Darts: a game where participants compete with one another by throwing small arrow like devices at a target that is round and has numbers and sections and an inner bull with an outer bull and so on. Darts now refer to the standard game with a specific bristle board design and a set of rules. Rules that are general to the game and rules that govern games like, “501,” “301,” and “Cricket.”


Darts is a traditional pub game that was and is commonly played in the United Kingdom as well as other places in Europe and across the pond here in the America’s.


Wikipedia tells hits history in a terse form, i.e., “The dartboard may have its origins in the cross-section of a tree. An old name for a dartboard is "butt"; the word comes from the French word but, meaning "target". In particular, the Yorkshire and Manchester Log End boards differ from the standard board in that they have no treble, only double and bullseye, the Manchester board being of a smaller diameter, with a playing area of only 25 cm across with double and bull areas measuring just 4 mm. The London Fives board is another variation. This has only 12 equal segments numbered 20, 5, 15, 10, 20, 5, 15, 10, 20, 5, 15, 10 with the doubles and triples being a quarter of an inch wide.”


There have been a variety of darts created over the years but the most common today is the tungsten dart. There are electronic darts but for this blog and for my efforts in tossing darts I remain a steel dart fan and enthusiast. I am recommending a book for novice darters but only because it appealed to me and my studies and rest assured most of the dart books out there are outstanding. In short, find one if this one does not fit your needs and get it. I can tell you when I started to play over twenty years ago, before I laid down my darts in 96, I tossed darts for several years without knowing some very important and critical mechanics, etc., of the dart game. As I take up once again my steel darts I have found a fountain of information to help make the game both enjoyable and competitive. Enjoy, diddle for the middle and let the darts fly!

Friday, August 26, 2016

Dart Outs - Part II: The Short Game - Double Outs

Dart Arts Article/Post Caveat (Read First Please: Click the Link)

Optional Reading First: "Doubles Out Article"

The last article was about my attempts to hit outs for what they call a mystery out. One of the issues I have, returning to darts after twenty plus years, is doing the math for my 01 game outs. As any dartist will tell you, in darts the outs are like the ‘short game in golf’. You can often do the long drives where your only concern is driving straight down the course to reach the green with the fewest stokes. Darts is like this in the 01 games, long or high scores to reach the greens, i.e., a score of 170 or less, and then play the short game to achieve in three darts or less the out to win.

In the mystery out last night, because I have not memorized the outs yet and even my math is a bit rusty I was distracted enough trying to work out the system I was unable, without assistance, to find the out combination so I could focus just on the shot. I am an old fart at sixty-two and all that new stuff so late past my bed time left me so, “Confused!”

Well, modern technology comes to the rescue. No, there are apps to figure out scoring but none just to enter in one, yours, score to display out options. It won’t take me long to learn if I can combo my brain to a chart so I can figure out the outs on the fly but until then I need to have some ‘QUICK’ reference to help learn and still focus on the game.

I have an apple iPhone 5 and I took the Darts501.com free out chart, put a border around it to help its readability, sharpened the photo for better clarity to read on such a small screen (with glasses of course), loaded it on my phone then set it to display on the “LOCK SCREEN.” I did this because I have a six digit access code. Hitting the code, finding the snapshot and viewing it in a game was just too cumbersome and time consuming. So, putting it on the lock screen only means all I have to do is pull the phone out of my shirt pocket, hit the home button, and it will display the chart so I can read the outs and figure out new outs as I throw darts. I figure it is even faster than if they actually had a single person only out app to show outs. 

Here is the 501 out chart as I added a border that can be put on the standard iPhone lock screen wallpaper. Since the out chart is provided from Dart501.com for free in pdf I assumed this snapshot would be ok for free - of course. Here it is to download and set to the wallpaper. Also, it may work on the smart phones as well but since I don’t have one I can’t say for sure. 

“In order for any life to matter, we all have to matter.” - Marcus Luttrell, Navy Seal (ret)



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