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 being the five-card-draw hand held by Wild Bill Hickock at the time of his murder (August 2, 1876). It is accepted that the hand included the aces and eights of both the black suits; 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."

There are various claims as to the identity of Hickok's fifth card and there is also some reason to believe that he had discarded one card. The draw was interrupted by the shooting and he never got the fifth card he was due.