<P> 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 . These and an unknown hole card were reportedly held by Old West folk hero, lawman, and gunfighter Wild Bill Hickok when he was murdered . </P> <P> The expression "dead man's hand" appears to have had some currency in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, although no one connected it to Hickok until the 1920s . The earliest detailed reference to it was 1886, where it was described as a "full house consisting of three jacks and a pair of tens". Jacks and sevens are called the dead man's hand in the 1903 Encyclopaedia of Superstitions, Folklore, and the Occult Sciences . Edmond Hoyle refers to it as Jacks and eights in 1907 . </P>

What gunman was holding the dead mans hand