[SamIAm]

Quoted without permission. (However, I'm plugging their book for them pretty hard, so I hope the authors won't mind. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img])

[ QUOTE ]

Mechanical Skill No.3: Shuffle. ...
A. Hold the bottom half of the deck with the thumb and middle finger of your left hasd. Grasp the tp half of the deck with the humb and middle finger of your right hand. Keeping a firm hold on the cards, take off the top half of the deck, set it on the table to the right of the lower half, and slide it to the left until the ends are together. Do this by feel, not by sight. There is no need to place them precisely or to have a "V" between the halves. Just put the ends flush together.

B. Place your hands over the cards, but keep them relaxed. The weight of your arms should be on the heels of your hands. Put the soft part of your thumbs against each half of the deck and your index fingers above the deck but not touching the cards. The rest of your fingers go behind the deck to keep it from sliding away, your finger tips should be on the table rather than gripping the deck. In one motion, tilt the deck up using your thumbs only, slid the halves of the deck inward, and continue the upward thumb motion to release the cards through the thumbs with no pressure on the cards. The shuffle should be nearly silent since you are not bending the cards. Think of it as allowing the cards to shuffle; you are only guiding them.
...

[/ QUOTE ]There's a bit before "A" and there's a "C" and a "D". This is the interesting part, though, and I didn't want to quote the WHOLE book.

Does ANYBODY shuffle this way? I shuffle longedge-on-longedge, but i still lift the cards and let them fall in a riffle. I'm not bending the cards too much, but I'm certainly not pushing from BELOW and letting them riffle themselves. (I guess the lifting is to be avoided, lest you flash a card.)

Any pointers?
-Sam