🚀 go-pugleaf

Here's a question that some of the experts in this group
might want to comment on:


The Crawford rule says that, in an n point match, doubling
is not allowed if one of the players has reached n-1 points.

The motivation behind this rule seems to be the following:

e.g. 5 point match, X leading 4-3.

If O were allowed to double, X's previous advantage of being
in the lead would become irrelevant. The match could as well
be 3-3, in any case, the decision on who wins the match will
only depend on the final game.

Now, my question:

Does this rule only apply to cases in which one player has
n-1 points, or is it also applicable in the following, more
general situation?

n point match, the leading player has p points.

Rule: The cube must not show more than n-p points!

(This is the Crawford rule for p = n-1.)

E.g. 9 point match, X leading 5-1;
the cube may be doubled up to 4, but no further.

The motivation is the same as for the Crawford rule: a player
who is behind will not be able to reduce his disadvantage by
doubling to such an extent that the opponent cannot profit
from the extra points they might win.

Is this rule valid? If not, why? Is the more general rule a
reasonable extension to the Crawford rule?


-- Andreas


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Andreas Rueping

Forschungszentrum Informatik an der Universitaet Karlsruhe
Bereich Programmstrukturen
                                        e-mail: rueping@fzi.de
Haid-und-Neu-Strasse 10-14              phone:  (+49) 721 9654 617
D-7500 Karlsruhe 1                      fax:    (+49) 721 9654 609
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