Okay, here's the deal; deadlocks sometimes occur and you want to be notified as they happen.
So define an SQL Agent Alert on error 1205 to send you an e-mail notification... partially, but it won't work as error 1205 isn't logged.
How to get the error logged; either set the severity level to 19 or above when the message is created (does not apply to 1205) or flag the message to be logged to event log, which can be done using sp_altermessage... at least this was the way to do it with SQL Server 2000 but one of the changes for SQL Server 2005 says:
sp_altermessage cannot be used to change the logging behavior of system messages (messages with Message ID < 50000). To audit system messages, use SQL Trace and the User Error Message Event Class. For more information, see Introducing SQL Trace.
For SQL Server 2005 it used to be a dead end, but with as of Service Pack 3 it is again possible to alter sys.messages < 50000 so they are written to the Windows NT Application Event Log. Specifically for deadlocks you'd run:
EXEC sp_altermessage 1205, 'WITH_LOG', 'true'
but it would apply to other system events you want logged too.
Update 2009-04-08; issue fixed in Service Pack 1 for SQL Server 2008. For SQL Server 2008 (up until Cumulative Update 3) it is still impossible to alter sys.messages < 50000. Though it was mentioned (2008-07-28) at connect in FeedBackID=294122 that this issue would be fixed for SQL Server 2008 too, so far (2009-02-27) it isn't.
Besides the fact that the alert option is still impossible with SQL Server 2008, it can only tell you a deadlock occurred. Should you need more information on the deadlock however, your next option would be TRACE flags 1204 or 1222, the difference between the two of them being the amount of detail. Trace flag 1222 will be use during the post as it provides the most detail. Setting the trace flags writes the deadlock information to the SQL Server Error Log, but not to the Windows NT Application Event Log... so there's one two (and a half) option remaining:
Process the Error Log with the undocumented sp_readerrorlog as part of the alert response... but that won't work for SQL Server 2008 (yet) and you have a better option for SQL Server 2005. For more info see MSSQLTips.
SQL Server 2005 & 2008: Event Notification
SQL Server 2005 & 2008: WMI Alert, see MSDN
So next post will be on getting your deadlock info through Event Notification.