Hi,

I am new to backgammon and I was playing a friend for a good sized amount of money online. We sometimes forget to play with the doubling cube so on skype or something we will just ask to double. He was absolutly crushing me, but I saw that he had very little time on the clock left and was taking a long time to act. ( must have been doing something else on the side) So i agreed to double in hopes that he would run out of time.

My question is...
Do I get two points or just one? Does it depend how far he was ahead or anything?

thanks in advance

The doubling cube simply doubles the stake of the game each time. If it is the first double you are now playing for two points. If the cube is turned again it doubles again to four and so on.

If the cube is on two and you turn it again and your opponent does not decide to take it (ending the game there and then) you win the number of points shown on the cube before it was offered to your opponent (in this case 2). If they accept, the game carries on, only now being played for 4 points.

The game then continues until either the cube is turned again, or the game ends naturally (either through bearing off before your opponent or them running out of time), in which case the winner recieves the number of points shown on the cube.

If your opponent runs out of time you should win whatever points the cube is currently on.

Being ahead or behind has no bearing on it.

I have no idea if there are rules for timed cash games, but losing an automatic single can't be right- otherwise the opponent just times out every time he's going to get gammoned (same for gammon/backgammon). I'd think the fairest is for the person who didn't time out have the choice to let the game continue and then claim the single at any time.

Thread hijack here:

1) How big of an edge does one of the best BG players in the world has versus a beginner with the knowledge of a basic strategy? (In a match format)

2) Against an intermediate player who has a ~month to improve?

3) Are there any variance increasing tactics in backgammon that could reduce the edge of a superior player and replacing it with randomness?