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
Dead man's hand in popular culture episode in the short-lived U.S. radio drama series, "Frontier Gentleman." The story includes a fictionalized version of Wild Bill Hickok’s last card game as witnessed by J. B. Kendall, the London "Times" reporter who was the title character. In the story, Kendall is at the table, playing with Hickok and McCall. The story was presented twice during the 41-show run of the CBS series, using different actors (i.e., not a recorded rerun). The Dead man hand can be seen on an abandoned dust-covered table on the lobby of Walt Disney Studios Park's The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror. Dead Man's