Module 4 – Part 4: The hardest move in magic?
Benji
The hardest move in magic?
Don’t let that title scare you.
In this section, I’m going to show you the ‘classic’ method of doing the faro. Then I’ll point out a couple of issues I have with it.
Then I’ll show you a method for the faro that’s so easy…your spectators can do it for you!
Also, just for fun, I’ll talk about the ‘anti faro’ and a certain TYPE of anti faro that is reportedly one of the hardest moves in magic.
So there’s the truth. That title needn’t scare you anymore.
Let’s start with the ‘classic’ method for doing the faro:
The typical way to do the faro is to take both halves of the deck, press them against each other and just kinda ‘shimmy’ them together.
Like this:
https://innercircle.jasoncoppage.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/Faro-Shuffle-Video.mov
Ok. I know that that wasn’t helpful in the slightest.
And that’s kinda the issue.
See, everyone has a slightly different way of doing the faro.
I so happened to stumble on my method by accident more than anything else. I used to always have cards with me while listening to podcasts or other non ‘hands-on’ activities. While sitting there, I would be butting the cards against each other and shuffling them. I wasn’t even trying to get a ‘perfect’ faro to begin with. Over time though, I just discovered that I’d built up a ‘knack’ for it.
Again—I appreciate if that leaves you none the wiser as to HOW to do the move.
But the point is—I don’t know if I COULD teach you my method if I wanted to.
And as it happens…I don’t.
Don’t get me wrong. That’s not for selfish reasons. Rather, it’s because I’m 90% sure that my method is in no way the best method out there, and so, if you’re going to learn this move, you might as well learn it the right way.
That said, I’m not just going to leave you in the cold.
Here are a couple of links to detailed tutorials on the faro shuffle:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2TyA0CInQH4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=134LJpwU5lE
(I will also say that I’ve found the most reliable cards for hitting perfect faros are the Richard Turner Gold Seal decks.)
But really, you don’t need to stress if even those videos aren’t useful.
That’s because there are ways to achieve the same thing as a faro without the technical chops.
Which in fact, may even be a BETTER choice (even if you CAN do the faro.)
Why?
I’ve seen it pointed out by other mem deck users that the faro is faro too neat and careful. And for the same reasons I gave when discussing false shuffles and false cuts, we don’t want to be projecting the sense of carefulness/tidiness when working with a mem deck.
The minute we do, we may inadvertently let on that the order of the cards matters to us. Which, as discussed, is the No.1 thing we DON’T want to do.
No—we want to look sloppy and like we don’t care about the cards. If we really didn’t care about the cards, we’d just shuffle them absentmindedly—not with the intense focus and precision that the faro requires. Furthermore, the faro is notoriously difficult to guarantee you ‘hit’ every time.
When I started to think about this for the first time, it led me to a dilemma. While I fully stand by the idea that any implication of ‘order’ is a bad thing…the faro is just so darn useful and powerful that we can’t afford NOT to use it.
So what do we do instead?
One solution is the legendary ‘tabled faro.’ This is where we do a faro shuffle, but it has all the appearances of a regular table shuffle. However, this is crazy hard to do!
(unless you’re Denis Behr.)
Enter the next contender: the anti faro.
The anti faro is, simply put, the idea that by dealing the deck into separate piles, you can perform a ‘reverse out faro’ on the deck.
For example, imagine you’ve just given the deck an out faro shuffle. Refer to the image I shared in the last section. Look at the chart for ‘1st shuffle.’ Now imagine dealing two piles of cards.
Notice how, as you alternate, you end up completely undoing the faro shuffle we just did?
There’s only one caveat:
The order of each packet is reversed (i.e card 1 is on the bottom of the pile, then 2 is on top of it, etc.)
You could reverse this by overhand shuffling the cards and running each card one by one, but the whole thing still suffers from a few problems.
- It takes a while to both deal AND overhand shuffle each card
- It, again, looks far too neat. People are also suspicious of counting procedures and may start to see this as some kind of ‘maths’ trick (need i tell you that that is NOT what we want?)
- It’s not actually a faro…so the charts and diagrams we gave don’t apply as intuitively
If none of the above bother you, a great place to learn more about the anti-faro concept is in either Juan Tamariz’ Mnemonica or Sonata. Marlo also talks about a ‘backward faro’ in Faro Notes, and says he jammed this idea with Martin Gardner, but I don’t think he took it to the same level as Juan.
Here’s a couple of cool facts he expands on in them:
- If you’ve given the deck two out faros, performing the above anti faro procedure twice in a row will undo those shuffles AND won’t reverse the starting order
- We can also perform an ‘antifaro-2’ where we deal four piles of cards and then stack them up (placing the fourth pile on the third, then the combined packet on the second, then the first). However, like with using just a single anti faro, this deal means that at the end the original order of the cards will be inverted—and we’ll need to overhand shuffle run all the cards singly to bring ourselves back to original order.
The anti faro is interesting in theory, but the idea of dealing so many piles so many times fills me with dread.
For me personally, it doesn’t add up to a pretty picture.
Now, there is a chap called Christian Engblom who devised the ‘anti faro’ move that allows you to perform an anti faro in the process of springing the cards from one hand to the other.
However, this move is widely regarded as one of the hardest in magic.
But don’t worry. We still have one more contender, and in my heavily biased opinion, it’s a doozy…
The ‘EZ Faro’
(at least, that’s what I’m calling it so far. I’m open to suggestions on better names.)
I first started thinking about a potential method for something like this after reading Pit Hartling’s ‘The Core.’
Here’s what it looks like:
You split the deck in two and drop the cards to the table, giving them a ‘wash’ (casino-style) before squaring them up. The whole thing looks haphazard and messy, but in reality—you’ve farod the cards.
How does it work?
Here’s the basic overview:
The cards are dropped, alternating, from the bottom of the two packets (simulating a faro, but building the faro on the table). The cards can be scattered as they are dropped as long as each card goes on top of the previous. Once you’ve finished, it looks messy and you can rotate the pile in a washing motion without disturbing the order. When you square up, you’ll have completed the faro.
Now, here’s a more in-depth explanation:
Start with the deck held in your left hand. If you follow this with the number-cards deck, you may find it useful (you’ll be able to verify at the end that you really did faro the cards.)
Break the deck in two, taking the upper half in the right hand. Now rotate your hands palm up, so the faces of the cards are facing you. Place your thumb on the center of the card on the face of the packet.
Now, you should be able to deal cards off singly using your thumb. To do so, push outward with the thumb and turn your palm down. If you now release your thumb, the one outjogged card (the bottom card) should fall to the table.
You’re essentially going to do this, dropping cards one at a time, alternating between packets. To do an Out Faro, start by dropping a card from the left-hand packet first (the original bottom card), and to do an In Faro, start by dropping a card from the right-hand packet first.
As you drop the cards, you can make it FEEL messy by
At this point, you can even ask the spectator to square up the cards. Since you’ve ensured the cards are
It’s the equivalent of faroring the cards, spreading them, and asking the spectator to ‘push them together’. They can’t mess up your stack, but it gives us the justification to come back later and say “you handled the cards.”
NOTE: If you so desire, you could drop the cards in a more neat arrangement more closely resembling an actual faro, which would allow you to spread the cards at the end and actually get the spectator to push them together. Up to you!
NOTE: To see what this looks like in action, refer to the Live Session for this module (this will clear up any lingering doubts over what this is supposed to look like.)
NOTE: When you start using this, I would do it with a ‘tighter’ pile of cards to make sure you don’t make any mistakes. As you get more confident you can increase the size and ‘mess’ factor of the pile.
NOTE: This takes me about 30 seconds to do, plus however long you want to spend on the ‘wash.’
The EZ Faro in the spectators’ hands?
Hand half the deck to one spectator and half the deck to another. Ask them to “shuffle the cards into each other.” There should be some momentary confusion. Before they do anything, say:
“Ah, don’t worry. Here’s how…”
Demonstrate with one of the packets. Hold it face down in your left hand and slide the bottom card off, then toss to the table. Instruct your spectators to do so one after the another.
“This way, both your piles are shuffled together.”
The downside to this is that the end pile may not be so messy, and you’ll need to make sure you give the instructions in such a way that they can’t mess it up.
But it makes for a potent combo.
Alternatively, if doing this for one spectator you could give them one half and keep the other for you. This way you can attempt to ‘messy’ the pile as you drop cards on it, and you can ensure the cards are dealt one after the other.
NOTE: the one weakness I find with this method is that it takes longer than the regular faro. I think the tradeoff is more than worth it though. This one is also more reliable than the regular faro, since if you follow the steps, you’ll be assembling the faro perfectly each time. Which makes it safer when you NEED to get the faro right.
NOTE: If you need any further ‘motivation’ for this shuffle procedure (personally, I think it’s pretty self explanatory as is) you could use this classic line by el Maestro Tamariz:
“This is how they shuffle cards in the casinos in…(insert some faraway casino)”
When you combine this line with the ‘wash’ action you can simulate before squaring the cards, I think it fits quite nicely.
How to get from new deck order to mem deck order:
This will vary based on the exact stack you’re using. Some will be easier than others.
One of the best stacks, for this very reason, is the Mnemonica stack.
It’s my personal go-to (as you may have noticed by now) and a large part of its popularity stems from how easy it is to attain this order from new deck order.
All credit for this procedure goes to Juan Tamariz. My handling differs slightly, but is heavily based on Juan’s.
Here’s a very basic overview of the procedure:
(for more details, check out Mnemonica.)
The cards should start in this ‘Spanish’ order, from the top down:
AS-KS, AH-KH, KD-AD, KC-AC.
Since most American decks don’t come in that order, but this one…
AH-KH, AC-KC, KD-AD, KS-AS
…you’ll need to:
Cut the AC to top. Overhand shuffle run 13 cards, reversing the order of the clubs. Throw the balance of the deck on top.
You’ll be left in this situation:
AH-KH, KD-AD, KS-AS, KC-AC.
Now cut the KS to the top. Overhand shuffle run 13 cards, and throw the balance of the deck beneath, but keep a break between the top 13 cards and the pack. You’ll be left like this:
AS-KS, KC-AC, AH-KH, KD-AD.
Now take the top 13 cards as one packet and place on the table, at the left.
Then take the next 13 cards as one packet and place them on the table, in the middle.
(catch a break under the second 13 cards by riffling up the back of the deck until you see the AC)
Then place the remainder of the cards as one packet on the right.
Now pick up the packet on the right and place it on top of the center packet. Then place the packet from the left on top of the rest.
You’ll be left in this situation:
AS-KS, AH-KH, KD-AD, KC-AC.
All of this just looks like you’re shuffling and cutting the cards, when in reality you’re ready to faro your way into Mnemonica.
Give the deck 4 out faros using either the classic or ‘EZ’ method.
Now overhand shuffle run the top 26 cards singly to reverse their order, and throw the balance of the deck beneath.
Cut the top 18 cards and out faro them into the top of the rest of the cards.
(to do this using the ‘EZ’ method, cut the top 18 cards and hold them in your left hand, then take the next 18 cards in your right hand. Then do the EZ faro and place the resulting pile on top of the deck. To justify leaving some cards on the table, perhaps say: “one last shuffle…okay, a little fewer cards so this doesn’t take so long.”)
Now cut the 9D to the bottom.
Congratulations—you just shuffled your way into Mnemonica!
Now that we’re familiar with different methods for doing the faro shuffle, let’s start looking at the incredible effects it unlocks.
We’ll start with an effect that’s been my ‘bread and butter’ for over 5 years now. In fact, when I first discovered it, it would fool even ME.
I’m going to show you how the faro can make this simple effect incredibly powerful, but first, I need to show you how the regular handling of the effect works.
Let’s get into it…