Everyone loves poker or so it seams when you are involved even a little bit in the poker arena. The poker boom of the last decade (both online and landbased) have brought forth many online poker rooms and many new stories about (in)famous poker hands, terrible bad beats and great feats of victory. The most famous hands are however those that have stood the test of time. At the absolute top of the list is "Dead Man's Hand" and "Texas Dolly"- those and a few others are the main topics here.

Texas Dolly

Back in 1976 and 1977 Doyle Brunson (now one of the absolute icons of the poker world) won the World Series of Poker twice in a row. Even though the tournament back then were quite small compared to the thousand of players these days after the online poker boom and its many new online poker tools and poker rooms, this was still a major achivement on Doyle's part. The funny or strange thing is that both years he ended up winning the final hand with the some 2 hole cards, namely T2. First of all generally not a starting hand you would ever choose to play and second a weird coincidence to win the tournament twice with the same starting hand.

In 1976, Doyle faced Jesse Alto who held Ace-Jack. Doyle's hole cards was the T2 of spades. Doyle being a big chip leader opted to call Alto's raise before the flop (not something I would have been happy doing myself). The flop came down A-J-10, Alto hit a very strong hand - top two pair and Doyle only a measly middle pair. Alto bets the flop and Doyle makes his pattented power poker all in raise at the absolute worst time. Alto calls and is extremely happy to see Doyle's mediocre hand. After the turn and river (a 2 and a Ten) Alto was stunned and Doyle the tournament champion with a Full House, Tens and Twos

In the 1977 final against Bones Berland Doyle ended up holding the T2 again with Bones having an 85. The flop came T85 - a great position for Bones who chose to slowplay the hand. Both players checked and the turn came 2 (just like the year before). Both now having two pair all the chips went to the center of the table and the river came T, again giving Doyle a Full House, Tens and Twos and his second championship.

Dead Man's Hand

The most famous and wellknown hand in Poker history (and my personal favorite since I am somewhat of a western fan).

The year is 1876 in the town of Deadwood - a rough miner's town in some of the last "Wild West" country. The discovery of large gold deposit in the Black Hills in 1874 had lead to the settlement of a camp that by 1876 were slowly developing in to an actual town. The now famous historic character James Butler Hickok (better known as Wild Bill Hickok) was playing draw poker on August 2nd in the local saloon. The excact details of what happened next are not clear but most agree that Bill was shot in the back of the head by "Crooked Nose" McCall. Why McCall did this is unclear, maybe he had been hired to kill Bill or maybe he was 'just' drunk or had an old grief either way the head hot was fatal and Bill fell to the floor holding his hand of AA88x. The two pair hand of AA88 has since gotten the name Dead Man's Hand. As to Bill's last cards accounts differ. It might have been a Queen or a Ten or he might only have had the four cards in his hand when he was shoot - having discarded the 5th card and waiting for a new from the dealer...

The amount of references these days to this situation are numerous. Obviously the actual scene has been played out in a number of movies and TV Shows such as the 1936 Cary Cooper western "The Plainsman" and the much recent award winning TV show "Deadwood". The scene in Deadwood is my personal favorite being simple, rough and pretty realistic. You can see several scenes from the show on YouTube. Other references to Dead Man's Hand can be found in The X-Files, season 3, 4th episode, a newer PC game called Dead Man's Hand, poker books and a number of songs just to mention a few places.

About the author:
Don D is the webmaster of the quality poker information site Cool Poker Guide - a high quality free online poker guide. Here you will find unbiased reviews of online poker tools, online poker rooms, poker books and more