Page "Dead man's hand" Paragraph 3

What is considered the dead man's hand card combination of today gets its notoriety from a legend that it was the five-card-draw 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 on August 2, 1876, in Nuttal & Mann's Saloon at Deadwood, Dakota Territory.

Reportedly, Hickok's final hand included the aces and eights of both black suits.

One Hickok biographer, Joseph Rosa, put it: " the accepted version is that the cards were the ace of spades, the ace of clubs, two black eights ( clubs and spades ), and the queen of clubs as the ' kicker '.

" However, Rosa said no contemporary source for this exact hand can be found.

The solidification in gamers parlance of the dead man's hand as two pair, " aces and eights ", didn't come about until after the 1926 publication of Frank Wilstach's book, " Wild Bill Hickok: The Prince of Pistoleers " — 50 years after Hickok's death.