The primary reason is of course to do with doubling. However some very aggressive players double very early in the game when their game edge is marginal. There are many reasons for this but if an aggressive experienced player feels that his opponent is fearful of escalating the stakes then doubling early is beginning the process of dragging your opponent out of their comfort zone. However backgammon is unlike poker in that once a player has shown aggressive betting action then he can no longer continue the aggressive betting until his opponent has re-doubled.
Risk adverse players in backgammon will only tend to re-double if they have a powerful position. This is akin to the poker player who only ever bets or raises with strong hands. So what is the effect then of losing control of the cube? Well it has less effect when your opponent is less sophisticated and is also cautious. They will simply refuse to press small advantages and so losing the cube in this instance has less importance. If a game is being played for $1 per point then an early double would increase the stakes of the game to $2 per point where many risk adverse players may be happy to play a single game for a dollar.
Let us say that a strong player won 60% of the games against his opponent and doubled on his first throw each time. This means that he wins at least $120 over 100 games assuming that all games are singles which they will not be. Let us also assume that out of those 60 games that 35 are singles, 20 are doubles and 5 are triple games. This makes the total win $180 over those 60 wins. However of the 40 wins that their opponent gets then they win 30 singles and 10 doubles then this only equates to $100. This gives the strong player a profit of $80 over the 100 games or $0.80 per game.
The strong player can simply drop every time his risk adverse opponent re-doubles because he knows by counting that the situation is crushing for his opponent or has a clear lead that even a novice or intermediate player can play reasonably well. Why take the risk when you are making $0.80 per game?
