OK, but now consider a different situation: At the showdown, there are two players left. Both of them turn their cards up, without any prompting from anyone. Player A has a low and Player B shows a set. The dealer grabs a stack of chips with his left hand and another with his right, preparing to push one stack to the high hand and one to the low, when suddenly a player not involved in the pot - let's call him Player X - points out that the dealer has misread one of the hands. It turns out that Player A not only has a low, but a straight as well, a fact that went overlooked not only by the dealer but by Player A himself. So, the dealer kills Player B's set and Player A scoops the entire pot. At this point, Player B tells Player X that he should have minded his own business, that it's "one player to a hand" - which brings us to the title of this column.
What Player B fails to understand is this: The moment a player - on his own - lays a hand flat on the table faceup (assuming he's in for the final bet) is the moment when the OPTAH rule ceases to apply and the "cards speak" rule takes over.
But even that distinction requires some explanation, for in many people's minds, the confusion on this subject is more fundamental. Part of the problem stems from a common misconception about the very meaning of the phrase "cards speak." Indeed, many times I've heard a dealer defend the person who made the correction by pointing out to the irate player: "No, sir, you have to understand, cards speak," at which point comes the response: "Yeah, that's my point, the cards speak - the players are supposed to keep their mouths shut! It's one player to a hand!"
This, of course, is a gross misinterpretation of what the phrase actually means. "Cards speak" refers to the principle that the value of any hand is to be found in its face value; in other words, the hand speaks for itself. But that is not to say that it speaks by itself. (The last time I looked, cards couldn't literally talk). The "cards speak" slogan is meant to convey that a hand is what it is, regardless of whether anyone initially misreads what it is. To put it another way:
The cards speak, but if the dealer mishears them, anyone who notices the miscommunication has a right to repeat what the cards actually "said."
In fact, in many clubs today, the players not only have a right to do so, but an obligation. While it is not yet industrywide, the following rule is popping up in more and more poker rulebooks: "Any player … who witnesses an incorrect amount of chips put into the pot, or an error about to be made in awarding a pot, has an ethical obligation to quickly halt the action and correct the problem." Clearly, no player should have to take flak for fulfilling what the house defines as an ethical obligation.
from
http://www.cardplayer.com/cardplayer...cards-speak-39