The makeup of

poker Poker is a family of comparing card games in which players wager over which hand is best according to that specific game's rules. It is played worldwide, however in some places the rules may vary. While the earliest known form of the game wa ...

's dead man's hand has varied through the years. Currently, it is described as a two-pair

poker hand In poker, players form sets of five playing cards, called ''hands'', according to the rules of the game. Each hand has a rank, which is compared against the ranks of other hands participating in the showdown to decide who wins the pot. In high ...

consisting of the black aces and black eights. The pair of aces and eights, along with an unknown hole card, were reportedly held by

Old West The American frontier, also known as the Old West or the Wild West, encompasses the geography, history, folklore, and culture associated with the forward wave of American expansion in mainland North America that began with European colonial ...

folk hero A folk hero or national hero is a type of hero – real, fictional or mythological – with their name, personality and deeds embedded in the popular consciousness of a people, mentioned frequently in folk songs, folk tales and other folklore; a ...

, lawman, and

gunfighter Gunfighters, also called gunslingers (), or in the 19th and early 20th centuries gunmen, were individuals in the American Old West who gained a reputation of being dangerous with a gun and participated in gunfights and shootouts. Today, the t ...

Wild Bill Hickok James Butler Hickok (May 27, 1837August 2, 1876), better known as "Wild Bill" Hickok, was a folk hero of the American Old West known for his life on the frontier as a soldier, scout, lawman, gambler, showman, and actor, and for his involvement ...

when he was murdered while playing a game. No contemporaneous source, however, records the exact cards he held when killed. Author

Frank Wilstach Frank J. Wilstach (October 20, 1865 – November 28, 1933) was an American newspaper editor, talent agent for actors and theater and motion picture organizations, an author and a lexicographer. He was best known for compiling the '' Dictionary of ...

's 1926 book, ''Wild Bill Hickok: The Prince of Pistoleers'', led to the popular modern held conception of the poker hand's contents.

Use of the phrase

The expression, "dead man's hand", appears to have had some currency in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, although no one connected it to Hickok until the 1920s."Was Wild Bill Hickok Holding the Dead Mans Hand When He Was Slain''
;

The Straight Dope "The Straight Dope" was a question-and-answer newspaper column written under the pseudonym Cecil Adams. Contributions were made by multiple authors, and it was illustrated (also pseudonymously) by Slug Signorino. It was first published in 1973 in ...

article; retrieved March 2013. The earliest detailed reference to it was 1886, where it was described as a "

full house ''Full House'' is an American television Situation comedy, sitcom created by Jeff Franklin for American Broadcasting Company, ABC. The show is about widowed father Danny Tanner who enlists his brother-in-law Jesse Katsopolis and childhood best ...

consisting of three jacks and a pair of tens". Jacks and sevens are called the dead man's hand in the 1903 ''Encyclopaedia of Superstitions, Folklore, and the Occult Sciences''. The 1907 edition of '' Hoyle's Games'' refers to the hand as jacks and eights.

Hickok's hand

What is currently considered the dead man's hand card combination received its notoriety from a legend that it was the five-card stud or

five-card draw Five-card draw (also known as a Cantrell draw) is a poker variant that is considered the simplest variant of poker, and is the basis for video poker. As a result, it is often the first variant learned by new players. It is commonly played in h ...

hand, held by James Butler Hickok (better known as "Wild Bill" Hickok) when he was shot in the back of the head by

Jack McCall John McCall (); (1852/1853 – March 1, 1877), also known as "Crooked Nose" or "Broken Nose Jack", was the murderer of Old West legend Wild Bill Hickok. McCall shot Hickok from behind as he played poker at Nuttal & Mann's Saloon in Deadwood, D ...

on August 2, 1876, in Nuttal & Mann's Saloon, Deadwood,

Dakota Territory The Territory of Dakota was an organized incorporated territory of the United States that existed from March 2, 1861, until November 2, 1889, when the final extent of the reduced territory was split and admitted to the Union as the states of N ...

. Hickok's final hand purportedly included the aces and eights of both black suits. According to a book by Western historian Carl W. Breihan, the cards were retrieved from the floor by a man named Neil Christy, who then passed them on to his son. The son, in turn, told Mr. Breihan of the composition of the hand. "Here is an exact identity of these cards as told to me by Christy's son: the ace of diamonds with a heel mark on it; the ace of clubs; the two black eights, clubs and spades, and the queen of hearts with a small drop of Hickok's blood on it," though nothing of the sort was reported at the time immediately following the shooting. Hickok biographer Joseph Rosa wrote about the make-up of the hand: "The accepted version is that the cards were the ace of spades, the ace of clubs, two black eights, and the queen of clubs as the 'kicker'." Rosa, however, said that no contemporaneous source can be found for this exact hand. The solidification in

gamer A gamer is a proactive hobbyist who plays interactive games, especially video games, tabletop role-playing games, and skill-based card games, and who plays for usually long periods of time. Some gamers are competitive, meaning they routin ...

s' parlance of the dead man's hand as two pairs, black aces and eights, did not come about until after the 1926 publication of Wilstach's book—50 years after Hickok's death.

Legacy

The

Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department The Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department (also known as the LVMPD or Metro) is a combined city and county law enforcement agency for the City of Las Vegas and Clark County, Nevada, United States. It is headed by the Sheriff of Clark County, ...

Homicide Division, the Los Angeles Police Department CRASH squad, and the Armed Forces Medical Examiner System all use some variation of the aces and eights dead man's hand in their insignia.

References

External links

Dead Mans Hand: Wild Bill's Aces and Eights
{{DEFAULTSORT:Dead man's hand Poker hands Legends American frontier Superstitions

Use of the phrase

Hickok's hand

Legacy

See also

References

External links