Bottom dealing or "base dealing" is a sleight of hand technique in which the bottom card from a deck of playing cards is dealt instead of the top card. It is used in card illusions, and as a method of card sharp.
The deck is typically held in a modified mechanic's grip in the dealer's non-dominant hand. The dealer slides the top card partially off the deck as if to deal it, while the dominant hand instead takes hold of the bottom card. The card is snapped away from the deck while the top card is reset.
Unless the dealer is particularly skilled at bottom dealing, the technique produces a slightly different sound from standard dealing, and the second-to-bottom card may be drawn slightly out of place. This is called a "hanger."
Bottom dealing and second dealing both have application in performance magic.
Bottom dealing experts include Persi Diaconis, Darwin Ortiz, Steve Forte, Jason England and Richard Turner.
Famous quotes containing the words bottom and/or dealing:
“What a man is ashamed of is always at bottom himself; and he is ashamed of himself at bottom always for being afraid.”
—R.G. (Robin George)
“Mediocre people have an answer for everything and are astonished at nothing. They always want to have the air of knowing better than you what you are going to tell them; when, in their turn, they begin to speak, they repeat to you with the greatest confidence, as if dealing with their own property, the things that they have heard you say yourself at some other place.... A capable and superior look is the natural accompaniment of this type of character.”
—Eugène Delacroix (1798–1863)