frolind: On the other hand, if the cube were taken out of play, the player
who is behind would have to win a bunch of undoubled games in order to
recover. This would give being one point away from winning too much value.

i think being one point away from winning should be valued this high .. the battle to reach that amount of points has been done .. and won by the player who is only one point away from winning ..

i think it would be the same as to give a player a chance to pass a 6-wide block (maybe just by throwing 6+6 or something like that :)) .. because the block is too powerful

If the Crawford rule remained in effect for the rest of the match, this would make it too hard to catch up, which would give too large a reward for a lucky early win.

hmm .. true .. i forgot about the luck .. a player could be lucky enough to reach that 'one point away from winning' .. it doesnt have to because of a 'battle'

it's just one more thing that has to be explained to people who are new to match play

hehe .. thats me .. and proving it :)

proposed replacing it with the rule that you have to win by two points (like in tennis, etc.) This rule would also eliminate a lot of the 'anomolous' cube action that comes up near the end. The problem was that organizers objected that a match could go on 'forever' with the players swapping one-point leads. I kind of like the idea anyway. But no one else does ;-)

i do! .. great idea!

(i play squash .. and always have the idea i can still win although i might be 8-0 behind in points .. in squash at 8-8 the player who is not serving has the choice to finish the game at 9 points (as normal) or at 10 points .. that might be a nice option for backgammon as well .. when the player is 2 points from winning and the other player is 1 point from winning .. then the player can chose to add 1 more to the total amount of points to be reached ?)