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, September 23, 2016

Diddle for the Middle

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

Diddling is how the dart artists determine who throws first in a match. What I find different from the European way of diddling is this, i.e., “Europeans determine who goes first by throwing and hitting the double bull or the single bull or as close to the single bull as possible, etc.,” and “Americans determine who goes first by throwing to the double bull but even if both hit the double bull they measure who comes closest to the absolute center of that double bull.” Hmmmm …

I like the European way, i.e., toss the bull and if both hit the double bull they re-throw until one or the other goes outside the double bull. This also applies if both hit the single bull, they re-throw until either one or the other hits the double or either one or the other misses the bull while the other hits the bull - single or double. Make sense?

Doing it this way, the European way, leaves no room for contesting just how close one is compared to the other especially when it is so very, very close. 



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