culture
Five hands we could check.
Famous hands are retold more often than they are looked up, and every retelling is a chance for a suit to move or a bet size to grow. So this page carries five of them rather than fifteen, each with the source that prints the cards, and it says out loud where two sources disagree.
the hands
Johnny Chan against Erik Seidel
1988World Series of Poker Main Event, final hand
Chan, both sources agree on these
the board as Card Player prints it
Chan limped with jack nine and flopped the nut straight on queen ten eight. Seidel raised the flop with queen seven, both players checked the turn, and Seidel moved all in on the river into a hand that could not lose. Chan called and took his second title in a row. Wikipedia and Card Player print different suits for Seidel, so his cards are named here without them.
Chris Ferguson against T. J. Cloutier
2000World Series of Poker Main Event, final hand
Ferguson, calling all in
flop, turn, river
Cloutier moved in with ace queen and Ferguson tanked for several minutes before calling with ace nine, which was a large underdog. The board paired kings and then dealt a nine on the river. Ferguson won a field of 512 players and 1.5 million dollars, and the two sources we read give different suits for Cloutier, so his hand is named without them.
Chris Moneymaker against Sam Farha
2003World Series of Poker Main Event, heads up
Moneymaker, king high, no pair
flop, turn, river
Blinds were 20,000 and 40,000. Moneymaker raised to 100,000 with king seven and Farha called with queen nine. Both checked a flop that gave Farha top pair. On the turn Farha bet 300,000 into 210,000 and Moneymaker raised to 800,000 with a straight and a flush draw, both of which missed. Farha checked the river and Moneymaker moved all in with king high. Farha folded a pair of nines.
Doyle Brunson against Jesse Alto
1976World Series of Poker Main Event, final hand
Brunson, the hand now named after him
Alto held ace jack and had much the better of it when the money went in on a flop of an ace, a jack and a ten. A deuce fell on the turn and a ten on the river, giving Brunson a full house and the title with 220,000 dollars. He won again the next year with the same two cards, which is why ten deuce carries his name. Our source gives the board by rank only, so no suits are shown here.
Gus Hansen against Daniel Negreanu
Televised cash gameHigh Stakes Poker
Hansen, the smaller pair
flop, turn, river
Negreanu flopped a set of sixes and Hansen flopped a set of fives, which is the worst possible way to be behind. The turn gave Hansen the fourth five and the hand was over before either player could get away from it. The pot was 575,700 dollars. It is the standard example of a cooler: nobody misplayed anything.
the hand that is a story rather than a hand
Jack Straus won the 1982 Main Event after being reduced to a single chip, and the phrase a chip and a chair comes from it. That much is solid. Almost everything else about the story is softer than its retellings imply: Wikipedia states plainly that accounts vary, and that the moment happened early on the second day rather than at the final table where people tend to place it.
We keep it here because the correction is the interesting part. The lesson survives the uncertainty in a tournament, where being short is a position rather than a verdict, and that is worked out properly in the lesson on tournament play and in the page on multi table tournaments.
what these hands do not teach
Four of the five hands above are famous for the card that came last. Brunson made a full house on the river twice, Ferguson caught a nine, Hansen hit the case five. Those are the moments that get replayed, and they are the exact part of poker that no player controls. The glossary calls the version of it that hurts a bad beat, and the reason it feels personal is covered under variance.
The one hand on this page that is genuinely about a decision is the 2003 bluff, and it is instructive for an unglamorous reason: Moneymaker had a straight draw and a flush draw when he raised the turn, so the bet had two ways to win before the bluff ever had to work on its own. That is what a semi bluff is, and it is the difference between the hand and the highlight reel.
next step
One hand a day, judged before the river falls.
The daily hand gives you a real situation and asks what you would do, then shows what the numbers say. It is the opposite exercise to reading a famous hand: no outcome to be impressed by, only the decision. Free, no account.
questions
What is the most famous hand in poker?
The bluff Chris Moneymaker made against Sam Farha in the 2003 World Series of Poker Main Event is the one most often named, because it was televised, because it worked with king high, and because the man who made it had qualified online for a small entry fee and went on to win.
Why are there only five hands on this page?
Because these are the five we could read at a source that prints the cards and the board. Famous hands attract retellings, and retellings quietly change a suit or a bet size. A hand we could not check does more harm on the page than it does missing from it.
Why do some hands here have no board?
Because the source gives the ranks and not the suits. Rather than pick suits that make a nice picture, we print what the source prints and say so.
What is the ten deuce hand?
Doyle Brunson won the World Series Main Event in 1976 and again in 1977 with a ten and a deuce, in both cases making a full house on the river. The hand is named after him because of those two finishes and not because it is worth playing.
Did Jack Straus really win from one chip?
He won the 1982 Main Event after being down to a single chip, and the details beyond that are less certain than the story suggests. Wikipedia notes that accounts vary and that the moment happened early on the second day rather than at the final table, which is where popular retellings tend to put it.
Does knowing these hands make you better at poker?
No. A famous hand is famous because of what happened after the money went in, which is the part nobody controls. What is worth studying is the decision before that, and the same hands read very differently when you look at them that way.
sources
Every card, board, amount and field size on this page comes from one of these, read on 30 August 2026. Hands we could only find in summaries we could not verify are not here at all.
- Wikipedia, World Series of Poker Main Event
Entrant numbers and winners per year, and the hole cards of the 1988 final hand. Where a figure on this page is a field size, it comes from here.
- Card Player, WSOP History, 1988 Recap
The only source we read that carries the full board of the 1988 final hand along with the betting. Its suits for Erik Seidel differ from those on Wikipedia, which is why this page names his cards without them.
- Card Player, WSOP History, 2000 Recap
The 2000 final hand between Chris Ferguson and T. J. Cloutier: hole cards, the full board, the field of 512 and the first prize of 1.5 million dollars.
- PokerNews, Analyzing Moneymaker Bluff of the Century Against Farha
The 2003 bluff street by street, with blind level, stacks and every bet size. A second PokerNews article on historic hands prints the same cards and the same board, which is why this hand is on the page in full.
- PokerNews, Five of the Most Historic Poker Hands
The 1976 hand between Doyle Brunson and Jesse Alto, the Gus Hansen and Daniel Negreanu pot, and a second reading of the 2003 bluff.
- Wikipedia, Jack Straus
The 1982 chip and a chair story, and the reason it appears on this page with a warning attached: the article itself says accounts vary and places the moment on day two rather than at the final table.
Back to poker culture, or read how the same discipline applies to money in the page on the biggest pots.