If you watch him carefully you will see that he never does a true shuffle of the cards. Each shuffle is a false shuffle. He riffles the cards and then pushes them through each other so that they end up in two piles that he then puts back together in the same order that they started in.

The 6 of spades is slightly bent on one corner. That is his key card which he keeps on the bottom of the deck to let him know that the cards are in the original order.

Whenever he cuts the cards he also does a false cut. He cuts them and leaves the piles slightly offset so that on the next cut he can grab the same pile he just cut off the top, put on the bottom and put it back on the top again.

When he gives the cards to Ellen to cut he gives them to her with the cards slightly off set and with the 6 of spades pushing the bottom half of the deck up off the top half that he cut and put on the bottom, keeping the bottom half slightly elevated when it is on the top. Ellen or anyone else for that matter when rushed to cut the deck quickly will automatically grab the bottom half off the top because there is a slight gap between the two halves because of the 6 of spades. He then takes the other half and puts it back on top restoring the original order of the cards.

If Ellen does not cut them exactly where he wants, he knows it because he can feel the gap. He then cuts them again putting them back into the original order.

Of course the cards start out in the order he wants them in originally. All the false shuffling and false cutting is only an illusion to make you think he is doing something magical. If you watch him carefully as he shuffles and cuts the deck he is always checking the bottom card to be sure it is the 6 of spades. Watch as he tilts the bottom of the deck up so that he can see the bottom card and you should see the 6 of spades from time to time. Then at the very end of the trick when he deals out the straight flush of 2 thru 6 of spades take a good look at the 6 of spades and you will see that one corner is slightly bent.

Damn … and I thought it was magic 😀