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Can playing a friendly game of poker increase your chances of an early death?
If history is anything to go by, then chances are you might be putting your
health at risk by playing this card game. Hi, I'm Cliff Langston, and today we're
going to take a look at the Royal Flush:
the culprit to many poker players early demise.
As you can imagine, playing poker or any other game in which high amounts of
money are at stake can make your blood pressure and stress levels skyrocket!
The thought that you might end up losing all of your money is always in the back of your mind.
The only thing that keeps you going is the thought that you might end up winning it all
and taking home a grand sum of money. That's what it's all about right?
The possibility that you might turn your earnings into something more.
Well unfortunately winning hasn't always been the best of paths to take.
For example, on October 9th of 1921 a once in a lifetime hand
left a man dead. The gentleman was a retired tailor from New York who was
playing poker in a ten cent limit poker game.
During this game he just so happened to be dealt a Royal Flush.
His excitement and shock ended up causing him to fall over dead.
The medical examiner later diagnosed him as having a cerebral hemorrhage
brought on by the Royal Flush. If you're unsure as to what a cerebral hemorrhage is,
it is basically a spontaneous bleeding into the brain tissue.
Common causes of this type of hemorrhage are high blood pressure, diabetes,
cigarette smoking, and drinking alcohol frequently.
With this particular gentlemen it could have been any combination of these symptoms.
You never know. This is certainly not the first time that this type of death has occurred.
There have been other notable poker players deaths including the very famous Wild
Bill Hickok.
The hand that ended in his death was not a Royal Flush, but rather the hand famously
known as the dead man's hand. The dead man's hand consists of two black
aces and two black 8's accompanied by a fifth
unknown hole card. This was the hand that wild bill was holding when he was
fatally shot in the back in the head
by Jack McCall in August of 1876 in the Nuttal
and Mann saloon. As far as murdering someone during a poker game that doesn't
happen quite as much anymore,
however, the possibility of spontaneously falling over
dead due to a hand that was too good to be true is still a possibility.
Do you play poker? If so, why not tell us your best poker stories that you've heard of
or possibly experienced. Thanks for watching this quirky episode of That Was History.
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Well that's my time for today, and I'll see you next time.