Please please offer the doubling cube as an option!

Players would just pass the cube back and forth a quintazillion times to have a 8000+ rating after 1 game.

You only win the match vs one player.  

You wouldn't carry the points to another match.  

The trick / insight / value of the doubling cube is not to offer it too early 

(just slightly ahead).   If you offer it when just one pawn ahead, then any mistake can turn the tables and you've gone sour on two games not one:

Example, one pawn ahead in a first to 5 out of 9 match against one player:  

you offer the double.  Now you're playing for 2 games.

You lose a knight, now he's ahead and he can double you back.  So you either take the cube and play for 4 games, or you now decline and lose two.   Shouldn't have doubled so soon. 

Case 2:  Your ahead a queen, a knight, and three bishops.  You finally offer the double.  He declines and the game is over.  You won one game.  You waited too long, but at least the game doesn't drag out to the bitter end, when he accuses you of cheating because you have three bishops. 

Case 3:   You're playing a slightly stronger player.   You get a knight ahead.  You double, hoping he will take it and you win.  You hold strong and win, now you're 2 games to zero due to his arrogance. 

You only can win the one match.  Points don't carry over unless it's not a match, you both agree, and you're just playing dozens of simultaneous games, month after month, year after year.

Then you have two scores:  Actual wins vs lose against that player. 

And "doubling cube" points. 

If you care about both scores, you would need to continue playing to the natural end, but then we're not talking about a player who is irritating to you, rather, someone you enjoy always playing with. 

For the stranger, if you agree to use the cube, then let's say the weaker player gets ahead.

He might by chance get ahead, offer the cube, and win "two game points"

So now you have a great incentive for the weaker player to accept a rematch, maybe he'll stay ahead, or maybe the stronger player will come roaring back.  Either way, the weaker player has an advantage which he may desire to see through.   Let's say he wins game #2, now he's got 3 points.  

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Bottom line, the great joy of the cube is learning when, exactly to offer the cube, and when to decline.  Being a game down - or ahead - in a best of 7 game match changes the risk.

It requires you to know yourself, your abilities, how likely you are to blunder, how likely you are to martial your position to a victory, etc.

It could be especially rewarding to someone who understands board position values.  Let's say you have a pawn on the 6th or 7th rank, and the guy offers you the cube because you're down six pawns.  You take the double, and pass the pawn, getting a queen, thus being 3 pawns ahead, now you might double back. 

I got to double back, my friend.
The only way to find, what I left behind
I got to double back again, double back again.

- ZZ Top, Recycler

Reviving because I think this is a great idea. This would serve as incentive against players who drag out games even when they know they have very little chance of winning but just do it to run out the clock. I support to have this option included, chess.com

And it doesn't even have to be double but just extra incentive points. Maybe 1.05. And cap it out after a certain number of doubles (backgammon is 6)

Yes.  And I think it would be easy to offer to two willing players who play each other a lot of games.  

Thanks for seconding the idea.  I think it would also help players self-examine more.  I assert it's ideal to know when I'm in a losing position so I can go ahead and resign and restart a neutral game where I have a chance to learn something instead of being chased around like a wounded mouse by a cat.  Weaker players need to learn how to play better, not hope for the one in twenty games where they can catch a better player sleeping. 

Have you all noticed that it is mostly low rated players who have bizarre ideas on the rules of Chess and want to invent weird variants?

I think the ability to be rude is like a contagious disease that can end up unchecked and, sadly, can destroy relationships between friends and family without intent.

I had not noticed that because I did not check other commenters ratings, but it makes sense it would be that way. I play chess recreationally and am not particularly concerned with my rating and whether it goes up or down. I go on chess.com to play when I have free time and, as Southwest describes, I am more concerned with self-assessing an improving my game and not chasing around a wounded mouse or viceversa to scrape some rating points from a bored player. Or, spending 15 min waiting for some equally low-rated player who wants to run out the clock to see if I quit, or drag out a game waiting for a blunder instead of resigning an obviously lost game - 10 points or more on the exchange. This scenario doesn't happen with more advanced players because they don't make the same blunders and the games are usually very close until the end game.

In my case, and from most of the others I read in the post, what is being proposed is not some weird chess variant but a solution to an issue that many of us are experiencing playing chess in a faster-paced, online setting. It doesn't necessarily have to be doubling the stakes but some other incentive for people to not play one the clocking waste others' time. The suggestion to doubling should be optional so that those of us who want to engage in a faster chess can engage and it won't affect the "purists".

Chess.com has already taken steps in this direction in that it forfeits games if a player doesn't make a move after a certain amount of time. And it's great but it they can definitely do better.

It's an excellent idea.  Chess has an inherent flaw, the time wasting factor of losing players.  

The doubling cube is a way to solve that problem when you don't have a chess clock handy, and reduces the pointless games one is obligated to endure while pining away for a better opponent.  It's adds depth to backgammon in a different way, element of risk. 

The rules could be that a draw results in the next game automaticly doubled. This would speed up the match.

Doubling Cube makes chess more interesting.  I used to play doubling cube.  It puts more skill into the game.,

However not many players are skilled enough in  math to play,  And for sure chess.com will not allow this type of play.