DVD Review: Official Poker Chip Tricks Vol 1

Instead of releasing a second volume of his excellent "Chip Tricks" DVD, Rich Ferguson re-releases the first DVD with lots of variations and new tricks. He has effectively taken a great DVD and made it even stronger, and there’s seemingly nothing that Ferguson can’t do with a single poker chip or stack of chips. Whether you want to twirl, stack, toss, shuffle or roll poker chips, Ferguson’s first rate DVD shows you how.

The original Chip Tricks Volume 1 released with some 20 stunts while this re-release offers some 70 stunts that include the 20 from the first DVD. While there are some new flourishes, many are variations on a single flourish.

For example, Ferguson’s “Butterfly,” a poker chip variation on a coin rollout, now comes in multiple variations that include: “Fat Butterfly,” “Butterfly Balance,” “Butterfly Collapse” and more. On the first DVD, Ferguson offered a few variations with some flourishes, but didn’t count them as single “tricks.” They were simply discussed with the main flourish. Despite this, the new DVD is indeed far more comprehensive than the first title.

New to the collection are Ferguson’s “catches,” “spinning” and various “tosses.” Catches are variations on those old coin tricks where you, for example, rest a stack of quarters on your elbow or back of your hand and attempt to quickly reach up and snatch them out of the air. The flashy “spins” and “tosses,” where Ferguson causes chips to fly through the air and then catches them or causes them to return in different ways, are welcome new additions to the flourish collection.

Interestingly, Ferguson adapts some card moves to poker chips. “Dribbling” of chips is just as you would with cards. And some chip tosses are variations on card spinning. Ferguson also offers a “Sybil” style four-way cut (Chris Kenner’s original with cards is a five-way cut) using chips. Since he teaches his four-way cut on another DVD, he doesn’t explain it here but encourages viewers to refer to that DVD.

The DVD features professional production values and throughout, Ferguson does a great job of explaining and teaching each flourish. Some of the flourishes can be adapted to coin work.

Personally, compared to working with coins, I found chips difficult to handle because they lack the milled edges of silver and half-dollars. Even though I regularly perform rollouts and other flourishes with coins, I couldn’t begin to perform them with chips.

If you want to learn some flashy stunts with chips, get Rich Ferguson’s excellent “Chip Tricks Volume 1.” And if you’re into coin flourishes, you may find some interesting variations here that you can adapt.

-Wayne N. Kawamoto

MSRP: $29.99 (It’s on special for $19.99, and sold in a four pack with Ferguson’s other card DVDs for around $40, a steal.)