Who Shuffles?

[VinnyTheFish]

[ QUOTE ]


Three people are involved in the the shuffle/cut/deal process:

Person to the dealers LEFT shuffles the cards. He then passes them over to the person on the dealers RIGHT, who then cuts them onto the cut card. The dealer then picks up the deck and deals the cards.



[/ QUOTE ]

This is exaclty what my favorite local tournament does. We have 2 decks, red & blue. We also have a yellow cut card.

Let's say the 1st hand of the night is being played. The big Blind is shuffling the other deck as the hand is played. The hand ends. Dealer places all unused cards in the muck pile, but keeps the yellow cut card. Big blind passes the shuffled deck to the dealer, who inserts the yellow cards, and finishes the cut (with the yellow card on the bottom). Dealer (old hand) now plasses the ready deck to the new dealer who begins the hand.

As all this is happening, Big Blind is collecting the previously used cards and the process repeats.

I love this simply because the new dealer never shuffles a card nor sees the bottom card. The deck can be lifted off teh table for dealing, since the bottom card is covered.

It also really keeps the game moving.

I play in 4 or 5 differnet home games a month, ironically they all have differnet rules for who shuffles.

My favorite was a tournament where they insisted on using a dealer button without a "set" dealer. There was no need for the button and all it did was confuse people. Is it that hard to conclude that the guy with the deck in his hand is the dealer?

[img]/images/graemlins/confused.gif[/img]

[maryfield48]

[ QUOTE ]
Person to the dealers LEFT shuffles the cards. He then passes them over to the person on the dealers RIGHT, who then cuts them onto the cut card. The dealer then picks up the deck and deals the cards.

[/ QUOTE ]

Ditto in this ex-colony.

[Arsene Lupin III]

[ QUOTE ]
Also, the deck should be shuffled 7 times, stripped at least once. The 7 times thing is important -- I have seen guys shuffle two or three times because everyone is waiting for them, not enough.

warewulf

[/ QUOTE ]

You definitely don't need 7 shuffles. Scramble riffle riffle box riffle cut is all that's necessary if you scramble. Otherwise riffle riffle box riffle box riffle cut works. Unfortunately, most people take waaaaaaaaaaaaay too long to riffle by bridging and lining the cards up slowly. Watch a dealer at a casino and learn!

[warewulf]

I played in a game last weekend and couldn't help but think of this thread -- They have the last dealer shuffle the used deck. When the hand is over the dealer gathers the deck. When the next hand is over, he passes the deck to the left. The guy on the left cuts and passes one more to the left. I thought this was the absolute worst way to shuffle/cut. Every time a new player comes in this has to be explained multiple times every time they are involved. When asking why they do this I got the usual answer -- THAT'S THE WAY WE'VE BEEN DOING IT FOR YEARS. When the guy hosting was knocked out the guy directly across from me suggested -- anyone else want to switch to traditional shuffling -- Dealer shuffles, cut to the right? We all agreed.

Any variance of having the dealer shuffle and cut to the right always causes confussion and too much wasted time explaining.

warewulf

[Lottery Larry]

"Any variance of having the dealer shuffle and cut to the right always causes confussion and too much wasted time explaining."

The "dealer shuffles, passes deck to the left" cuts down on the worry of the dealer manipulating cards, or two side-by-side players working together to cheat.

[Accident]

We give everyone their own deck. Started as a goof but works out really well. After you deal you gather up the cards and shuffle at your leisure. It's gonna be 4 to 6 deals until you have to be ready. Sped things up faster than w/just 2 decks. I have 8 decks of KEM's to use also. Helps.
Accident [img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img]

[LetsRock]

We use a dedicated player/dealer in our games and have 2 decks in play.

HAving 2 decks in play speeds things up a lot. ONe of the non-dealers is shuffling the deck that is out of play, while a hand is in progress. After the hand, the dealer puts a riffle on the deck and cuts them. Besides speeding things up, having 2 decks inplay highly reduces the chances that any one person can influence the setup of the deck since there are always 2 differrent sets of hands on the deck before the deal.

[Drac]

We also use a dedicated dealer. Red deck goes to the person on the right to shuffle, blue to the person on the left. Dealer cuts, deals. Shuffle is spread two to the left/right, three to left/right at times to share the fun.

[jalsing]

I usually do all the dealing/shuffling in our games as I'm most adept at it. Although there is some dead time while I shuffle, I find it gives the "chatty" players the time they need to tell us about their insignificant lives...