To some superstitious players, receiving the dead man's hand is unlucky. After all, it was unlucky for Bill Hickok, who was murdered seconds after receiving the cards. Still, if you win a game of poker with a two pair (eights and aces) the dead man's hand would cease to be unlucky!

In the Hearts family of card games, the queen of spades is usually considered an unlucky card; it is the eponym of the Black Maria and Black Lady variants of Hearts. The player who ends up with the queen of spades after a match scores 13 points (points are to be avoided in this game).