Poker is packed with strange history, weird hands and stories that sound made up but mostly are not. Here are some of our favourite poker facts, a few you can drop at the table and a couple that are really more legend than gospel. Where something is just a tall tale, we say so honestly.
1. There is a hand called the “Dead Man’s Hand”, two black aces and two black eights. The name goes back to Wild Bill Hickok, who is said to have been holding it when he was shot from behind by Jack McCall in 1876.
2. “Anna Kournikova” is the nickname for A-K, a hand that, like the tennis star, “looks good but rarely wins”, since unpaired A-K still has to improve to take down big pots.
3. Richard Nixon was a seriously sharp poker player. He was good enough that his first run for the House of Representatives was largely funded by poker winnings from his time in the Navy.
4. Pro player Tom Dwan started small, building an online bankroll from scratch as a teenager and turning it into millions over the next few years. He became one of the most feared high-stakes players in the game.
5. One desperate player put his wife into the pot to stay in the hand after running out of money. He lost. She was so furious that she left him for the winner.
6. As the poker lore goes, an early Microsoft engineer, from the world behind features you still see in Word today, later played poker at a very high level. It is a great story that gets retold a lot, even if the details are hard to pin down.
7. A Texas billionaire sat down for ultra-high-stakes games against several top pros, convinced their play would crumble under the sheer size of the money. Phil Ivey promptly took him for a reported eight figures in just a few days.
8. One 18-year-old turned a tiny bankroll into around five million in a matter of months, then gave it all back just as fast. Variance is brutal even at the very top.
9. For years you could not play Texas Hold’em in public cardrooms in Texas. Commercial poker rooms sat in a legal grey area, with operators leaning on loopholes to spread games, an odd punchline for the state that gave the game its name.
10. The first WSOP champion to qualify through an online site really is named “Moneymaker”. The story goes that his ancestors were German coin minters who anglicised the name “Nurmacher”, so it is the real deal, not a stage name.
11. One professional reportedly lost track of his sports car for months because he simply forgot where he had parked it. Long sessions leave their mark.
12. In the history of the WSOP Main Event, no champion has ever clinched the title holding pocket aces on the final hand. One famous runner-up held them twice on the final hand and still lost.
13. At the Angola Prison Rodeo there is an event called “Convict Poker”. Four inmates sit at a table in the middle of the arena and play it cool while an angry bull is released. The last man still seated wins.
14. The Bird Cage Theatre in Tombstone is said to have hosted the longest poker game in history, running almost nonstop for over eight years. As the legend goes, millions changed hands before the game finally ended.
15. Ben Affleck is a genuinely strong player. He won a California State Poker Championship that came with a six-figure prize and a seat at a major championship event.
16. The Yakuza supposedly take their name from a losing hand in a Japanese card game, where the values 8, 9 and 3 (“ya-ku-za”) add up to a worthless score. It is a popular origin story, though historians still debate it.
17. Men are technically allowed to enter the Ladies Events at the World Series. The fee structure is set up so that the effective buy-in for men is much higher, which keeps the field women only in practice.
18. The phrase “passing the buck” is said to come from the American frontier, where a knife with a buckhorn handle marked whose turn it was to deal. A player who did not want to deal could pass the “buck” along, which is also where today’s dealer button comes from.
19. For poker players, “Black Friday” means April 15, 2011, the day the US Department of Justice indicted the three largest online poker sites and seized their domains. With that, US online poker ground to a halt almost overnight.
20. One player reportedly won an entire tournament after looking at her cards only once, a nice reminder that position, reads and aggression often matter more than the two cards in your hand.
Poker facts FAQ
What is the Dead Man’s Hand in poker?
It is the pair of aces and pair of eights (all black) that Wild Bill Hickok was said to be holding when he was shot dead in 1876. Today the term is used for that exact two pair, aces and eights.
Why is A-K called “Anna Kournikova”?
It is a tongue-in-cheek nickname. Like the tennis star, the hand “looks good but rarely wins”, because unpaired A-K still has to improve to win big pots.
What was poker’s Black Friday?
April 15, 2011, when the US Department of Justice indicted the operators of the three largest online poker sites and seized their domains. Real-money online poker for US players stopped almost immediately.
Has anyone won the WSOP Main Event with pocket aces?
Not on the final hand. In Main Event history no champion has clinched the title holding pocket aces, and one famous runner-up even held them twice on the final hand and still lost.
Can men play in WSOP Ladies Events?
Technically yes. The buy-in is structured so that men pay a far higher effective entry, which keeps the field women only in practice.
