Double Cut

(156k)
Description This trick involves perfoming a simple cut on a stack of coins sitting on a table. I find it works best with poker chips or large coins.
Start Place a stack of 15 coins on a table in front of you.
Directions
  1. Pick up the top third of the stack edgewise with the middle and ring fingers.
  2. Pick up the next third of the stack the thumb and the index finger.
  3. Flip the second stack onto the top of the first stack with the thumb.
  4. Drop resulting 10 coins onto the original stack.
  5. Repeat.
Comments If you have three different color coins or poker chips then it also looks better.
Variations

Double Stack Variation A nice variation is to start with two stacks next to each other. 15 red chips on the left and 15 white chips on the right. Now perform the following steps:

  1. Grab the top third of the Red stack with the middle and ring fingers.
  2. Grab the top third of the White stack with the thumb and index finger.
  3. Drop the White third onto the Red stack and the Red third onto the White stack.
  4. Perform a normal Double Cut on the Red stack.
  5. Perform a normal Double Cut on the White stack.
  6. At this point each stack should consist of alternating stacks of five red and white chips.
  7. Reverse the moves to get back to the start.

The following ascii disgram shows the state of each stack for each step (each letter represents 5 chips of that color): 

 1     3     4     5
r w   w r   r r   r w
r w   r w   w w   w r
r w   r w   r w   r w

You can speed up the above trick by using both hands.

There are many other variations possible. You can pick up as many as 5 different stacks of chips with the one hand, you can use three of four initial stacks and move things around in various ways or use both hands at once. For the best effect make sure each cut is performed quickly and smoothly.