I've heard something along these lines from recreational players multiple times of the years. They genuinely believe that speech play is fine and you can say anything about your hand except for revealing your specific holdings. If you tell the truth about what cards you have in your hand then your hand is considered dead.

Anyone else heard this? Anyone have any idea on the origin of this? It's like a poker rules urban myth.

I'm sure it's something along the lines of:

1- Table talk is fine, encouraged, and the most exciting part of what I see on TV, but

2- Telling another player what you actually have before showdown is wrong and cheating, therefore...

There was one year where the WSOP rulebook said that you could lie about your hand but not tell the truth. It was apparently a poorly written rule that was supposed to simply keep people from saying what the had, whether true or not. It was made more clear the following year. Hands are never killed for it but you may face a warning or penalty after the fact.

I think it is mostly urban myth at this point. There may have been isolated cases over the years where a floor invoked the rule due to a pattern of soft play, possible collusion, or someone who just won't shut up during multi way pots. "If you say what you have again I'm going to kill your hand."

Yeah, I think it probably came from tournaments where you are not supposed to be revealing the contents of your hand at any time, but never would a hand be killed as a result. It is basically urban legend, but you should never talk about the contents of your or your opponents hand ever during a tournament. In a cash game you should only do it when heads up. Some rooms have their own rules about it though so be aware of them.

I think there was a period of time where the rule was you could be penalized if you talked honestly about your hand, but not dishobestly. I was threatened with this rule in 2014 (Card Player event). The table was fast, loose, and talkative, mainly due to a certain well known player who likes to pretend to raise or shove blind. For whatever reason, a trash hand like T4 had won and then would have won subsequently a few times, so of course the joke was always that you had T4 when the board would have connected with it. I made that same joke when I actually had it (it would have been kind of a tell if I didn't make the joke). The other player half joking, half not joking threatened to call the floor and get me penalized (hand would still have been live), but relented because he didn't want to change the loose, crazy atmosphere at the table.

So yes, there was a time when this rule existed, but it would not have resulted ina dead hand.

I've seen European posters mention that is occasionally a rule there. I've never seen it enforced in the US.