Butterfly
The butterfly is probably the coolest looking poker chip trick there is. It’s the most difficult too! Evelyn Ng performed this trick on a segment of “The Nuts” during the 2004 World Series of Poker. Antonio Esfandiari does a variation of this trick, but it’s quite a bit different.
Before you begin
Trick Difficulty - 3
Chips needed - 4
Tutorial
Hold all four chips between the index and ring fingers (perpendicular to the fingers), with the middle finger bracing the back of the chips. The grip is exactly the same as when you start the thumb flip. The chips should be about 1/2 an inch to an inch from your finger tips.
Begin by loosening the two chips closest to the palm with your thumb. As you lift these two chips and roll them onto your index finger, you also drop your ring finger, pulling the other two chips away with it. Start moving the pinky up towards the index finger.
As you pull the ring finger out, the pinky will soon be high enough to come in contact with the chips held by the ring and index fingers. Use the index and middle fingers to help move these two chips into a postion held by the ring and pinky fingers.
Make sure the grip with these two fingers is very strong, since the pinky is the weakest finger of the hand.
When the ring and pinky fingers have a firm grip on the two chips, release the index finger, which should be left holding two chips with the thumb. At this point you should have two chips held by the index finger and thumb and two chips held by the ring and pinky fingers.
Bend the middle finger in towards the palm of your hand. Once it passes the chips, move the two sets of chips together. As them come together, position the middle finger so that it can touch both sets of chips. Place pressure on the chips with your middle finger.
Use your thumb to pull the inner most top chip away from the middle finger. Use the pinky to pull the outer most bottom chip away from the middle finger. As you pull the thumb up and the pinky down, the middle finger moves back out away from the palm, rolling a chip along the index finger and another along the ring finger. At this point you should have a chip in each of the four gaps between the fingers.
Fanning out the chips is extremely difficult and will take a lot of practice.
Comment #57 by Mazzullo
June 14th, 2006 @ 10:01 PM
I always have trouble keeping the chips between my ring finger and pinky when I put the middle finger down…
Comment #56 by darns
June 8th, 2006 @ 7:32 AM
this is so hard… i’ve been tryna get it done but i just cant.
Comment #55 by Mark
May 16th, 2006 @ 9:08 PM
I am only 15, and my fingers don’t seem big enough to do this trick, as much as I want to learn it.
Comment #54 by jordan
May 10th, 2006 @ 3:44 PM
i cant get the 2 chips between the the ring and pinky finger to fan out how do i do that
Comment #53 by Timmey
May 3rd, 2006 @ 8:29 AM
Ah btw i use 14g chips. Just gives more grip somehow, unless i have big hands anyway the weight is not a problem
Comment #52 by Timmey
May 3rd, 2006 @ 8:26 AM
Well, in my opinion fanning out the chips is not the hard part. For me the hardest part is to place the 2 pairs of chips correctly under the middle finger .. I can do this trick, but still pretty slow, like 10 - 15 seconds for me. Keep the site updated
Comment #51 by Freedjoseph Eussebi0
April 28th, 2006 @ 9:22 PM
only one thing i can say, easy. i can do this trick with both hands behing my back, my eyes closed, blindfolded, with both shoes untied, without wearing any shoes, jumping ogg a cliff reading a book backwards, while brushing my teeth without any toothbrush or toothpaste, landing in the lake,making no splash, fighting 4 land sharks, in the middle of the dessert,swimming back home…..i could do it
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