As people play poker, of course the main use of a chip set is to place their bets during the game itself. But many players also enjoy becoming proficient at another entertaining activity connected to the game, which is doing tricks with the poker chips. You may think this is just a casual by-product of the game, something minor that people do to keep themselves interested during lulls in the play, but doing tricks with chips is becoming a gaming discipline all its own.

These tricks are something like coin tricks done by magicians, except that now and then other poker accessories are used to add dimensions that are particular to poker alone. Many of the tricks even have their own names, such as the “3-Fly,” “Drifter,” or “Grandma’s Shawl,” for example. Some involve twirling a chip around the fingers, the same way magicians make quarters roll over and over around their knuckles. Others are tricks of shuffling and re-shuffling. The “Grandma’s Shawl” uses Chinese-style chips, which involves threading something through the holes in their centers, and then managing to interchange them with chips that don’t have holes.

Not only do these poker chip tricks have their own names and special moves, but people write and illustrate books teaching novices how to do them, and people snap up these volumes as soon as they are published. The books are almost as popular as those that teach people how to play the game of poker itself. And with the advent of the internet and video tools, many trick experts have also created videos in which they can demonstrate the moves as well as teach the techniques. And some designers go so far as to create a special little chip set for particular tricks.

Of course, some of the poker chip sets contain “gaffed” chips, or those that are slightly rigged in order to facilitate doing the tricks. But many tricks can be performed with ordinary chips as well. In fact, some instructors advise people to learn the tricks with the heavier clay poker chip sets, because after becoming proficient with those sorts of chips, they’ll be able to do tricks easily with any other type of lighter chip. So whether a player wants to do tricks with chips from a regular set, or would like to add the occasional gaffed chip set to their repertoire, these tricks are an entertaining extra feature that makes poker that much more fun.

Jeremy Larson is a foremost expert in the acid reflux cure. He has had extensive experience and conducted countless experiments in finding its cure. He is also a highly acclaimed writer in the medical field and you can find out more at remedyforacidreflux.com.

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