The Random Darts Discussion Thread
This thread made because of the hijack created in the English Premier League thread.
Darts is one of the most popular pub sports in the world, and collects a decent TV audience in the United Kingdom, Europe and around the world. Like snooker, there is some decent money at the top of the game, and the best player in the world, Phil Taylor, made over 1MM pounds this year IIRC, with his prizemoney for winning the last World Championship being a quarter of a million pounds.
Anyway, this weekend is the last day of the newly formed World Cup of Darts, contested in two man teams. Like the world cup of football, it involved a number of countries (24 in this case) a group stage, semi's and a final, and some epic English fail.
In the qualifying rounds the top 8 teams (England, Netherlands, Australia, Scotland, Wales, N.Ireland, USA and Canada) played a weaker team that had won an initial qualifying round in a short, somewhat high variance best of 11 legs match. Spain went on to beat England 6-5 and knock them out before the group stage.
Today is semi-final and final day. In the first semi-final, Netherlands beat Spain 4-0. The second semi is on now, Wales for Australia. The format for the semis and final is 4 singles matches and a doubles match, just like the Davis Cup tennis, but the doubles is played last and worth double. If it ends 3-3 a sudden death leg is played, almost equivilent to a poker flipament. Its good theatre and a decent sport if you have someone to get behind.
Currently Simon Whitlock (AUS) is playing Mark Webster (WAL) the match is locked at 3-3 first to 6 and the tie itself is locked at 1-1 Webster and Whitlock winning their first doubles.
Oh, and LOL darts...
semi serious question - is the 6 months pregnant physique an advantage. has anyone looked into this
it feels like being physically fit would confer some small edge in terms of being able to focus and practice for longer periods, but i'm wondering if there's a centre of gravity effect at work
That an ex-pro rugby player and former world champion lost to Brendan Dolan should answer your question
Meanwhile Luke Woodhouse is playing a really small violin
semi serious question - is the 6 months pregnant physique an advantage. has anyone looked into this
it feels like being physically fit would confer some small edge in terms of being able to focus and practice for longer periods, but i'm wondering if there's a centre of gravity effect at work
I was wondering about this too. Like is there some advantage to having a higher body fat % when you do one repetitive motion that puts stress on a specific joint or set of joints.
I highly doubt it.
Darts is just really popular with fat blokes so makes sense the best darts players also happen to be fat compared to say, elite footballers
but in comparison to other sports/games with small physical components such as chess, backgammon, snooker, pool etc you see virtually no gentlemen of carriage at the very highest level, but almost all of the darts masters have that very specific pear shape
but in comparison to other sports/games with small physical components such as chess, backgammon, snooker, pool etc you see virtually no gentlemen of carriage at the very highest level, but almost all of the darts masters have that very specific pear shape
I always just assumed that this was due to most competitive darts matches being played in pubs?
semi serious question - is the 6 months pregnant physique an advantage. has anyone looked into this
it feels like being physically fit would confer some small edge in terms of being able to focus and practice for longer periods, but i'm wondering if there's a centre of gravity effect at work
I've thought about this about a hundred times over the years. If it's actually the case that it's an advantage I doubt anyone will ever know for sure, at least not for a long time. Sample size of elite pro players isn't big enough. It wouldn't surprise me if it's actually the case though that it does in fact give some sort of advantage.
Most of the things I've heard about why the top pros are mostly very fat is that they all throw for 7-8 hours a day and don't end up getting in gym time aside from their darts, or just don't care to because they've never done it in the first place. You'll get tons of opinions on whether it's an advantage or not though from people saying that it's definitely/probably not an advantage, or definitely/probably is. But none of them actually know.
One thing I do know is that I hope guys like Gerwyn (who is obviously generally quite fit and still goes to the gym regularly) can bring a change to the game and we start to see more fit players at the top of the game. It is more healthy after all. Despite him being an absolute legend already, Luke Littler looking the way he does at 16 is sad.
A lot of beer and no exercise leads to that physique.
you play at your best when you're relaxed and im not sure in that case it helps to be ripped but (a bit of) booze does help
Speaking of body types, the two Luke's clearly swapped theirs. (Pic is 4 years ago at some pub tournament from PDC instagram post today)
How the hell do I find a darts stream these days
as much as it is my god given right and duty as an englishman to take the piss out of the fact that he looks like a plumber in his late 30s, he seems like a super cool kid and i hope he takes this **** down
Cross appears to have started brilliantly
****ing hell the tension lol
hot take - cross is going to get on a roll and the kid is going to fall to pieces
Just took out 142 and 149 like it was no problem
Half way there
lol in that leg Cross was on a 9-darter after 6 darts and didn't even get to throw his 10th. That is mental.
its gonna hit him in the middle of this that there's half a million quid to the winner (which purchases approximately one third of his home town of warrington with plenty left over for a luxury kebab supper)
