DO YOU KNOW ????

The "Dead Man's Hand", which consists of black bullets (ace of clubs, ace of spades) and black eights (eight of clubs, eight of spades), was named after hand that Wild Bill Hickok was holding at the time of his death (the 5th card was unknown). He was shot in the back of the head on August 2, 1876 at the Saloon No. 10 in Deadwood, South Dakota.


The modern day World Series of Poker originated from a two-person poker match between Nicholas Andreas "Nick the Greek" Dandolos and Johnny Moss between January 1951 and May 1951. Set-up as a tourist attraction, the two played nearly every variation of poker in existence. Both were inducted into the Poker Hall of Fame in 1979.

My Avatar picture is the very chair that the shot was received. Saw and took the picture in Deadwood SD myself.

Yes, I already knew the "Dead man's hand" story, but not to that amount of detail.

This is brand new to me!! Now I know. Thnx

Wow. Didn't know that. Fairly intriguing! However, I might be a bit paranoid now when I'm holding that hands. Thanks guys.

Yep, knew that.

The 5th card was the 9 of diamonds

I knew some of the story but not the year etc
jordanbillie...how do you know the 5th card?

They really kept and immortalized the CHAIR? I'd have to be skeptical about that. Anyone could pull any old chair and SAY that, who'd know?

James McManus wrote a series of articles about the history of poker that appeared in Card Player magazine. The August 15, 2007 installment, stll available online in the CP archives, is titled "Aces and Eights" and tells the story of Wild Bill Hickok. He says this about the cards in the famous hand:

"Every witness agrees they included two pair, aces and eights, and some say the fifth card was the nine of diamonds. Whatever the kicker was, aces and eights have been known ever since as The Dead Man's Hand. No real or fictional hand of poker - not Yancey Howard's unlikely straight flush to bust the Cincinnati Kid, not Jimmy the Greek's jack in the hole against Johnny Moss, not even Henry Gondorf's double cold deck that gave him four jacks to Doyle Lonigan's four nines, or even that other Doyle's immortal ten-deuce, with which he won consecutive World Series of Poker championships - is anywhere near as notorious."

Maybe it's just me but the title "Wild Bill's Death Chair" seems off-putting. Although I can't really think of an alternative I guess. Sorta makes it sound more like a weapon....

The 5th card they use at the place it happened (to lazy to look up the name of the place) is the 9d. According to wikipediea (not exactly a reliable source) many other places have used the 9d as the 5th card, including the HBO show Deadwood.

The whole thing is fake, so it really doesn't matter.

Very interesting facts about poker. I'd always heard about the dead man's hand but never knew what it consisted of. So thanks for the info.

I read somewhere that yes, some folks purport that the Hickok story is purely ficticious. I doubt that we'll ever know for sure. As for me, I think the legend is a mighty fine myth regardless of the actual truth.

You could get DNA out of the blood on the chair and find a relative and check it out,,, hell, I bet Grissom from CSI would come back to check it.

take care