like it needs more randomization.

I riffle regular card decks. Tarot cards are too tall and sometimes too thick for me to riffle and bridge them correctly because I'm something of a klutz, so even if I wasn't worried about damage, I still would have had to learn to overhand them.

I voted overhand, though I also deal into piles sometimes. I used to riffle very gently at the corners, but I find it warps my cards, so I've stopped that.

Still love to riffle and bridge regular playing cards, though.