Bill Hickok Poker
The card hand purportedly held by Wild Bill Hickok at the time of his death: black aces and eights The makeup of poker 's dead man's hand has varied through the years. Currently, it is described as a two-pair poker hand consisting of the black aces and black eights. Hickok was a brazen type who liked to drink heavy, play cards and serve justice. However, on a fateful August day in 1867, Hickok’s life would be forever linked with the game of poker. Join Planet 7 Online Casino as we look at “Wild Bill” Hickok – the American folk hero and gambler. Poker made Hickok famous because it was during an ongoing poker game in Springfield, Missouri, in 1865. It was at a poker game when Hickok got into an argument with David Tutt, a man who hated.
James Butler Hickok, born on May 27 1837 and famously nicknamed “Wild Bill Hickok”, was a heroic figure of America’s Old West. Aside from being an expert gunfighter and reputable lawman, Hickok was also a legendary gambler – his favorite game being Draw Poker. It was during the years following the Civil War that Hickok spent most of this time developing his poker skills, and he eventually came to be a professional player. However, it was Hickok’s gambling that lead him to his unfortunate end.
On August 2nd back in 1876, Hickok decided to head over to the Nuttal & Mann’s Saloon No. 10 in the black Hills of Deadwood in Dakota for a game of poker. Hickok was known to sit in the corner of the room so that he could foresee any attacks, yet this night his usual seat had been taken. Though every gambler knows better than breaking a lucky habit, he instead sat with his back to one door and faced another, and despite the game he could not manage to overcome the dread of being in the firing line.
Unfortunately, Hickok’s paranoia was vindicated – in the middle of his game, a hunter by the name of Jack McCall shouted “take that” and shot Hickok in the head with a brutal .45 caliber revolver. At the moment that he was shot, Hickok is believed to have held a pair of Aces, a pair of eights and a fifth card whose value disputed – some say it is unknown or was not yet dealt. It is for this reason that until today, Aces and Eights are morbidly called the “Dead Man’s Hand”.
People are still not sure what McCall’s motive was for killing Hickok. The most widely accepted story has to do with a dispute between the two men over gambling losses; the previous day, McCall had lost all his money to Hickok in a game of poker and couldn’t afford to buy himself breakfast. Hickok offered him money to pay for a meal, which apparently McCall received as a backhanded insult, or a condescending offer from Hickok. When he showed up at the Saloon the following day, he was drunk and still bitter at Hickok, and just shot him there and then.
A jury comprises primarily of miners held a trial soon after the murder, where McCall was mysteriously acquitted of the murder after confessing that he was avenging the death of his brother (caused obviously by Hickok). The papers that day disparaged the jury for what they believed to be a wrong decision. And indeed, after bragging about his sin, McCall was re-arrested and put back on trial. This time, McCall was found guilty and hanged. Following the execution it was discovered that he didn’t have a brother at all – probably the luckiest bluff of his life.
Since his death, Hickok has become a mythical American figure, but recently he has also become a posthumous poker legend. More than 100 years later when the poker industry began to really boom (1979), Wild Bill Hickok was inducted into the Poker Hall of Fame, as one of the only 3 players who have died whilst playing poker.
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Wild Bill Hickok. The very name conjures up images of dusty trails and pearl-handled revolvers and long blond locks and card games and why a cheater should never sit with his back to the door. Often confused with that other famous Bill, Buffalo Bill Cody, Wild Bill Hickok was a lawman and a gambler and a rambler and I guess he always will be. Hickok had all the attributes required for a Wild West legend and then some some. Unlike Wyatt Earp, Wild Bill Hickok had courage to go along with his good looks and skill with a gun. (In fact, Earp didn’t even possess that, really; Wyatt Earp’s only real talent with a revolver lay in sneaking up behind his victims and cowardly cold-cocking them.) By contrast, Wild Bill’s long yellow locks, penetrating eyes and heroism as an Army scout are not dependent upon highly fictional Hollywood recreations of factual events in the way that pitiful Wyatt Earp was.
Wild Bill also holds a place in gambling legend; when you bet on a poker hand made up of two Aces and two Eights, what you’ve got there pardner is what is known as the Dead Man’s Hand. Why? Because that is final deck that Wild Bill ever played; the hand he was holding when a young man named Jack McCall sauntered into the saloon in Deadwood, South Dakota where Wild Bill sat playing cards. Wild Bill Hickok normally made a habit verging on obsession of never sitting anywhere where his vision couldn’t take in a panoramic view of everything in sight. There was a good reason for that and a bad result the one time he lapsed. Jack McCall calmly walked up behind Wild Bill and shot him point blank in the back of the head not terribly long after America had celebrated her first 100 years of existence. Such was Wild Bill’s ferocious reputation that McCall’s explanation for his Earp-level cowardice was confined to these immortal words: “I didn’t want to commit suicide.” Even aged and slowed down by alcohol, one didn’t willingly do anything that might cause one to come to face to face with the barrel of Wild Bill Hickok’s pistol. One might well assume that Wild Bill Hickok was a legendary gambler because he really knew how to play cards, right? He also knows how to effectively master playing dominoqq. These games are considered to be one of the best online.
Wild Bill Hickok Poker
Once again the facts serve to sneak up behind history and shoot it at point blank. In fact, Wild Bill was not even close to be a master of the art of poker. Even though Wild Bill supported himself as a gambler in between marshalling gigs, his success was far more dependent on cheating than on any intrinsic ability such as being able to bluff or knowing the laws of statistical probability. In fact, Wild Bill Hickok almost never walked away from a poker game with his winnings intact unless he had managed to somehow cheat. But there was something else that contributed to Wild Bill’s amazing ability to make a living as a gambler with poor skills. The number of men with the intestinal fortitude to face down Wild Bill when he refused to pay up after losing was shockingly low. Wild Bill survived as a gambler not just by cheating, but by not having to shell out when he did lose.
Wild Bill Hickok Poker Hand When Shot
Wild Bill must have been some sight to play a game with. Easily ticked off and given to an almost manic need to throw himself body and soul into a poker game, legends about Wild Bill poker playing became almost mythic as time passed. Perhaps the most iconic story about Wild Bill Hickok’s unique approach making a living a gambler took place one night when he was playing in Iowa. At the time, Bill was a scout in the army and poker was the method of choice for making time pass. Hickok started losing and losing big and his notorious temper finally drove a stake into his heart; his blood pumping along with adrenaline, Wild Bill began to raise the stakes on one particular hand. The money was enormous and it was a cinch that whoever won the hand would walk away, content to stay temporarily liquid. Bill’s primary opponent in the game showed three jacks, to which Wild Bill countered with a full house constructed of Aces over Sixes and threw the cards triumphantly down onto the poker table. There was only one problem: Wild Bill Hickok had said he had a full house, but the cards on the table revealed that Bill had actually held only two Aces, not three. Even worse, he’d been holding only one six and not two. what Bill was really holding, McDonald erupted in a fit of anger, telling Wild Bill that he only saw two aces and one six. When his poker opponent dared to suggest that Wild Bill had perhaps been somewhat less than totally forthcoming, Wild Bill reached for his revolver with one hand and a great big shiny knife with his other and said, “Here’s my other six, and here’s my one-spot!”
Bill Hickok Poker Hand
The method by which Wild Bill Hickok’s Iowa poker victim reacted was in the form of four words that the long-haired lover of Calamity Jane must have heard countless times during his life. “Take the pot, Bill.”