"Seven-Toed Pete"

[Douglas G. Wilson]

>"Seven-Toed Pete" is an American and Canadian  synonym for seven-card stud
>poker.  Can anyone dig up any early cites or lore concerning this name?

At N'archive I find this from 1922, also "seven-card Pete" from 1926. I
don't know whether these are early or interesting.

There are also poker games called "three-toed Pete" and "lamebrain Pete".
Why "Pete"? I don't know. (Why "stud" for that matter?) Which came first?
Was there a basic game called "[five-card] Pete"? There is a (once popular)
card game named "Pedro": any relation?

Why "seven"? Seven cards, I guess. Why "toed"? The seven cards make a hand,
not a foot, so shouldn't it be "seven-fingered"?

One possibility is the "seven-toed" designation originally referred to a
cat: polydactyly is much more common in cats than in humans, and a cat with
a seven-toed paw is not too rare: maybe somebody thought Pete the 7-toed
cat provided good luck at the card table, or something like that.

-- Doug Wilson