Poker Alice and Wild Bill Hickock
Poker Alice-a woman takes a place in a man's world
Alice Ivers Duffield Tubbs Huckert (1851-1930) was born in England. Her family moved to Virginia where she attended school to become a fine lady. Ivers' family moved to Leadville, Colorado where she eventually met her future husband, Frank Duffield. A miner, Frank would often let her sit behind him while he was playing cards and she soon became fluent at the game-a boon to Alice's later career. When Frank was killed in a mining accident, Alice was left to fend for herself and quickly found that her affinity for playing cards would provide for her income.
With a good head for counting cards, figuring odds and distracting male players with her looks, Alice soon became a professional gambler always seen with a cigar in her mouth. She worked gambling rooms in Alamosa, Georgetown, Trinidad, Central City and Leadville before heading south to Silver City, New Mexico.
She was also know to carry a.38 revolver with her and used it on several occasions including one in which she saved her soon to be next husband, W.G. Tubbs, by shooting a drunken miner who pulled a knife and threatened to kill him. She married Tubbs shortly after.
Perhaps the most memorable story concerned the death of Tubbs some time later. In 1910, Tubbs contracted pneumonia and died in Alice's arms. She then drove his frozen corpse in a horse-drawn sled to Sturgis, 48 miles away, and pawned her wedding ring to pay for his funeral. After that, she went straight into the saloon, sat at the poker table and won enough money to get her ring back.
Factoid-At one time, Poker Alice worked at a saloon that was owned by Bob Ford, the man who killed Jesse James
The Wild West has many more true stories involving such legends such as Wild Bill Hickock whose famous "Aces and 8's" hand spelled his death and the eternal name for the draw of that hand. There is another story about Wild Bill that came to be an eerie prediction of his last hand. The story goes that Wild Bill was in a poker game with a man he suspected of cheating. When the cheater called a hand and asked Bill what he had, Hickock replied, "Aces and 6's". Upon showing his hand, old Bill just had a pair of Aces and a 4. The cheater demanded to see Bill's 6's and called Bill on the Bluff where upon Bill pulled out his two six guns and said "here are my other two 6's", and promptly shot and killed his opponent.