Dead man's hand Dead man's hand The dead man's hand is a nickname for a particular poker hand, popularly a two-pair of black aces and black eights, although definitions of the hand have varied through the years. Such a hand is said to have been held by Old West folk hero, lawman, and gunfighter Wild Bill Hickok when he was murdered. No contemporaneous source records this hand's exact cards, but Frank Wilstach's 1926 book "Wild Bill Hickok: The Prince of Pistoleers" led to the popular modern conception of the "dead man's hand" as containing pairs of black aces and black eights. In Hickok's
Bluff (poker) Bluff (poker) In the card game of poker, a bluff is a bet or raise made with a hand which is not thought to be the best hand. "To bluff" is to make such a bet. The objective of a bluff is to induce a fold by at least one opponent who holds a better hand. The size and frequency of a bluff determines its profitability to the "bluffer". By extension, the phrase "calling somebody's bluff" is often used outside the context of poker to describe cases where one person "demand[s] that someone prove a claim" or prove that he