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...
That was 350 in 6, don't undersell it
lol unreal he won
20k for winning.
Sure, it was only a 2 day event, but that’s rubbish
This is part of the World Series, a bunch of unranked invitational events to either grow the game in non-traditional areas or to otherwise create crowd revenue as they will be doing in the Netherlands next week. The PDC will be looking after the players in question for these events, you can ignore the prize money as that's generally an afterthought in these
This is part of the World Series, a bunch of unranked invitational events to either grow the game in non-traditional areas or to otherwise create crowd revenue as they will be doing in the Netherlands next week. The PDC will be looking after the players in question for these events, you can ignore the prize money as that's generally an afterthought in these
Ahh. Thanks
Fallon was in Vegas this weekend dogwalking the field. My god American darts is so depressing. The Vegas events are "big" tournaments here and have the energy of public access television broadcast out of someone's basement.
#Punting4Bunting
Never mind this unranked exbo, peak darts in the Dutch Open, Plaisier is down 2-1 in legs and 2-2 in sets in the final, sitting on 40 for a break and to throw for the title, other guy goes T17-D20-D20 to win it himself
Big bunting easy
BULLLLETTTTTTTTTTTT
Littler wins first PDC ranking event on second attempt, one of three players to hit a nine today as well
Who were the other two?
Bennett and Mansell
@sixfour
What are you throwing currently?
Ooh an exotic. Do you tinker with points, shafts, and flights much? It rarely crossed my mind until I ordered a bunch of different molded flights and realized how different they are. That's when I started paying closer attention to what pros are using. Is that something you keep an eye on?
I am nowhere near good enough to notice any sort of difference
Ooh an exotic. Do you tinker with points, shafts, and flights much? It rarely crossed my mind until I ordered a bunch of different molded flights and realized how different they are. That's when I started paying closer attention to what pros are using. Is that something you keep an eye on?
I believe that the setup (flights and shafts) matter just as much if not more than the dart itself. I would say try different combos of flight shapes and shaft lengths and try to notice which way your darts land in the board. Make sure that every dart lands in the same direction, if not it means you're not releasing the dart the same way every time in which case you should try to work on your form before anything else. Then try to see which way your second and third dart land when using the previous dart as a marker with each combination and just choose the best one based on those results.
^ Of course but that's basic stuff. I'm talking about the differences between molded flight systems. They're drastically different when grouping in that Robin Hoods are virtually eliminated but can lead to some weird deflections. I'd guess about a quarter of the top 30 OoM are using some kind of molded flight now, mostly the integrated ones and particularly the newer stiff resin material (Condor Axe, Target K-Flex, Winmau Fusion).
I need to try some of those at some point, but they seem pricey (probably ten times more expensive) compared to my standard setup when I'm nowhere near good enough to tell if it is the system that is improving the game or just random session to session variance
Heta won today's Pro Tour, Searle yesterday's after Ryan finished runner up in the first two last week, nothing now before the UK Open apart from some ET qualifiers and the first Dev Tour weekend
I need to try some of those at some point, but they seem pricey (probably ten times more expensive) compared to my standard setup when I'm nowhere near good enough to tell if it is the system that is improving the game or just random session to session variance
The advantages are
(1) no Robin Hoods
(2) maintain their 90-degree shape
(3) rarely come off the dart
(4) extremely durable*
*The important thing to know is that you can't have a lip at the point / barrel junction. If you do then expect to destroy them quickly while also getting horrible deflections. I burned through a few sets before I figured this out then finally switched to storm points, although you can probably get by with trident cones. Now I won't consider using non-molded flights. Here's how my current set of L-Style EZ look after two months of daily throwing:
I think the jury is still out on whether the newer integrated flight / stem systems actually allow for tighter groupings. They're designed to do that with the flexible and grooved shaft, but I haven't seen any convincing evidence yet. That said, it's simple in the sense that it's one piece you screw into the back of the dart and you're done. Condor Axe will set you back 15 to 20 quid however. Target K-Flex and Winmau Fusion about half that if you can find them in stock.
After throwing some of these side by side for a while I noticed that they aren't equal. In particular, the Robson Plus I found to be almost unplayable. Wild and unpredictable deflections regardless of which point was on the dart. I'm actually surprised that any pros are using them. See Christian Perez against Barney today (2nd dart @ 19:33). That's exactly the result I'd expect throwing into the back of Robsons. Can't believe he went for a third dart there.
UK Open starts tomorrow, already posted up thoughts but will get bets up later tonight
Nice writeup. What' the deal with Gates?
