How to play cards

Do you play cards? Some do and some don't, of course, but I bet that, card player or not, all of you are familiar with those little cards that have right-side-up and upside-down pictures of kings, queens, jacks, aces, the numbers two to 10 and wild cards or jokers. There are 52 in a deck, not counting the wild cards. Countless games have been invented for these cards: a game for one (patience) up to, say, six (canasta). There may well be games for more than six, I don't know.

Anyway, before or after you have completed a game or a round, the cards have to go through a process called shuffling, when they are thoroughly mixed, face down -- players don't see the pictures of the cards. Then follows a new round or game. It may happen that a player or two isn't satisfied with the way the cards have been shuffled, and demand a reshuffle, so the cards are mixed again.

Now, as with practically any human activity, card games also have their experts or professionals. People who have been making a living out of card games for say 10, 20, or 30 years. It goes without saying that over the years, they've mastered quite a few tricks, and a lot of those occur during the mixing of the cards (shuffling or reshuffling).

There are players who are so adept at this that they can deal themselves any hand they want. You see the shuffler going through the motions, in the meantime keeping up a light conversation or whatever to keep attention diverted from the things his hands and fingers are doing, and before you know it you've lost yet another game.

But I have been told that shufflers, (actually, cheating shufflers) can do it only with a deck of cards that they are familiar with, cards that they've already used countless times before. Give them a brand new deck of cards and they fall apart.

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