Dicey Situation

[Simborg]

Black on roll, cube action?





This came up in a money game recently, and in our game, black doubled. It was a chouette, so there were several players in the game. I can understand why black doubled...he does win a lot of gammons, and in money backgammon you cannot get the extra points for a gammon unless you double (it's called The Jacoby Rule). So black doubled to "activate" gammons.

Two people dropped. It was a big blunder to double, because black is not even favored to win the game from here, but if you get drops, considering the human side of this game, it's a great double. They were lucky that I, and a couple of others in the game who knew it was not a double, did not breaver (turn the cube to 4). I should have beavered and easily won this game as white.