Playing Card Tattoos

Perhaps a Royal Flush of Hearts or Spades. Maybe 4 aces, Deadman's Hand or the Texas Dolly.





The dead man's hand is a two-pair poker hand, namely "aces and eights". The hand gets its name from the legend of it having been the five-card-draw hand held by Wild Bill Hickok at the time of his murder (August 2, 1876). It is accepted that the hand included the aces and eights of both of the black suits; although his biographer, Joseph Rosa, says no contemporary citation for his hand has ever been found, the "accepted version is that the cards were the ace of spades, the ace of clubs, two black eights (clubs and spades), and either the jack of diamonds or the queen of diamonds as the "kicker". (1)



Texas Dolly
Three decades ago – more precisely in 1976 and 1977 – now poker lengend Doyle Brunson won the World Series of Poker twice in a row. The tournament back then was a lot smaller than the thousand of players in the WSOP and large online poker tournaments these days so you might not think much of this but that would be wrong. Doyle bested a field of the worlds best players twice and that is still a great feat. The strange thing – and the reason for the hands fame - is that he had the same two hole cards in the final hand each year – the T2 (Ten Two). Not generally a starting hand you would choose to play and statistically very unlikely (especially since it ended up a full house both times)

Doyle played against Jesse Alto in 1976 whose final hand was an Ace-Jack. Doyle had T2s (Ten Two of spades). Doyle must have thought he could out play Jesse on the flop because he called Jesse’s raise before the flop with a measly Ten Two. Actually a very typical move for Doyle with his Power Poker playing style. The flop, A-J-10, gives Alto a very strong hand – top two pair – and he must have been pleased when Doyle moves all in. Alto calls and is happy to see Brunson’s middle pair hand. The turn (a deuce) gives Doyle 4 outs but Alto is still confident when the river shows a Ten and it is all over. A devastating blow for Alto who loses to Doyle’s full house (Tens full of Twos).

The year after the match up is Doyle against Bones Berland. Doyle again having the T2 in the final hand. Bones hole cards are 85 and with these poor starting hands there is no action pre flop. The flop (T85) leaves Bones in a good postion with two pair and Doyle having top pair. Bones tries to get maximum value by trapping but the play backfires when the turn card is a 2 – giving Doyle the best two pair hand. Both players are all in on the turn and the river is a Ten – not helping Bones. Doyle has won again with the same full house as the previous year, Tens and Twos. (2)

(1) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_Man%27s_Hand
(2) http://www.buzzle.com/articles/a-few-famous-poker-hands.html