Yes cube is too important, but i would not put its importance higher than that of checker play! Ask a simple question: Can someone that doesn't know to play a good checker play, have any possibilities to win anything good, even if he knows well when to double and when not?
The question of who has the advantage, someone with better cube play but inferior checker play against someone, is simply not well defined....
Anyway a general idea is: Checker play + Cube play are impartible! No one can go to the success room if he is good only to one of these....Both are needed.....
Pythagoras: Yes, both are important, but I would rate the cube higher. And the more "luck-dependent" the variant, the higher premium I would place on the cube. I've won multi-point matches of hyper on this site where I've won as few as 1/3 of the rounds.
pentejr: I agree the cube is very important, but even a good cube decision can be undone by bad checker play.
Hyper checker play is not all that difficult, so the cube seems very important here. I've found that many people miss an obvious double which ends up costing them.
grenv: Yes, I agree with everything you just said. I also found that when the cube was first introduced, hyper players would take the most outrageous doubles, sometimes giving up 4 (or 6) points where they should've given up just 1.
pentejr: I think that once you reach a certain level of checker play, the cuve becomes more important. A person who is horrible at checker play will not beat someone who is great at checker play regardless of skill with regard to doubling. But when the skill level of the two players are both high, the one who is a better cube player will often beat the better checker player.
Hrqls: .
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They don't double their effectiveness! Imagine they double and the opponent accepts and they lose because of their inferiority at the checker play. So they have a double loss.....
Pythagoras: hmm true ... but isnt a good doubling decision also based on knowing ones capability to finish the game, and to know the difference in skill in the game ?