Right Rhythm

Tempo is one of the most critical aspects of sleight-of-hand. A great magician can slow his actions, even the secret ones, so that if the audience is staring right at his hands, they will not feel suspicious moves. But this tempo is not independent of a context. In a magic performance, the audience expects the magician to fool them, so the slower, the better.

At the card table, the other players don’t know one of them is a shark. So there is a correct rhythm to shuffle the cards if you do something sneaky. This way, it will feel as casual as it should in the context of a card game. And I don’t think anyone mastered this rhythm better than Steve Forte.

The following video published by the Los Angeles Times, is a small example of what is possible to do at the card table with the right rhythm. A choreography of hands, a ballet of sorts, allows deception to gain invisibility where it is most needed.