Basics: Shuffling and pulling a card

[Jewel13]

I did a bit of search, but didn't find anything. I have a basics basics question and that is pulling a card.Over the last year, I do various spreads for myself and currently following a cycle of the moon daily pull. I haven't really had any direction on the basics of card pulling. I start with tapping my card on the table and then shuffle for awhile. I then hold the question and cut my deck. For a long time I pulled a card by setting the stack on the ground and holding my forefinger and thumb and slowly pull up. This started to feel wrong and I was landing at the same spot every single time. Overall, this started to feel wrong and uncomfortable. HOwever, I am not sure the best way to pull a card. There are tons of videos on youtube, but none particularly consistent or feel right. Not sure why this is all of sudden a "thing" for me, but it is. Curious to how others shuffle and pull their card.

[JudyK]

I don't know. The mechanics of what you're doing don't sound that different to what I do. I (sometimes) tap, I shuffle, and then with the deck still in my hands I use my thumb to slide some of the deck over until I get to the spot where I want to cut the deck, or rather, where the deck wants to be cut. That becomes the top of the deck and I draw my cards from there.

If you've shuffled the deck, it shouldn't really matter if you somehow manage to cut the deck in exactly the same spot each time. But there are other options. You could fan the deck and select cards individually. Or cut the deck three times and pick one of the piles. A variation on that is to turn the top card of each pile and pick the one that best aligns with the question being asked. You could shuffle and then count through the deck, pulling the 5th, 9th or 13th cards (popular numbers for this sort of thing) until you have all you need.

[Charlie Brown]

It's very individual but it doesn't sound like there's anything wrong with how you're doing it. For me, shuffling is an important part of the process because it's an opportunity to slow my mind down and get into the proper headspace to deliver a good reading. The important thing is just to make sure that your deck is well shuffled no matter how you go about it. I always laugh to myself because I see—time and time again—new readers who are ASTOUNDED that they pulled 4, 5, and 6 of wands in a row. They never want to believe that they haven't shuffled their decks well.

[Jewel13]

Yeah, maybe I am having an off week and overthinking it.

[Rachelcat]

I'm always very concerned that I've shuffled enough and correctly randomized. (I'm a little obsessive about things . . .)

I read somewhere that 7 riffle shuffles completely randomize a 52 card deck. But I can never find it again. Is that just an urban myth, or is there some kind of statistical fact to back this up?

And so as not to hijack the thread completely, I usually cut in 3, once to the left, once to the right, and then pick up the middle pile, then the left, then the right. But if I'm only dealing 1 card, I just cut once.

Just something I started doing. Don't know why . . .

[Rachelcat]

I found a YouTube video with the math. I didn't watch it all, but it says it takes to completely randomize a 52 card deck:

Riffle shuffle: 7 times
Overhand shuffle: 10,000 times!
Wash (swirling them around on the table and then gathering them up): 1 minute

The rest was too math-y for me!

[JudyK]

... to completely randomize a 52 card deck...

I suppose I look at it as, my objective is not to completely randomize the deck, but to give the cards the opportunity to get themselves in the right order.