As loathe as I am to ressurect the question of whether the strike v. the pushoff is a superior technique for bottom dealing, I have to say, as a practitioner of the straddle grip, I've been pleasantly surprised by the results with the "ivory" finish on the conjuring arts research center decks. I've always felt that anybody who was worried about the deck talking when dealt from straddle grip had both 1.) failed to recognize that a simple adjustment to the grip eliminates 75% of the noise and 2.) were just generally overly picky. That said, it seems like because the ivory finish is flat rather than embossed to allow air pockets to form in between the cards, even if you do the straddle grip wrong the tell-tale noise of the strike bottom deal from a straddle grip is almost eliminated with these cards. V. cool.

It was never the "noise" that bothered me about the straddle grip. As you say, the deck can be adjusted to eliminate this. The only problem I have with the grip is that: it just doesn't suit *MY* hands! Looks awesome with some people though... jjsanvert is a good example. Cool point about the Ivory Finish though. I wish we had a better selection of playing cards over here in NZ. Standard Bicycles are a luxury, believe it or not!!!

Zac

I recall the straddle grip bottom deal was in print in the Dai Vernon Book of magic, by Dr. James Elliott. Is it in print anywhere else?

S

I think you need to hold it like jj.... jj holds the deck like he's holding a thousand year old deck about to crumble... very soft touch..

I adapted mine from Richard Turner's strike bottom demoed on The Cheat and the discussion of various bottom deal points on Revelations vol. 11 &12. I also think Simon Lovell teaches it on his "toolbox" series of videos, but I haven't watched those in a really long time and don't own them so don't quote me on that.

Yeah... I don't know, I hold it gently and to my eyes it still looks a bit odd. In my hands that is. I don't want to drag up the "which grip looks most natural" thread. It's been done so many times before. I was just making a casual aside in regards to jfquakenbush's original post . I will say that the word "grip" is a horrible misnomer though... Pretty sure AMcD made that point a while back and it deserves reiterating.