Robert’s Rules of Poker, “The Showdowm Rule 2: Cards speak.”
The cards always speak. That’s a more important rule than one might first assume.
Hell, if multiple bracelet winner and poker legend TJ Cloutier can misread his hand, anyone can!
It also demonstrates that if you’ve called down to the river, it’s not a bad idea to show your cards even if you think you’ve lost. You never know! There have been cases where a player has incorrectly announced a winning hand only for another player to muck their cards that actually would have won.
I would have disqualified the offender for causing the problem and creating a delay. Besides, if you are so worried about security that you have to take your chips to the bathroom with you, it’s not the kind of tournament I would want to be in.
What does “The Cards Speak” mean? From context, it sounds like “the winner is the person with the best hand, no matter what anyone thinks”, but that’s so fundamental that the game doesn’t even exist without it, not something that even can be questioned.
That’s correct.
Some people play that each player must declare their hand, and you win or lose based on what you declare and not whatever your best hand might be. So if I have a flush but declare my 3 of a kind, then I’d lose to a straight.
But that’s the kind of house rules you’d see in someone’s basement, not anything you’d see in an actual tournament or among professional players.
That’s insane. Does it work the other way too?
“I’ve got a straight flush, again!” [lays down 5 random cards]
I’ve never seen anything quite that extreme. Then again, I’ve never seen a game like knoodler found himself in, where players looked at fold cards during play, so I hesitate to say never.
The actual hand you have is what counts, not the hand you thought you had – and probably declared.
Example, you thought you had a flush but it turns out it was a straight flush. You would beat someone who had a straight even though you announced, “Flush,” when you reveal your hole cards.
A flush already beats a straight. 
Sorry if it wasn’t apparent, I was being facetious.
LOL just imagining the scene, “I’ve got a straight flush!” laying down 5 completely unrelated cards, and confidently scooping the pot. Nobody says a thing. 
“Rabbit hunting” is when someone requests to see the remainder of the board runout after already folding when the hand is over. Sometimes tolerated in “house” games, but never in casino games.
D’oh!
First rule of poker: If it’s more than matchsticks it isn’t a friendly game.
As was I. 
Seems a good time to tell an old poker joke:
A group of retired cowboys are having their weekly poker game in the back room of Old Sam’s Saloon Bar when a confident young guy strolls in and asks if he can join them. Sensing an opportunity to take some money from a newbie, the group deals him in with alacrity.
But he starts winning, so much so that they become sure he’s cheating them in some way. Until it comes to a huge pot, with one of the old timers matching the young guy bet for bet. At the showdown, the young guy tables four of a kind - an almost unbeatable hand. His opponent calmly flips over his cards and reveals the 3, 7, Jack of diamonds and the 2, 6 of spades. Immediately his buddies cheer and begin slapping him on the back and congratulating him. “What are you doing?” the young guy protests, “He has nothing!”. “Sure he does!” one of them replies, “3 diamonds and 2 spades - it’s the Lollapalooza hand, beats everything except a straight flush.”.
The young man is furious but he’s heavily outnumbered and doesn’t fancy his chances if he makes a fuss. Instead, he waits for his next turn to deal, then fixes the deck to give himself 3 diamonds and 2 spades. Once again, one of his opponents matches him with large bets all the way to the end. When the betting is over, he triumphantly produces his cards, declaring “Hah - now I have the Lollapalooza hand, that beats your full house!”. “Sorry son,” says his nemesis, scooping the pot towards himself, “House rule - the Lollapalooza hand is only a winner once per night.”.
Heh. I once played strip poker with two women friends. They knew nothing about cards. Some hands I legitimately won. Others I told them my hand was a winner. An ace, three, five, seven, nine, of various suits? Odd hand, a winner, beats your full house!
The point is that what a person says isn’t relevant. If you have a straight and don’t notice it and say “Shit, I have nothing,” but your cards show you have a straight, you have a straight.
The point of the rule of course is to make sure the game IS as friendly as it can be. If you are playing for money, it’s critically important that the rules set out a game where you minimize angle shooting, angry misunderstandings, and the like. The cards speak objectively. They are indisputable facts. You don’t get into bullshit arguments over who said what or what a person’s intentions were; it’s the same reason you have rules about string betting, announcing one’s intentions, stuff like that.
Setting rules about what you declare your hand to be is asking for trouble.
Emphasis added.
How was it that neither the dealer nor the other players were yelling out, “Floor!” when it happened.
Yes and no. If a player shows another player their cards and then throws their cards face down, another player can demand Show-One Show-All and have the dealer turn the cards over to show the table. That has happened at a game I was in a few times.
But just grab mucked cards and turn them over to see what they were without paying to see? Not only is that a rules violation but at some places I played at, the best the offender could hope for was a beatdown later in the parking lot.
There’s no reason it couldn’t be a rule. In Cribbage if you undercount your points, not only do you not get them, but your opponent can claim them with muggins.
Except for in cribbage the strategy is purely in how you play your cards. The cards are the point. It’s a game of arithmetic.
In poker, the cards are just a way of determining whose betting strategy wins. The bets are the point.
They are two entirely different games except for both rely on calculating odds.
Of course they are two different games. I just said there needn’t be a rule that you can correct a bad claim. And actually if there is such a rule a player should never be allowed muck his cards after he’s called and the other person reveals his hand. How do we know he doesn’t have the winning hand but didn’t notice?