I hereby end my many-month cgp silence (trying to focus on work and being married) to address what is the worst suggestion I've seen on here in years.

A player is unsure if his scoring for a game is 100% accurate, and not having time to check it, feels his ability to choose plays has been slightly compromised and for that we reason we should amend the rules to allow clock stoppage during the critical part of the game for players to conduct recounts.

And everybody thinks this is a good idea!

There already is a mechanism for doing recounts:

If you want a recount during a game, do it on your own ****i** time.

In every close game I have, I recount the game in my head with the clock running and without disturbing my opponent. I started doing this after losing a very important game on a recount, and since then have had no victories reversed. Everyone has the right to do this. If you don't manage your time to your satisfaction so that you can do this, manage it differently. If you want to re-track all the tiles going into the ending, manage your clock appropriately. If you want to take all your time deciding where to place your opening HAZANIM, that's your choice. But time to play a game is certainly a finite resource, and shepherding that resource is just as much a part of the game as anything else. But when you don't manage your time correctly, don't think that the rules are the thing that need fixing.

Stopping the clock for a couple seconds to verify the cumulative total is certainly reasonable, but stopping the clock for several minutes at a critical juncture is insane. It's completely unfair to the player who doesn't feel the need to recount or already has done so on his own. And it is rife with potential for abuse. Just one example: one could easily simultaneously re-track while doing a complete recount. This is a just plain bad idea.

Last Modified 9/24/00

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