In 1999 I was developing software for a turkish gaming site which also included backgammon.

We had that feature and it was called "vido".
If you know the rules, the winner of a backgammon party can win either one point or two points (according to some rule-sets, even three points are possible but very very rare).

You get two points if, at the time when you are finished collecting all your stones, your opponent has not yet collected a single stone.

The particular meaning of this doubling cube in backgammon is "I guess I will finish all my stones before you collect a single one. But I don't want to take the risk of throwing terrible dice and losing a won game. If you agree, let's call it a one point win for me now, or if you don't agree, whatever result we have it will count double".

As a matter of fact, it not such an unheard of kind of thing. But it is also far from being standard practise.

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If you say no, Elwood and I will come here for breakfast, lunch, and dinner every day of the week.

I would not be surprised if more games are played in a city like Istanbul or Tehran daily than in the whole of the US. "Some casual players" in the Middle East (and elsewhere) are the main demography playing Backgammon, "competitive international backgammon" is a sideshow that most don't even notice.

When I first read about Go in a board games book in Eastern Germany, it gave an introduction about the game but felt obliged to mention the great innovations a Soviet master added to the game of Go. The insistence that Western competitive backgammon with doubling cube is standard backgammon and those others play a simplified version is even more preposterous than the claim about Soviet style Go in the book.

For what it is worth, I played hundreds of backgammon matches (or actually tavla) and never ever did anyone use fancy doubling cubes, the match was best of 9, there was gammon (or actually mars). It may be less appealing to mathematicians this way (less competitive), but ordinary people play games as a pastime. Maybe doubling becomes popular in the Middle East some day (helped by migration and online play), but until then: Do not claim doubling is standard backgammon!

This sounds way more interesting than bickering about the rules of backgammon. Do you remember what they were?

In Soviet bloc, you go.

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Tactics yes, Tact no...

That's how you do your 500th post in style.

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Occupy Babel!