The Case of the Missing 40,000 Jerry Nugget Decks: A Detective Story NB:
I first published this article (with pictures) at PlayingCardDecks here. Jerry's Nugget Playing Cards. The story of the original Jerry's Nugget decks is a fascinating one, and there are many interesting side-stories to explore about along the way. You can read the main story about the Jerry's Nugget decks in my previous article here:
The Legendary Jerry's Nugget Playing Cards.
But the full truth still remains somewhat hidden, and there are aspects about the Jerry's Nugget story that even today we can't totally be sure about. And with the passage of time, several juicy tidbits of lore have become attached to this famous deck.
In this article I invite you to join me in a quest to explore another juicy story that has become part of the Jerry's Nugget legend.
Is it true that the final stock of 40,000 Jerry's Nugget decks was bought up from the casino by a mysterious overseas buyer? Because this is an oft-repeated part of the story, that you'll hear whispered rumours about across the landscape of the internet. But this a statement of fact or fiction, and is it truth or myth? It could mean that right now someone is potentially sitting on a small fortune of Jerry's Nugget decks worth around $500 a piece. If it's true.
So please put on your Sherlock Holmes trench-coat and deerstalker hat, arm yourself with a good amount of deductive logic and persistence, and join me as we see if we can really get to the bottom of this mystery, and dredge up the truth behind this famed haul of 40,000 decks!
A Secret Stash of 40,000 Decks?
If you are curious - like I am - and do some digging about the story and history of the Jerry's Nugget decks, it won't take you long to stumble across mention of the claim that a stash of the final 40,000 decks of Jerry's Nuggets was bought up in a single swoop, cleaning out the casino's remaining inventory of these prized decks.
The story about some lucky buyer nabbing a final stash of 40,000 decks is circulated quite widely around the internet. Do a Google search for "40,000 Jerry's Nugget" and look at how many hits this gets! Some places that sell the decks even include this in their ad copy. For example, here's the ad copy over at one
online retailer, which was selling authentic decks for $525 before they sold out:
Another online
retailer says the same. Many reviewers have parroted this information as well, such as
this example. So do various sites dedicated to information about playing cards, such as
this example.
As far as many people are concerned, this information is more along the lines of "fact" than fiction, and it's become part of the story that everyone accepts. Little wonder that it is often repeated by collectors in discussion forums about playing cards, and that it has given more than just one person a tinge of envy.
Who is the mysterious buyer?
So who is the lucky guy with 40,000 decks of precious Jerry's Nugget decks hidden in his basement or garage? And is the story even true?
Some of the sources for this story seem quite credible. And they also reveal the buyer's name: French magician Dominique Duvivier.
One person quotes Jordan Lapping, apparently among the first cardists to get Jerry's Nugget decks and use them for flourishing.
Dominique Duvivier is a French magician who performs and works with his daughter Alexandra, and together they have a high profile in the world of French magic. They are even well known in the circles of international magic, and were featured on the cover of the
June 2013 issue of
Genii Magazine.
Norwegian magician Allan Hagen has a long-time interest in the Jerry's Nugget decks, and he also mentions Duvivier's purchase of 40,000 Jerry's Nugget decks as apparent fact in
something he posted on Reddit in 2015, where he describes his perspective on their rarity and value.
You'll read similar reports in
an article published by Ukrainian cardists Alexander and Nikolay about Jerry's Nugget decks in June 2017. Two things are common to all these accounts: the number 40,000 for the haul of decks purchased by the mysterious overseas buyer. And now his name: Dominique Duvivier.
I contacted a number of different sources, including people who had personal connections with some of the key players who were closely involved when Jerry's Nuggets decks first became a fad among magicians and cardists in the late 1990s. One source told me: "
Interesting, the name of the European magician - it was a big secret back then. Someone actually told me his name back then, but it was on the proviso that I never publish it. Well, I see it's out of the bag now."
Was Dominique Duvivier the buyer?
But is there any evidence that Dominique Duvivier was really the mystery buyer whose name had been a carefully kept secret for some time at least? It was time for some more detective work. Google brought me to Duvivier's
personal website.
It didn't take long to discover that Duvivier does indeed have a real fondness for Jerry's Nuggets Playing Cards. They are everywhere - in his photos, his videos, and his
instagram.
Judging by the many French-language comments on his site, it also becomes apparent that Duvivier is highly respected and appreciated in his home country for his magic. It's also evident from reading some of the comments that his Jerry's Nuggets decks are a signature of his performance. Some even consider them to be the equivalent of a Stradivarius that Duvivier uses to perform with as a master magician.
But it was when I checked Duvivier's
youtube channel that I found some real gold: Dominique himself performing with Jerry's Nugget cards
in this clip. In fact, if you check out his other videos there, you'll find quite a few where he performs magic with Jerry's Nugget playing cards, like
this performance from 2014, this more recent
ace cutting routine, and this
false shuffle. Duvivier has even contributed a Jerry's Nugget themed trick to the magic industry, entitled
Jerry's Nuggets Cards in Bag.
You can watch the promo video for this trick in
French or
English. His daughter Alexandra Duvivier successfully used it to fool Penn and Teller on their show Fool Us. Here's the
episode, and some
unseen footage.
But just because Dominique Duvivier happens to really, really like Jerry's Nugget playing cards doesn't prove that he bought out a massive stash of the last 40,000 decks from the casino. So this still begs this question: Did any of this even happen? And is there really someone on this planet with a hoard of 40,000 decks, whether it is Dominique Duvivier or anybody else?
One of my favourite photos on Duvivier's site is this one
here, with his haul. If that's any indication, surely the legendary haul was starting to seem somewhat plausible. It was time to ask around, and check in with some of the people who were around when the Jerry's Nugget decks first became the rage.
Of the sources I consulted, few could be considered more reliable than Lee Asher. For many people Lee is synonymous with the Jerry's Nugget phenomenon. He also had close connections with the events of the time, and was instrumental in bringing the Jerry's Nuggets into the limelight in the first place, by singing their paises. He was kind enough to respond when I contacted him for comment about Duvivier's alleged haul of 40,000 Jerry's Nugget decks, and Lee bluntly told me the following:
"
This is misinformation. There weren't 40k decks left in 1999. We don't even know if Jerry's even printed 40k decks."
Really? Apparently Lee Asher knew Duvivier personally, and he was the very person who first told Duvivier that the casino even had the cards for sale. He also visited his home and shop in Paris many times throughout this period of time. In Lee's words:
"
Without a doubt, I NEVER saw 40k of ANY deck there. That's basically nine pallets worth. The house, their magic shop and night club weren't big enough to house these decks. It also seems Duvivier isn't the last one to buy the remaining decks. Jerry's Nugget Casino believes they sold the last case of cards to someone in Japan in 1999."
Well, it seems that the story had to be put to rest. Was this entire story perhaps just a magnificent urban legend after all? And if it was, where does the number of 40,000 decks come from, and how did this story get so much traction that it spread all around the internet, and is accepted unquestionably by so many people? My task had just become a bit harder, but I wasn't going to give up yet. It was time to try to track down where the many websites that quoted this story got the figure of 40,000 from in the first place.
Where does the figure of 40,000 come from?
With some more digging, the oldest article I could find on the subject was by a card collector who has a collection of fine articles on his site,
White Knuckle Cards. This particular article dates back to 2009, and is one of the earliest references to the legendary stash of 40,000 decks that I could find.
This particular article seems to be the first time the figure of 40,000 pops up, pre-dating all the more recent mentions of it. And it's not hard to figure out how it spread from there. On 6 August 2015, someone called "Doctor Papa Jones" added these details to Wikipedia's article on Jerry's Nuggets, evidently relying on the White Knuckle Cards article. As a result the Wikipedia article now
read as follows: "In 2000, a private collector purchased the remaining stock of 40,000 decks".
So now this "fact" is on Wikipedia and has some real "credibility". In fact, the number 40,000 stays up on Wikipedia for the next five years unchallenged! And that allows it to spread around the internet and go wild. Because where does everyone go when they're looking for reliable, authoritative, and trustworthy information about something? Wikipedia!
Despite the mention of the magical stash of 40,000 decks, Duvivier's name remained out of the spotlight for a further four years. It was simply a mysterious "private collector" who had purchased the big haul. But in 2019, someone connected the dots to Duvivier, and so the Wikipedia article was
changed to include his name.
So how did that happen? Well the supporting reference that Doctor Papa Jones included in his 2015 edit was a link to an article by Dan and Dave Buck, dating back to 7 Dec 2011. This article is also no longer available, but can be tracked down with the help of the Internet Archive
here. It doesn't give the figure of 40,000 but does drop Duvivier's name.
So the evidence seems to suggest this development: Apparently relying on the White Knuckle Cards article from 2009 as a source, the number 40,000 first embedded itself in the WIkipedia article on Jerry's Nugget Playing Cards in 2015. Slowly the story grew, until somebody finally connected the dots that were hidden in plain sight elsewhere on the internet, and as a result Duvivier's name gets added four years later. Now things are set up for a great story: Mr Duvivier is sitting on a massive stash of 40,000 Jerry's Nuggets in France.
The story gained even more traction as a result of the revived interest in Jerry's Nuggets that inevitably happened when a tribute deck was printed in 2019. It was inevitable that many would rely on Wikipedia as a source, and so the details even ended up being quoted in ad copy for the reprinted decks. What had previously just been a matter of quiet rumour or speculation, was now considered as fact. Oh, the joy of Wikipedia - it has certainly helped promote quite the legend here!
And it doesn't take a genius to see that if this is true, Duvivier could be sitting on a small fortune. At $500 each, 14,000 decks would be worth around $700,000. Naturally a market flooded with them would drop their value. But even if the going price dropped to $100 a piece, that would still value his holdings at over $100,000. Even if he just sold the occasional decks at $500 a pop, this windfall could generate a nice little secondary income. That is, if the legend is true, a fact yet to be proven....
Revising the figure
Because this year, the Wikipedia article was
changed. By now of course the (mis)information about Duvivier's haul had gone far and wide, and a lot of potential damage has already been done. But on 25 March 2020 someone called "TheCongressGuy" changed it to read that Duvivier "purchased the remaining stock of 1,500-2000 decks".
Suddenly the number of Duvivier's legendary purchase had been reduced from 40,000 to something around 5% of the size. A figure of 1,500-2000 seems much more likely. So who made the change and what was their source?
I did some more digging and managed to track down TheCongressGuy. He is Kevan Seaney, who describes himself as an "
antique playing cards collector, specializing in the Congress 606 brand" and posts
here. In February 2020 he wrote
here that he'd learned that Duvivier had not purchased 40,000 decks. I was curious, and eventually found the following video that he posted about this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P2pctAEuiZA And who was his source that Kevan credits for correcting the previous (mis)information about the number 40,000? If you watch that video, you'll find out that it is none other than the great Lee Asher. Lee Asher isn't just "anyone". He's a playing card expert, and the current president of 52 Plus Joker The American Playing Card Collectors Club. He's the guy who first generated public interest in Jerry's Nugget decks, brought them to the attention of cardists like the Buck twins and Chris Kenner, and was later a purveyor of these icon decks via his website. He's also had personal connections with Duvivier, was the person who informed Duvivier that they were available from the casino, and has personally spent a lot of time with him in Paris.
And Lee Asher is a key person that has helped get real Jerry's Nugget decks into the hands of a new generation today. He's the guy who was instrumental in making a collaboration happen between Jerry's Nugget Casino and Expert Playing Card Company, by suggesting that EPCC get the exclusive licence needed to reprint these iconic decks in 2019, as announced in an official press release
here.
It's plain that along with EPCC's Bill Kalush, Lee Asher (pictured below) was singularly responsible for getting an officially licensed Jerry's Nugget deck back into the hands of a new generation and into the collections of those who couldn't afford the massive sticker price of the originals. So if anyone has a passion for the original Jerry's Nuggets, it is Lee Asher. Of anyone in this picture, Lee is the person with the most credibility, and his opinion and perspective should carry a lot of weight.
With Asher as his source, Kevan Seaney points out that 40,000 decks of Jerry's Nugget playing cards is the equivalent of around 8 pallets. That's a massive amount, and would weigh around four tons. And it would take up a tremendous amount of space! Kevan cites Lee Asher as saying (via voice messages in Instagram) that in 1999 Asher told Duvivier that he could get the decks from the casino, and that Duvivier bought around 1,500-2000 decks at the time. Lee subsequently visited his home and store - France's oldest magic shop - in France many times. And according to Asher, there was no way Duvivier had room for 40,000 decks. Kevin also says that Lee Asher pointed out to him that these were technically not the final lot of decks sold by the casino anyway, and that the last decks (a "case" of unknown size) probably went to Japan.
Wow. That really changes things! So based on this apparent "new information" from Lee Asher - who to his credit has apparently been saying this all along - Wikipedia gets a new edit by TheCongressGuy aka Kevin Seaney. The impressive figure of 40,000 is reduced to a much more modest 1500-2000, which is paltry by comparison to the much larger figures circulating the internet, and not nearly as impressive a story. But this is only after Wikipedia has been singing a different tune for five years, so the `damage' has been done, and the story of Duvivier's windfall of 40,000 Jerry's Nuggets is already accepted by most people as a true story.
Duvivier's own story
Suddenly it occurred to me to investigate Duvivier himself. Was this perhaps a line of inquiry that might produce some solid leads and definitive facts? Has the man himself ever commented on all these stories about his legendary haul? Could I find anything directly from the man himself that would shed some light on these legends? In fact, why hadn't I thought of this earlier? Just because nobody else seems to have dug up or reported anything from the man's own mouth, doesn't mean that it doesn't exist. I slapped myself for my own foolishness, and headed back to Google.
As it turns out, Duvivier
has written about this! But because it's an article in French, it's escaped notice from most people. Since he's popular as a professional magician in France, he not only has his own website, but he also writes his own blog. And sure enough, he's addressed this very topic in a blog article that he wrote in April 2011 under the title "
Magiphageuh No 14: Les Jerry's Nugget".
With the help of an online translation tool, we learn this:
"As most of you already know, I only use real "Jerry's Nugget" cards to work with and have been doing so for many years. As these cards happen to be extremely rare to find on the market (I am obviously talking about the original Jerry's Nugget cards and not the recently reprinted ones) and they excite the magical world a lot, I am therefore constantly asked how many I own, how long have I owned them, what deal I made to get them and with whom, why do I have so many cards, why did I choose these specifically, why don't I want to sell them, why, why, eh?! And I hear such amazing stories about myself on these famous "Jerry's Nugget" cards that I decided to speak on the subject myself today."
This sounds very promising! Duvivier then goes on to tell the story about how the Jerry's Nuggets gained their legendary reputation, and the unique qualities they have. In France in the 1970s, American playing cards were quite rarely seen, and Duvivier knew a French pilot commandant called Reyno who loved magic, who would occasionally bring back cards from the US to a small circle of French magicians. At this time even standard Bicycle and Tally Ho decks were prized by these French conjurers, so besides them a Jerry's Nugget deck was considered a real crown jewel.
Over the years Duvivier occasionally got more of the Jerry's Nugget decks, sometimes even an entire case of them at once, especially via his friend Michael Weber, who was his main supplier. We fast forward to 1999, when he finds himself heading to Las Vegas to perform at The Magic Castle. Here's the story in his words, courtesy of an online translation tool:
"In 1999 (if I'm not mistaken) my daughter Alexandra and I were hired to perform for a whole week at Magic Castle and then for a few contracts in Las Vegas. You may think that I had only one idea in mind at the time: a trip to the original casino where my favourite cards were from, Jerry's Nugget! Michael Weber had told me that there were still a few decks for sale there, so as soon as we arrived I immediately asked Philip Varricchio, who had come to pick us up in a limousine, to take us there. He was rather surprised, as we hadn't even put our bags down at the hotel (yes, I'm a fool) and the old Jerry's casino wasn't really known for being a must-see place! So I told him that I wanted to go there to buy Jerry's Nugget cards. According to him it was impossible to get them for the simple reason that they hadn't been around for a long time, but I was so insistent that he finally complied (hey, hey, hey!). When we arrived there, we went to the gift shop of the casino and I asked the salesman if he was selling their decks.
- Yes," he told me, "I have a few.
He shows me a small piece of wall in the back of the store where a hundred decks were on display. I ask about the price. Not even expensive!
- Well, I'll take them," I say (laughs).
And of course I ask if he has more in reserve! Yes, there were about a hundred boxes left (each box containing a large number of cards, 144 decks!). After a little negotiation, the unit price was even lowered to less than $1.
That's it, that's how it happened and that's it. In fact, in all this story, the most difficult, the longest and the most expensive was to get the stock back to France.
Since then, I've been seeing, little by little, the bids going up on these cards in a rather hallucinating way, whereas, of course, that wasn't my initial motivation at all. From the moment I bought the remaining stock, it's as if everyone wanted to own even more! But I just wanted to have enough stock of Jerry's Nugget decks because I'm a card fanatic and these in particular. I use these cards because they're the best cards I know and I've fought like a big man to own enough of them for me (I should mention that I never had a middleman or a partner to buy these cards). Anyone could have done as I did and I don't understand why no one did: you just had to take the trouble to go to this casino, because the cards were available! In any case, now they are all warm and cosy in different safes, which I won't tell you about. They say I'm the person with the most cards in the world, but I have to say I don't care. I know Chris Kenner is the one who planned it, he has a lot of them too. I've been offered golden bridges to sell a few packages, or even my entire stock. I've had some incredible offers over the years. I never intended to create a buzz with these cards: I just use them for my own personal consumption, that's all...because they're my favorite cards."
Probably the key sentence in that account is this, and the best translation seems to be something like this:
"
Yes, there were about a hundred boxes left (each box containing a large number of cards, that's 144 decks!)."
The formula is simple: around 100 boxes with 144 decks each. If true, that would mean 100 x 144 = 14,400 decks. Given that this is directly from the horse's mouth, suddenly the story becomes slightly more plausible. So too is his additional statement:
"
In all this story, the most difficult, the longest and the most expensive was to get the stock back to France."
That suggests he didn't bring the whole stash to France in one go, which might explain why visitors like Lee Asher and others who saw his home and magic shop never saw any evidence of them. I'm not a French speaker, so I'm happy to be corrected if I'm misunderstanding anything Duvivier has written - by all means check the article for yourself in the original French, to see if I've got it right. But the long and short of it seems to be that Duvivier is saying that what he bought from Las Vegas around 1999 was not a stash of 40,000 Jerry's Nuggets decks, but 14,000 decks.
14,000 is not nearly as impressive a figure. But even though it's only a third of the size of what the legend floating around the internet says, 14,000 decks is still an incredibly impressive haul. Certainly the amount of pictures and videos that show Duvivier performing with Jerry's Nugget cards, seems to suggest that they are very much part of his regular repertoire. It could just be possible, and maybe I've finally found the truth!
Perhaps the most defining photo of all is
this one (credited to Zakary Belamy), which shows Duvivier enjoying a bath with his Jerry's Nugget playing cards! Given the value of these playing cards on the market today, some might consider this sacrilege, but it sure suggests he has a large enough supply of Jerry's Nugget cards. At any rate, his collection of them seems large enough that he can even afford to take them to the bath for a photo op along with his favourite yellow rubber ducky.
But is it true?
Was the mystery solved at last? It was time to get back in contact with Lee Asher, and share my findings. But despite the claims of Duvivier in his 2011 article, Lee is not convinced that Duvivier is a credible source. To be fair, this is what Lee Asher has been saying all along, and for years he's been saying that the story about the legendary haul of 40,000 decks wasn't supported by the facts.
Ultimately what this comes down to is: are we going to believe what Duvivier says? For the most part, Duvivier has appeared to have had little interest in setting the record straight, despite the fact that the rumour of him nabbing 40,000 decks persisted as long as it did. And if he does have a large stash, why has he shown little interest in selling any of the decks that he does have, instead being happy to hoard them or use them only for himself? Would he really have spent all the time, energy, and money necessary to ship even 14,000 decks of playing cards across the ocean from the United States to Europe, just for his personal usage, at a time when the street value of these was only a dollar or two a piece? And if he did, where did he put them, and why has nobody ever seen his stash, including those who visited his home?
There are other details about Duvivier's record of events that call aspects of his narrative into question, such as his complete omission of any mention of Lee Asher, who was the one who made him aware of where he could get them. And in those days, the casino gift shop was very small, so is it really reasonable for them to display 100 decks on their back wall, as Duvivier claims in his 2011 article, when they had such little space to work with?
I had some private correspondence with another magician/cardist who has also stayed at Duvivier's house, and that individual expressed similar sentiments. He agreed that there was no evidence of Duvivier ever owning that many decks. Just do the math: 40,000 decks would mean Duvivier could use a brand new deck every single day for more than 100 years before he chewed through a collection of decks that size. Again: very unlikely. If he really did have that many, it would be way more than he could ever use, and surely he would have sold some by now - which he hasn't. This person remains somewhat skeptical, but acknowledges that the figure of 14,000 is a more realistic number that is not beyond the realms of possibility, especially if Duvivier has them locked up in a storage facility in Paris somewhere.
As an educated guess, it seems that there is good reason to cast some suspicion on this story, and there are some aspects about it that seem rather unlikely. Shipping that many decks, at the time only worth a buck or two each at most, all the way from Las Vegas to Paris would be crazy. But a man willing to jump into a bath with a yellow rubber duck and destroy $1000 worth of playing cards in the process strikes me as crazy enough to do it. Perhaps Duvivier's story is true after all.
A final twist
I was now several weeks into my adventures as an investigative journalist, and I was getting ready to wrap up my story and publish it. But there was one final lead that I had not yet explored. If I was really going to try every possible avenue of information, I had to try contacting Dominique Duvivier himself. Why not? Admittedly, the odds of getting a response from someone about his apparent stash of precious Jerry's Nuggets wasn't likely. If there was any truth to the story about his legendary haul, even to some degree, then he's undoubtedly had hundreds of inquiries over the years. Just imagine the long lines of people asking him about his stash, trying to convince him to part with some of it. If yet another email comes in on this subject, he'd probably roll his eyes and press `delete'. He is working full time as a professional magician after all, and has a career to worry about. I couldn't blame him if he was tired of responding to what undoubtedly would be countless messages from prospective buyers.
But I had no intention to buy anything, so as a good amateur journalist, I had to try. It was a long shot, but to my surprise, I got a response from Duvivier the very same day! It wasn't much, but it included one unexpected bombshell - especially after the journey I'd been on so far: "
You'll be glad to know that a special article is going to appear in next Genii Magazine. It's called Dominique Duvivier and Jerry's Nugget cards."
I was stunned. Was someone else working on exactly the same story as me, and had they beat me to the punch? Maybe even Duvivier himself? Could it really be true that in little more than two weeks time, the next issue of Genii was scheduled to come out, and would potentially reveal all? Suddenly I knew that I had to wait with publishing my story. In further emails, Dominique was tight-lipped about any more details. At the very least, surely I would have to wait until that issue of Genii was available, and fork out my cash and purchase a subscription in order to read it. I owed it to my readers to explore every last clue, and give them a story that included all the evidence.
So that is what I did. I waited for the July issue to appear online. Digital editions of Genii are released online each month on the 20th of the month. Finally 20th of June rolled around, and I eagerly perused the contents of the latest issue. Nothing. Nothing remotely Duvivier related. Nothing Jerry's Nugget related. Was Duvivier for real? An inquiry with the editor of Genii produced this response: "
Not this issue. Coming up." Would it be August or September maybe? Further inquiries produced only silence.
In follow up correspondence with the Frenchman himself, Duvivier told me "
I wrote the article myself. It?s quite long." That sounded promising, but it could just be about his love affair with Jerry's Nugget Playing Cards, rather than a "tell all" story about his haul. There still was no guarantee that it would even be published. And I couldn't be sure that it would offer any more information than his blog article from 2011 which already gave his side of the story, or that it would be any more reliable than the version of events he'd provided there. Was it really worth waiting any longer? It was time to share my findings with the world anyway, and I could always provide an addendum to my story if any credible new information appeared.
Final Thoughts
Is this the final word on this subject? No. I've tried to do the best I could based on information available to me, and shared as much as I could with my readers, so that you can form your own conclusions based on the evidence so far. Undoubtedly there are still some missing puzzle pieces, and in future years some new information could come to light that shows that some of my conclusions were misplaced or that puts aspects of this story a slightly different perspective.
Today we are two full decades removed from the time when the original decks first sold out at the Jerry's Nugget casino. And the further removed in time that we come, the harder it becomes to uncover the truth. Memories become murky. As it is nobody at the casino seems to remember the specific details of what happened. At the time they were probably only too glad to get the remaining stock out of their hands, and nobody could have anticipated how these decks would become the famous icons that they are today. Even their chief evangelist Lee Asher has to be somewhat surprised at the turn of events he's produced since first singing their praises some twenty years ago!
So what can we conclude from all of this? Here's some final thoughts that I'll leave you with:
1. Don't believe everything you read on the internet. Unfortunately, it's a fact of modern life that not everything on the internet is true. And as we've seen, this also applies to sites like Wikipedia. For topics that have a large number of experts or people interested in a particular subject, changing the facts on a Wikipedia article will quickly see the changes being reverted. But with a more niche subject, like Jerry's Nugget Playing Cards, and especially when it concerns circumstantial material that nobody is quite sure about, it's easy for misinformation to enter Wikipedia. And once it's embedded there, eventually the lore spreads and becomes considered as "fact". So it's important to check your sources, and don't take everything you see online as gospel truth - even if it's on Wikipedia.
2. The legend about the stash of 40,000 decks should be put to rest once and for all. It's a myth, and there simply is no evidence for this claim anywhere. At most, there is the claim from Duvivier himself that he bought up about 14,000 decks. That might be true, but again, we only have his word for this. As a counter-point, there are those like Lee Asher who know Duvivier and have visited him many times, and insist that they never saw any evidence of this. The enormous cost of shipping a large stash like this to Europe already makes it somewhat hard to believe.
There's no doubt that Duvivier is a huge fan of Jerry's Nugget decks, and he appears to own and use them more than most. But in the end, how credible is he? How seriously are you going to take someone who is happy to post a picture of himself in a bath with a rubber duck and playing cards from a Jerry's Nugget deck? Either that means he has far more decks than he knows what to do with, or he is a little loopy. Or perhaps it's a bit of both. You've had an opportunity to read all the evidence for yourself, so you decide.
Either way, we can safely say that there has never been a stash of 40,000 decks, and the jury is out on whether there was even ever a stash one third of this size. But even if the size of the legendary stash turns out to be smaller than first thought, the reputation and magnetism of the Jerry's Nugget decks has only increased in size, and these now iconic decks will remain firmly embedded in playing card lore.
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Update from the writer: After the original publication of this article, Dominique Duvivier personally phoned me on 24 July 2020 to discuss it, and to share his side of this story. He remembers events slightly differently than Lee Asher does. As Duvivier recalls it, his own interest in the Jerry's Nugget decks dates back to the 1970s and 1980s. At that time he was sourcing them from his friend Michael Weber, who along with magicians like Chris Kenner was also interested in these decks. According to Dominique, he only met Lee Asher during his USA tour in 1999, after he had already bought out the remaining stock from the Jerry's Nugget casino. Duvivier confirmed that the figure of 14,000 accurately reflects the approximate number of decks he purchased from the casino at this time. He shipped the majority of these to France by boat, and stored them in a warehouse, intending them to serve as a life-time supply for himself and his family. Look for his story in an upcoming issue of Genii magazine.
submitted by Start Your Engines or Get Caught in the Lava. With all this KI stuff on youtube and other places like reddit and twitter, I decided to write out what are my thoughts on this game which to me always looked like the awkward cousin of fighting games. Just because you have something that makes you unique doesn't necessarily mean that you're special or worth anyone's attention. For a video game that can be death, for people not so much. Whenever I hear people talking about KI, the people enjoying it and having fun were doing so because it was different to all the other fighting games out there and that is the most prominent thing said about it. And because of this, among other things, it makes KI really hard to get into, just by having people say that, because it makes you stop and wonder what makes it so different.
As far as getting knowledge of the game out there, having 2013 only on Xbox for a long time certainly didn't help, it wasn't really a fighting game console and it's audience reflected that. Many of it's other games were multiplayer with many other players at once, so why would one of those gamers play a game where you were only interacting with one person at a time? Also, KI dropped off the map and stopped being supported for pretty much a decade. Obviously there's production time but for the player themselves you got that gap. It's not like GuiltyGear where at least there were many, many versions and rehashes of the same game to change it up, there was completely nothing for the player, who was left devoid of any new game as the series was not being supported. Mortal Kombat kept getting consistent releases as well.
That issue aside, there are other reasons why I think that KI needs to be better than it is now for any hope of future success. These I shall lay out and maybe everyone can keep the conversation going because if nobody is talking about what they want from what I'll just call Killer Instinct: Next Decade then how do people know that there is a demand and that there is a waiting and as of yet untapped audience? It's not about creating hype, you can't do that for something that doesn't exist but you can build rapport for the series and the brand. Most people just now assume that there's going to be a new Mortal Kombat every few years, SoulCalibur VI came out of nowhere and created waves among established fans that caused others to stop and take notice, and then showed a whole new generation that weapon based fighters can be fun and that you don't have to take yourself seriously to have depth. And what do both of these series have? Player rapport. But there is something else that both these games have which is a very big problem for KI.
Everything I Just Said I Said to Myself. KI 2013 suffers from a problem of having all the characters look like they were ripped from other IP. There is a lack of a thematic style that they all share. What is a literal dinosaur doing next to a token black boxer or some Conan-like guy fighting robots? It's a MESS. And before anyone says story doesn't matter in fighting games I'm not talking about the story, just the presentation as there's so much thematic representation from different archetype tropes. Too many cooks in the kitchen is another way of putting this because all these themes clash together really badly so it's not clear what was being aimed for stylistically.
Why this might be, and the only thing I can think of are those old arcade games where you play as giant apes or monsters going around getting points for destroying buildings or each other or whatever. The cast and character themes are rooted in the 90's and that can be fine, everyone just needs to look their part and not be so painfully generic in design. Generic wolf man, generic vampire lady, generic icicle man who is an alien but fuck lore we're working off appearances here. Generic evil version of pre existing character, Predator rip off, Sub-Zero rip off, you get the picture here. In fact 2013 is rather dark and washed out, not very vibrant. Was the original game back in 1994 competing with and following the mood of Mortal Kombat? I don't know, but these days there is so much more that can be done then copying trends. Audiences can be bigger that arcades now, you can branch out and be your own trend.
Other fighting games such as Tekken and KoF at least show that you can actually have people look like regular people in fighting games. In 2013 there is uninspired and bland, or nothing like that at all because they are a monster of some sort or robot. What is glowsticks girl doing fighting a generic ogre with it's head cut in half? Who knows. Is Not-Conan going to ride the dinosaur into endless battle against a hoard of spooky scary skeleton pirate things? Who knows.
Anyone ever played Punch Quest? Like that. But KI needs to do more to solidify it's own identity because when I was looking at footage it is just a jumble of random tropes and themes put in an arena.
Get Your New Kicks. Then I see RAAM realise that I might be wrong, he looks unique and cool at least while I was watching some footage, as I found myself thinking 'hey, this guy looks awesome. Maybe there is something that brings all this convoluted shit together.' And then I found out that no, he's a guest character. I've never played a Gears of War game, not my thing. On closer inspection his model is obviously better crafted than some of the others that just look cartoony as hell.And to me that's sad because he fits really well and it just turned out that he was never meant to belong in the first place. So it turns out that the best looking characters in KI...aren't even from KI to begin with. To be fair, just focusing on the characters introduced in 2013 that aren't guests or vague reskins we have Aganos, Hisako, Kan-Ra, Mira, Omen, Eagle and Sadira. Barring Mira, Eagle and Sadira the others aren't really anything conceptwise I've seen anywhere else and they have been designed in an interesting fashion that isn't too crazy or too bland and they are all influenced from various sources that feels unique. For the others, RAAM was some middle ground monster between all the weird and disjointed tropes the other characters brought along.
What needs to happen is to get some of that Microsoft talent and reimagine all of the other characters. I'm serious. If they want to go full modern retro arcade that's fine but we're not working with potato mesh anymore. Some of those old designs are throwbacks to their 1994 looks and that's it. Scrap the templates and start over. They don't have to play differently, they just have to look like they can be from Killer Instinct, not some child playing with their box of toys. Obviously all forms of games and media have characters that people label as generic but knowing better shouldn't make me still cringe. Just rebooting the series again will be the best possible thing for everyone involved. SoulCalibur VI did that. Mortal Kombat keeps doing that. And both of those games kept what they were about through reboots.
KI has already been rebooted once before and there's no reason why it shouldn't be rebooted again. The people who are going to play a new KI are already interested, the point is to get new players into the game and what any new player unfamiliar with the franchise will hear when you say that this is the next installment in a game made in 2013 is that they will have to go play the old game to prepare. And saying that you have to go back to a game that will at least be nine if not ten years old by that point isn't going to do anyone any favours. The new player will give up because they will just assume that they missed their chance and are too far behind now to play.
Spaghetti Begins With You. Because the gameplay is one of it's defining aspects, KI:Next Decade will have to treat where its come from with respect. This is by far and away the most important thing Microsoft needs to keep in mind, because the current KI base is so small, that if there's any whiff of those players hating whatever it is they might see right out of the gate all hope is going to evaporate. No one is going to pick that up and the series will finally die. Series vets will say not to bother and everyone else will follow suit. It all comes down to the gameplay but what can change? Because the game has had so few iterations there's very little to be taken from the past that isn't already there. Shadow Bar is basically just meter, so that's simple enough, you use it for EX specials and counters. But then there's this Shadow Counter feature that should probably not be able to block Shadow Specials. Regular Specials, sure, otherwise if you have the upper hand and your opponent wants to make a come back and use a Shadow move they can't.
There's a second bar for Instinct that only does one thing, other fighting games tie a power up mechanic with a bar that can also be used defensively such as later BlazBlue games and SCVI so it would help modern players if the trend could keep going here. For example have the Instinct Bar be used to counter Shadow Specials. Suddenly a player now has two choices that might seem familiar, using some Instinct to avoid death in a clutch or hold onto it to give yourself a power boost when you're raring to go. The original game didn't even have this bar so it's ripe for revaluation and retooling. Because the word Instinct is in the title of the game you would expect the bar baring it's name to be significant. But in 2013 you either have it or you don't. An idea would be having these two opposing meters, a Shadow meter and an Instinct meter, and have the Shadow or the Instinct and you have to choose between one or the other as if they were two opposing forces to tap into. Shadow giving you early power while Instinct works gradually. What else could be done with Instinct? We can't have Ultra Instinct because Dragon Ball Super got there first.
Ultra Combo moves in 2013 are just instant kill moves that go for way too long. It's not even a fucking combo. Who cares if you can cancel out of it to beat down the opponent 'your way', you can't unnugget the chicken, it's already a fucking nugget, they whole thing is just one massive time waste. So much for instantly ending the match. In most fighting games the round is 100% over when someone's lifebar hits 0, although in Tekken and SoulCalibur you can get some extra inputs come out at the end sometimes.
Watching old footage, an Ultra Combo seems to have been a long combo that essentially overkilled the opponent
and that's fine, that can come back. Just for fucks sake make the Ultra Combo a combo again. “Create Your Own Instant Kill” could have been an interesting concept but in 2013 it was handled poorly. The way that 2013 handles offence, by splitting it into parts with the opening move, the middle and the ender means that it could work under certain circumstances.
I Hate Casinos. A thing I hate is the announcer that sounds off those Ultra Combo wins the way a young boy does at the football: screaming his lungs out with his mouth full of juice and chips, spraying the seats below him or right in their ears. The first time I hear it, I'm perplexed because the end to that ultra was incredibly drawn out and tame. The guy just lands on the floor. I wasn't sure what I was hearing. Was it the character's death cry or what? The more I hear it the more it makes me fucking sick of it. Why would I play a game that makes me fucking sick? Same with the “Combo Breaker” announcer noise. By the time he shuts up, the event of combo breaking was already over several seconds ago. I don't need an announcer chugging along telling me something I already know and is already irrelevant information because the match has moved on already by that point.
The only reason I think that these are in here is to go back to those old arcade feels. I can shut my eyes listening to people play KI and my brain isn't thinking of a fighting game, it's thinking of those giant beast city destroyer arcade games. There's so much audio clutter. It has to go. If not for the reason that the clutter exists, for the fact that the game is nearly impossible to follow because of it. I don't want someone telling me with a head twiddle that I just don't understand KI because god fucking damn right with all this clutter I don't thanks for pointing out the obvious.
If Microsoft are going to green light a fighting game, they need to be assured that it can draw an audience who can understand what is going on during a match OR NO ONE IS GOING TO WATCH. That's not the job of the person on mic, that's not the job of the person who's watching it for the first time, it is the game's job to be clear and understandable so that it can be followed. If KI: Next Decade wants to be arcade then fine but what will an arcade experience even look like by then with a company like Microsoft backing it expecting to make money off of views and clicks? It sure as hell isn't KI 2013 and it's wall of sound. Check out
this Omen of Sorrow footage and how clean and clear the indicators are and also notice how for the most part the movement is smooth. Although there are some weird I think Z axis field of view choices to prevent clipping that are pretty jarring here, for what it is worth 2013 does not have this issue.
Mirror Mirror. Killer Instinct 2013 has no missing characters. That's good. But you have to think about new characters and the problem with that is previously, when presented with the design space the people working on the game, it doesn't even matter who, just remade old characters slightly. The problem is that this now creates a precedent for it to happen again. Is Microsoft going to allow the old guard to keep making those decisions and recycle old design space or push for new characters? I have no idea why Shadow Jago, Kilgore and Shin Hisako were not just entirely new characters with their own unique style and themes. Instead it is retreaded design space. I talked about reimagining before and that goes the same for these three too.
Now if we remove the guest characters and clones the roster's looking a little sparse for this day and age for such an old IP at 23 characters. More can be done and with 3D models you get skins which makes me I wonder if any new characters could spin off from a character's skins and changed to not be a clone. Just to make it nice and easy to begin with for whoever ends up working on Killer Instinct: Next Decade to come up with some ideas. Aside from that, with Microsoft's pool of owed and recycled studios and properties, there's sure to be some other interesting characters around. I'll give some examples.
Monkey, from a beautiful game by Ninja Theory that I just wish was better than it ended up being due to it's propensity to give me motion sickness and general lack of flow, Enslaved: Odyssey to the West gave us a rather unique main character and world in a reimagined Journey to the West adventure probably doomed to never get a sequel. If Monkey found himself in KI: Next Decade and people really liked him then there's going to be a demand for more of where he came from. Whether Andy Serkis would come on board for this is something else, however. He has a staff, which could be used for
mid and long range attacks, and he could reposition using the Cloud. The game he comes from has
platforming. Big ask, but perhaps he could interact directly with the stage to help get around.
An Anubite from Age of Mythology. Because we need something to convince SonicFox to play this shit. Or otherwise known as
those zombie dog warriors from The Mummy Returns. There's even a named one
who's on fucking fire called
Theris who does absolutely nothing to further the plot and only serves as brief main character back story so no one has to worry about him actually doing anything. No he's not Nasus from League of Legends go fuck yourself. Anubites jump about with dual sickles and that's about it, but you could add sand powers and allow players to fish for hits around guards like in Dark Souls. Or otherwise they could pull in star power with Dwayne Johnson as the Scorpion King. There's scorpion men in AoM too by the way, never mind that Imhotep looks like René Dif from Aqua and some disco dancing desert monster is some seriously untapped design space. Just give the man a microphone already.
You in Fable. I mean this. Fable was a fantasy action adventure game with a few other versions and spin offs that tried to expand on what Fable was and move the world forward but I preferred it best when everything was more simple. You were a boy with a story and while the overall story was fairly linear, your choices impacted the world around you and did make you feel that your choice meant something.
You have a sword, a bow and some magic. Could easily replace Arbiter's role from 2013 or go nuts with the amount of
utility on hand. If you're ever played the original Fable you know that's the case.
Tonnes of customisable options for clothing also with minimal creative thinktank effort required. The character is also a mute protagonist for the most part, that cuts down VA costs.
You'll notice that these examples are all from old titles now, but sometimes it's not just about supporting new IPs, but lifting up older ones to give them some spotlight again, to show that they're not forgotten and that people do enjoy those older IPs. So you just know that we're going to get Tartarus from the Halo franchise, Eddie Riggs from Brütal Legend and Shark Hoodie Guy from State of Decay 2 to promote further DLC.
This is a Conclusion but Maybe Also a Beginning. So, in ending, KI needs to change because there's too much wrong with it. The characters need to be more well defined and have every thing brought to a modern level. Everything needs to come together so that someone doesn't mistake Next Decade for Microsoft's doomed attempt to recreate Nintendo's Smash success, with their own bland and forgotten IPs all clumped together and decide not to dig a little bit deeper, because you can go very, very deep indeed. And that doesn't have to be scary to new players even if the waters are dark everyone can help new players keep afloat and their heads above the water until they are ready for those deep dives. Sure playing on the surface is fun but there's a lot to be missed out on if you stay there. There's so much to know about the game and each character and it's going to stay that way.
On top of that there can't be KI 2013.4 or whatever the count is now. The base is good but things need to change. Halo 2 is over, time for Halo 3 as it were. KI: Next Decade will still functionally be KI but it can't stay the same and questions need to be answered, such as what mood KI is going for in it's gameplay, and whether they can present that in a way that doesn't leave anyone behind. Whether it should continue with that 2013 dull look for Next Decade is not for me to decide, after all KI has some dedicated fans, no doubt about it and some people seem to like the way it looks or otherwise not care but in my personal opinion I don't think it should. Unless Microsoft want Mortal Kombat with dinosaurs, and you know what happened to those, right?
submitted by Hi I'm new I like playing cards.... How much cost most expensive playing cards in the world and how do they look?
submitted by Category:Nugget Casino Resort. From Wikimedia Commons, the free media repository. Jump to navigation Jump to search. Nugget Casino Resort hotel and casino in Sparks, Nevada. Upload media Wikipedia: Instance of: hotel: Location: Nevada: Inception: 17 March 1955; official website: 39° 32′ 02.4″ N, 119° 45′ 28.8″ W: Authority control Q6219539. Reasonator; Scholia; Statistics Heute steht es im Golden Nugget Casino in Las Vegas, USA, wo es bestaunt werden kann. Von 1986 bis 1988 verausgabte die australische Perth Mint eine Goldmünzen-Serie namens The Australian Nugget, zunächst in Proof-Qualität und ab 1987 in Bullion-Qualität. Das Motiv zeigte bekannte australische Goldnugget-Funde wie z. B. das Welcome Stranger Nugget. Dieses Nugget, gefunden 1869 im John Ascuaga's Nugget is a hotel and casino in Sparks, Nevada, just east of Reno. The main portion of the casino consists of two 29-story towers nestled between Interstate 80 and the Union Pacific rail yard. There are additional attached buildings underneath and across I-80 from the towers. It is located in Downtown Sparks at Victorian Square. Apache nugget casino is located 15 miles North of Cuba, new Mexico, at the intersection of highway 550 and highway 537. Casino is under the management of the Corporation Apache nugget, which oversees all gaming activity for the Jicarilla Apache in the country. The ANC is a non-profit federally chartered section 17 Corporation owned by the Jicarilla Apache in the country. It is located in Dulce Category: golden nugget casino online. Search for: Letzte Artikel. Beste Spielothek in Tirschenreuth finden; Final Of Countdown; Beste Spielothek in Stuttern finden; Carol Und Die Weihnachtsgeister ; 200 Britische Pfund In Euro; Uefa Nations League 2020/19. Erfahre alles über den neuesten Nationalmannschaftswettbewerb der UEFA und schau dir die Highlights der ersten Endrunde an. Alle Infos Came to the nugget at 12:30 noon on January 29th for two nites, had to drag roller luggage from car to parking garage elevator, to 1st floor casino floor through middle of gaming area on carpet about 1 half mile to elevator struggling, them up elevator in casino to 2nd floor to front desk, then roll again from front desk to 1/4 mile to elevators to hotel. Transit guide to Golden Nugget Casino, located in Laughlin. Bus routes and more to Golden Nugget Casino... 📣 Due to COVID-19 national emergency, many transit agencies have reduced or suspended service in response to drop in ridership and various local stay-at-home orders. Some agencies waive fares and allow rear door boarding to accommodate social distancing. Route information on this site From Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia Nugget Casino Resort (formerly Dick Graves' Nugget and John Ascuaga's Nugget) is a hotel and casino located in Sparks, Nevada. It is owned and operated by Marnell Gaming. The main portion of the casino consists of two 29-story towers nestled between Interstate 80 and the Union Pacific rail yard. The Nugget features a full-service casino, 1,380 guest rooms and suites situated in two 28-story guest towers, five restaurants, 110,000 square feet of meeting and special event space, a year-round atrium pool, a fitness center and three live entertainment venues. John Ascuaga's Nugget Casino. From Transit.Wiki. Loading map... City: Sparks Web site. Directions to and from John Ascuaga's Nugget Casino. Contents. 1 Bus. 1.1 Amtrak Thruway (California) 1.2 Eastern Sierra Transit; 1.3 Greyhound; 1.4 Pyramid Lake Paiute Tribe; 1.5 RTC RIDE; 1.6 Susanville Indian Rancheria Public Transportation Program; Bus. RTC RIDE buses stop at RTC Centennial Plaza. Amtrak
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