If you’ve watched poker on television, you may have noticed that many players do more with their chips than just bet with them. Poker players have learned a variety of poker chip tricks to keep their hands busy during long texas hold em tournaments.

You can learn these tricks too! Here are two of the more basic, famous chip tricks.

Chip Trick 1: The Shuffle
The shuffle is one of the most common, popular and easy tricks to do. If you don’t get it the first time, don’t be discouraged. It takes a little practice, but once you get the hang of it, you’ll probably be able to shuffle decent-sized stacks of chips without even thinking about it.

Take two stacks of chips and put them next to each other. Make sure you have the same number of chips in each stack. You’ll want to start small, with three chips in each stack, and work your way up as you get comfortable. Using your right hand, place your thumb on the lower left corner of the left stack and your index finger on the upper left corner. Put your pinky and ring finger in the corresponding spots on the right stack. Your middle finger goes in the indent created at the top of where the two stacks join.

Use your middle finger to push up slowly and gently on the two stacks. As you lift the stacks, use your other fingers to push the stacks towards each other. Once you have the leverage to start pushing the stacks, ease up on the middle finger so that the two stacks have the freedom to join together. With some practice, you will be able to merge the two stacks into one, alternating chips from each stack.

Chip Trick 2: The Roll
The chip roll is a fun trick to watch where the player moves one chip along the back of his hand, almost magically. What’s nice about this trick is that you can do it slowly to learn. It will work, but it is not that impressive. Once you get the hang of it though, you can do it repeatedly and quickly and the effect can be quite amazing. It will serve you well in WSOP 2008.

Hold the chip flat against the side of your index finger with your thumb. Use your thumb to push the chip onto the top of the index finger, then bring the middle finger up over the edge of the chip and use the middle finger to pull the chip down. The chip will stand up straight and then flip onto the top of the middle finger. Repeat this process with the ring finger and pinky.

Now comes the tricky part, which is keeping the trick in motion. You can do this by pushing back with the pinky and sending the chip in the opposite direction back towards the thumb. Or if you want to get really fancy, you can let the chip drop through the gap between your ring finger and pinky onto your thumb and use your thumb to bring the chip back to the start to begin again. When done quickly and correctly, the chip will appear to be dancing over the back of your hand.

A chip trick or two is a great ploy to bring to your next home poker game!