With sooo many people saying they can't hold/shuffle big decks, yet big publishers keep on producing these 'decks for giants', I thought I'd do a bit of market research to find out how big the average hands are. What is the biggest deck you can shuffle, holding lengthways?
When I first saw this poll, I thought you were measuring the palms of the hands.
I didn't have a way to measure my most go to deck, till today, which I still have issues with shuffling. My main "Go To" deck is the Robin Wood, which measures 12.5cm or 4.5 inches lengthwise.
Now, I cannot shuffle it the riffling style like I do playing cards. I shuffle where I hold them upright, length wise, and then grab a few and shuffle them into the remainder of the cards left behind, generally. Every now and again, I do try to riffle shuffle them, but I have problems with all the decks save playing card size, doing this.
Lately, I'm having issues with the playing card size too--but its because I have an issue with my left thumb and wrist.
Anyways, when I am shuffling the cards--its generally playing card size. But, this also depends on how many cards are in the deck, (w/tarot, its 78, yes) and the stock of the cards. Also if they are well broken in and so very limber--it helps. Hey, I have a hard time shuffling brand new playing cards!
But, every now and again, I can shuffle even the RW deck - all 78 cards. I just cannot do it right now and I rarely am able to do this repeatedly all the time.
I went ahead and measured my hand from the where the wrist and the palm meet and to the tip of my middle finger and it measures 15cm or 6 inches exactly. The palm is 3". Not sure where in the scale this is with others who have small hands, but I definitely have small and wide hands.
edited to add, I selected the first one.
