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**Guy Macon**

(Why did you post this to rec.games.chess.politics?
It has nothing to do with FIDE or USCF politics.)

wrote:

If we agree that owning a 2-cube has the same theoretical
meaning at owning a 4-cube or 16-cube (or whatever level)

Are we allowed to factor in human psychology, or are we
assuming a perfectly rational player? To a real human,
there is an intangable value to seeing which way the
game goes, and a variable cost to making a bet that
approaches his net worth.

Even assuming a perfectly rational player, he has a finite
net worth, and thus a point comes where he *must* resign
rather than accept the double even though he has a 90% plus
chance of winning, because he cannot cover the bet.

That being said, none of the above assumptions leads to an
infinite number. A bet that is twice what he can afford to
cover is the same as a bet that is four or eight times what
he can afford to cover -- none are attanable states. Thus
the doubling cube itself does not make backgammon infinitely
long / unsolvable.

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-- Guy Macon http://www.guymacon.com/