Do these sleeves come with any free slee...wait, I think I said that before...

It wasn't funny then either.

I hope this is staying up in error, but if it isn't, at least I'm not tempted to spend money I shouldn't ;).

[3] 48 hours :(

It's a trade off for me I prefer the feel of unsleeved cards, but the thought of spending $35-$50 to replace an entire set of "Battlestar Galactica" is more unsavory than spending a few bucks on these sleeves.

Buying the sleeves now ends up killing the discount margins on the "games with sleeves" deals later, though.

I would buy tons of sleeves if someone could convince me that shuffling is not a problem. We shuffle the traditional way, which is a lot of wear and tear on the cards, of course, but it is also the best shuffle, provided you spice it up with a couple cuts here and there. I just don't see shuffling with these being an enjoyable experience, with an open top and all...

How does one shuffle cards with sleeves? I know it makes me sound like an idiot, but some links to shuffling videos might be helpful. I just don't think that I could get away without shuffling the normal way....

[6] You just split the deck and push them together edge on. It helps if you are pushing the corners of the one deck into the middles of the other deck. It ends up being much faster than riffle shuffling for me. Basically you shuffle the way you see people do it that can't riffle shuffle.

Which method is best is subjective. There are equations meant to figure out how many shuffles are needed for a random deck. So which ever method gets and individual to random the fastest is probably the best for that person. With sleeved cards I can go through 10 shuffles while I wait for my wife to finish her turn of Dominion. I'd be lucky if I got 5 in doing a riffle.

[7] Thanks for the note... I guess that way of shuffling just doesn't occur to me because without sleeves it drives me nuts.... it seems to increase the wear and tear. What I will do is get some playing card size sleeves to test out the shuffling... just to see if it fits me personally or not...

THanks though!

I'm in the process of switching over to sleeves for all my games for one reason; Every time a new expansion comes out for a game that I play, the cards seem to be different sizes/shapes/thicknesses, and it gets more and more awkward to shuffle them traditionally...

It also depends on the sleeves. I have a huge lot of "regular" (i.e. thin) ultra-pro sleeves which I started putting on cards...and although I can shuffle them, they started to annoy me on a lot of games. (Though they work fine on games like Last Night on Earth where the cards are big and thick).

And the Mayday premium sleeves and my Yu-Gi-Oh sleeves are nice and thick and easy to shuffle. I tend to move towards those now...but only for certain games.

is the 48 hours up yet???

[6] I understand your concern, and I do have an answer.

I apologize in advance: this is going to get very geeky.

My favorite way to shuffle unsleeved cards is the traditional "riffle shuffle" with a cascade finish. I can't do that with sleeved cards, because my thumbs "catch" on the sleeve openings. I can perform a riffle shuffle on the bottoms of the cards without a problem, but I won't always have the bottom of the sleeves under my thumbs. Even if a deck starts out "faced" (all the cards in the same orientation), when I split the deck into halves for the shuffle, one of my thumbs will be at the top of the cards for one half of the deck, and my other thumb on the bottom of the cards for the other half -- assuming I'm trying to keep the cards "faced" the same way after the shuffle. With me so far?

If not, face all of the cards in a deck in the same direction, and then try to shuffle them so that they stay facing the same direction afterwards. You'll figure it out.

Now, it's possible to rotate the half of the deck where my thumbs are at the top of the cards so that my thumbs are now at the bottoms. I can now perform a riffle shuffle with ease...exactly once. Now the cards are going to be interleaved, with their openings at different ends. Not good for the second shuffle.

The answer I have discovered lies in the rotation: riffle shuffling with a cascade finish (or else pushing the halves together) happens on the same line: most people shuffle the cards short end to short end. If you shuffle at an angle - say at roughly ninety degrees -- then instead of "pushing" the halves together after the shuffle, you can rotate them to the same orientation. Now I can shuffle corners on top of each other, thumbs at the bottoms of the cards, and then rotate the halves together to keep the cards "faced." That makes it easy and quick to perform multiple shuffles with sleeved cards.

Shipping kills it... can get up to 5 packs cheaper direct from mayday.

Now if you really need 6+ packs, well... I guess you get them here, but there aren't that many games that use them.

[13] Five packs at $1.10 per pack + $4.99 shipping = $10.49 from Tanga.

To purchase 5 packs of these sleeves direct from Mayday at $1.75 per pack = $8.75. That's cheaper, sure. But then you have to pay for shipping, which depends on where you live. To have those five packs shipped to me in California costs $2.42, which means my total to order those packs from Mayday is $11.17.

You can get discounts on shipping, and even per-pack price if you buy more than 25 packs' worth of sleeves, but then we're talking about a different level of transaction!

I guess your "break even" amount may change depending on the shipping costs. When these sleeves were being offered for their "first chance," they were $0.99 per pack, for STU's. That was a heckuva deal. This might still be one, if there are particular games you have in mind.

[7] I'm going to have to try your way of shuffling; is that like a "weave?" Overhand shuffling seems to be the only practical way to shuffle at the beginning of a game of "Dominion."

As to the stats, a bridge expert once told me that three riffle shuffles were sufficient to ensure randomness, provided you drew half of the cards from the center of the deck (leaving the quarter of the deck on top, and the quarter of the deck on bottom to form the second half). Splitting the deck in that fashion takes a little getting used to, but it seems to work.

I also remember seeing a video of John Scarne (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Scarne) where he said this type of a cut -- when the top quarter is placed on bottom, the bottom quarter in the middle, and the middle half placed on top -- could foil any attempts to manipulate the deck.

"the top quarter is placed on bottom, the bottom quarter in the middle, and the middle half placed on top"

Isn't that the same as just putting the top quarter on the bottom?