Dead Man’s Hand in Poker: The Legend of Aces and Eights

Ask a poker player what the dead man’s hand is and the answer usually comes quickly: aces and eights, the cards Wild Bill Hickok was holding when he was shot in the back at a Deadwood saloon in 1876. It is one of the best-known phrases in poker, repeated in films and novels for roughly a century. The story behind it is less tidy. Hickok was killed on August 2, 1876, but no account from that time records his cards, and the aces-and-eights version did not appear in print until a biography published 50 years later. Before that, the same phrase was used for several different poker hands. This article explains what the dead man’s hand means today, who Hickok was and how he died, how historians trace the legend’s origins, how the phrase spread through popular culture, and which parts of the familiar story the sources do not support.

Wild Bill Hickok and Saloon No. 10

James Butler Hickok was born in Illinois in 1837 and was already a national figure before he ever reached Deadwood. According to PokerNews’ history of the hand, his fame grew from an 1867 Harper’s New Monthly Magazine profile by George Ward Nichols, which presented him as a gunfighter of almost mythical skill. He later worked as a lawman in several towns and was known as a card player.

In the summer of 1876 he traveled to the Black Hills in search of gold. He had been in Deadwood, then in Dakota Territory, for only about three weeks when he joined a poker game at Nuttal & Mann’s Saloon No. 10 on the afternoon of August 2, 1876. Accounts differ on whether the game was five-card stud or five-card draw.

The often-repeated detail is that Hickok sat with his back to the door, against his usual habit, because it was the only open seat; PokerNews writes that a player named Charlie Rich reportedly declined to switch chairs. Jack McCall walked in and shot Hickok in the back of the head, killing him. McCall’s motives have been the subject of speculation ever since, and after two trials he was hanged for the crime.

How Aces and Eights Became the Dead Man’s Hand

The most important fact about the hand is how little was recorded at the time. Hickok biographer Joseph Rosa wrote that despite intensive research, no contemporary reference had been found to the cards Hickok was holding, as quoted by The Straight Dope.

The 1926 Biography

The aces-and-eights story entered print in 1926, in Frank J. Wilstach’s biography Wild Bill Hickok: The Prince of Pistoleers. Wilstach had corresponded with Ellis T. “Doc” Peirce, the Deadwood barber who prepared Hickok’s body for burial. According to the letter Wilstach published, Peirce said Bill’s hand read “aces and eights” — two pair, and that the combination had been known as the dead man’s hand in the West ever since. The Straight Dope notes that this account, published half a century after the killing, was the first to link Hickok to the phrase and remains uncorroborated.

The Dead Man’s Hand Before Hickok’s Name Was Attached

Researchers cited by The Straight Dope and PokerNews found the phrase in use decades before 1926 — but attached to different cards. The table below lists examples from those sources.

The list shows a phrase looking for a fixed meaning. Aces and eights appears by 1900, but it competed with other combinations until Wilstach’s book tied it to the most famous poker death of the frontier era.

The Mystery of the Fifth Card

Even the version that won out is incomplete. In Rosa’s summary, Peirce named the fifth card as the jack of diamonds, while others have claimed it was the queen of diamonds, without proof either way. Rosa also pointed to a different account by Harry Young, the bartender at the No. 10, who wrote that Hickok had just lost a hand to Captain Bill Massie — a version Rosa considered more plausible, as quoted by True West Magazine.

The Dead Man’s Hand in Poker Culture

Whatever Hickok actually held, the legend settled the meaning of the phrase. PokerNews notes that, thanks to the many cultural references that followed Wilstach’s account, aces and eights became “the last ‘dead man’s hand’ standing.”

Film did much of that work. In John Ford’s 1939 western Stagecoach, a character holding aces and eights is killed by the hero played by John Wayne, PokerNews reports. The Straight Dope points out that the film did not copy the legend exactly: the character Luke Plummer holds the black eights but one red ace, the ace of diamonds, with a queen of hearts as his fifth card. Television shows and several novels titled Dead Man’s Hand have used the phrase since.

At the poker table, the phrase survives as slang and as a small superstition. The idea of an unlucky combination is older than the Hickok link: the 1903 Encyclopaedia of Superstitions described the dead man’s hand of its day as an unlucky hand to hold and win with. As a poker hand, though, aces and eights is simply two pair — a strong holding in many situations, and no more cursed than any other.

A Killing Behind the Legend

It is easy to forget that the dead man’s hand begins with a murder. Hickok was shot from behind, during a card game, by a man who walked up to the table; the legend turns that moment into a piece of poker trivia.

Hickok’s own story was also shaped by exaggeration. PokerNews notes that the 1867 Harper’s profile claimed he had killed “hundreds of men,” an exaggeration typical of the era’s Western journalism. His documented record included a shootout with David Tutt over a dispute that began with poker debts, and the accidental killing of a deputy that ended his time as a marshal in Abilene, Kansas.

Telling the story accurately means keeping both sides in view: a celebrated figure whose fame was partly manufactured, a real killing, and a famous detail that cannot be confirmed.

Common Myths About the Dead Man’s Hand

Myth: witnesses recorded Hickok’s cards in 1876. They did not, as far as researchers have found. The aces-and-eights account first appeared in Wilstach’s 1926 biography.

Myth: the dead man’s hand has always meant aces and eights. Earlier sources used the phrase for jacks full of tens, jacks and eights, jacks and sevens and other combinations.

Myth: the fifth card is known. Accounts name the jack of diamonds, the queen of diamonds and other cards. None has been confirmed.

More Poker Culture on FeltTales

The dead man’s hand is one of many ways poker has entered popular culture. Read how the Rounders movie changed poker culture, how Casino Royale put James Bond at a hold’em table, and how the hole-card camera turned poker into television. For famous hands whose details are fully documented, revisit the Moneymaker bluff.

Sources & References

• PokerNews — Poker & Pop Culture: The Long, Strange Life of the Dead Man’s Hand
• The Straight Dope — Was Wild Bill Hickok holding the “dead man’s hand” when he was slain?
• True West Magazine — Which Cards was “Wild Bill” Hickok Holding when He was Murdered?
• True West Magazine — Deadman’s Hand, Telegrams, and Mules