The dead man's hand, aces and eights.
In poker, the dead man's hand is a two-pair hand, namely "aces and eights." The origin of the name is the five-card-draw hand held by Wild Bill Hickok at the time of his murder, which is accepted to have included the aces and eights of both of the black suits (sometimes considered "bullets").
There are various claims as to the identity of Hickok's fifth card, and there is also some reason to believe that he had discarded one card, the draw was interrupted by the shooting, and he never got the fifth card due to him.
The Stardust in Las Vegas had a 5 of diamonds on display as the 5th card; in the HBO television series Deadwood, a 9 of diamonds is used; the modern town of Deadwood, South Dakota also uses the 9 of diamonds in displays; and Ripley's Believe it or Not shows a queen of clubs.
Adapting to 7-card games
In five-card games, this category of hands can be succinctly defined as two aces, two eights, and one card of any remaining rank, regardless of suit. In seven-card games, a strict specification of aces and eights is more complicated: in permitting the existence of two pairs, a five-card hand as described also rules out any higher value. Among seven-card hands, as a contrasting example, any with two aces, two eights, and three cards with one other rank in common always provides both two pair and a full house, so a competent player would always set aside the eights and declare the full house; most players would probably thus not consider it a dead man's hand, any more than they would so consider a full house with aces and eights.
This guide is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia.
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