They used a different deck of cards, and the rules were different, too. The games were much simpler, and almost all of them were what we would consider stud variations. In lawless areas like that, disputes over cheating could turn deadly quickly. It’s hard to even hear names like Doc Holliday or Calamity Jane without picturing a card game at a saloon in Deadwood or Tombstone. But other frontier towns also had lots of lawlessness and plenty of gambling. In the middle of the 19th century, the largest gambling destination in the United States was San Francisco. I saw it as an opportunity to create a new and interesting post on my blog. I used to link to a page about which poker games and card games were actually played in the Wild West from my links page, but the site took that content down. Scenes like that are a staple of the genre–maybe a little bit less so in some of the more prominent spaghetti westerns, but a staple nonetheless. You’ve probably seen plenty of examples of people playing poker games and other card games in the Old West.
