[mikech]

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Because if you could, somebody would make this request every hand, and we'd get out about five hands per hour.

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slippery-slope fallacy. if it's unnecessary or just a form of harassment, the person requesting the count can simply be refused (and laughed at). however, when a potential all-in scenario actually arises in a hand, there's no reason that a player should not be informed how much money is at stake.

here's how a "count" scenario might play out: 25-50 game, i raise pf to 200, villain reraises to 700. i ask him, "how much are you playing, about?" he says, "30-ish. maybe a little more." i nod, and call.

on the flop i check, he bets 1k, i make it 3k, he calls. on turn i lead for 7k, he calls. river comes--and at this point the earlier approximate number's not good enough anymore. i also started the hand with about 30k, i'm not even sure who covers. he's got a thick stash of loose bills in front of him, so i ask, "how much do you have behind, exactly?"

now, i'm possibly about to make a wager upwards of 20k here, with a potential 60k+ pot hanging in the balance, and you're saying i have no right to a count? uh huh.

exact counts are necessary for fairness' sake, for the integrity of the game, and indeed for significant sums of $$$--what are the arguments against, that it slows down the game? that it'll lead to nuisance count-requests when that doesn't happen anyway and can be refused if they did? gimme a break.

echoing ghazban, in practice i have ALWAYS seen an exact count given when the situation required it. players themselves don't have a problem with it, but it's almost scary to think some rooms wouldn't enforce it.