Take it or drop it

The cube decision, as a decision rather than a definition.

Your opponent has offered the cube. You either take — the stake doubles and you play on — or drop, conceding the current stake immediately.

The arithmetic is short. Dropping costs exactly one point, every time. Taking wins you 2 when you win and loses 2 when you lose. Those break even when you win one game in four, which is where the famous 25% take point comes from.

Two positions. Same offer, different answers.

Step 1

You are black, a little behind in a pure race. White doubles. Take or drop?

Take. You are behind, but nowhere near badly enough to give up a point for nothing — you win this comfortably more than one time in four, and you now own the cube and may double back later.

Step 2

You are black, on the bar against a nearly closed board. White doubles. Take or drop?

Drop. You cannot enter on five of the six numbers, and while you sit on the bar white is bearing in. Worse, many of these losses will be gammons at double the stake — so the real take point here is well above 25%.

The 25% figure is a floor, not a rule. Gammon risk pushes it up: if a serious share of your losses will be doubled again by a gammon, you need more than a quarter to justify taking. Owning the cube afterwards pushes it back down, because the right to double back is worth real equity.

Which is why the cube is the part of backgammon that rewards judgement most, and the part a coach is most useful for.

Rules stick faster when something is at stake.

Play free

Take it or drop it

Step 1

Step 2

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