This week’s “Poker & Pop Culture” column focuses on the gambling gunfighers Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday.
In real life, their stories intersected a few times, with the lawman and dentist most famously meeting up in Tombstone for the legendary “gunfight at the O.K. Corral.” Most agree the actual fight only took thirty seconds, with the “good guys” (Earp, his two brothers, and Holliday) dominating the outlaws (the Clantons and McLaurys). But later on it was embellished and expanded considerably, especially in the dozens of films later made featuring Earp and Holliday.
There a few stories about both Earp and Holliday playing poker, although they’re mostly lacking detail other than perhaps mentioning a location, and the stakes or amount won or lost.