Ed, some more maths...

The chance of one player getting two successive doubles (of any value) and the other player not getting any is about 1/52 (5^2 / 6^4), which makes it fairly likely to happen during a game. The chance of one player getting three successive doubles and the other player not getting any is about 1/373 (5^3 / 6^6), which is unlikely but should be expected to happen at least once over 2 or 3 games. Of course, it'll always happen at the worst time for you (such as when they're moving pieces off and you're desperately trying not to be gammoned!) but that's just the way it goes...

Last time I played it on a board I lost to someone who'd never played before, which was amusing, but I had a computer version on my Amiga which played a pretty mean game. I never learnt any of the betting side though - anyone know of links to somewhere about that?

Graham.