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 #50 by john
February 28th, 2006 @ 10:33 AM
started trying this trick about 15 mins ago and am finally getting the hang of it, thanks for the video it really helped
Comment #49 by Jordan
November 4th, 2005 @ 3:57 PM
i am quite a big fan of jammy dodgers so i found this very easy
Comment #48 by John
October 26th, 2005 @ 6:28 PM
That wasn’t so tough.
Comment #47 by joe angrove
October 4th, 2005 @ 4:50 PM
i tried with 13g poker chips and faild but then i used quarters and could do it with in 10min. after that the poker chip were no problem.
Comment #46 by GizsmoX
September 8th, 2005 @ 6:34 PM
Great site. Great trick. I was under the impression that i would never be able to get this down. But as they say….Practice makes Perfect. It took me about a week to get it down. this is how i practiced after analyzing the video clip. First i worked out with two chips faning them out with my middle, index and thumb fingers. then i went to two with my middle, ring and pinky finger. then once i got that down i brough the two steps together. Again Great site. Keep on tricking!
Comment #45 by Colin
September 5th, 2005 @ 12:32 AM
WOAH! What a doozie! I’ll probably be practicing the first couple steps for a few days until I can get that down. Right now, I’m trying to completely master the chip suffle, and trying to learn this one. It may take a while.
Comment #44 by acidblaze
August 25th, 2005 @ 3:54 PM
i, like many can only do it with three. (btw, i think this should be called the ‘westside’ because it looks like the westside sign.) but for those that can’t seperate the 2 bottom chips, the trick is, to really push your middle finger as far down as you can on the last stage, as your ring and middle finger really need to be at opposite ends of the two chips, otherwise you can’t hold them properly then you have strong grip, and cal pull one chip out with the pinky.
Comment #43 by Alex
August 15th, 2005 @ 1:07 PM
NICE SITE!
Comment #42 by hey
August 1st, 2005 @ 11:30 PM
Dude this trick took me about 2 days to learn and i did it with my off left hand as my right wrist was in a cast at the time i had the same prob at first the trick is to get the 2 thumbchips resting on the thumb and index so that your index can hold the other two chips along with your pinky ring and middle. you then have 4 fingers holding it. push the two chips in between your ring and pinky better with your index
Comment #41 by Russell
July 3rd, 2005 @ 9:41 PM
The problem Im having is dropping the 2 chips between the ring and pinky without them tipping or just faling. And when I bring the middle finger back to grab the 2 chips, its hard to grab the chip between the ring and pinky.