Wednesday, August 14, 2019

An Abortive Outing (But a Good One)

On Monday night I had a couple hours to kill before I had to run an errand and so I dropped into the local knowing that there'd be a singles tournament starting at 7:30.  I entered the contest knowing I wouldn't be able to finish it, and the organizer was okay with that.  Since it was a double elimination event he figured that if I played poorly enough it wouldn't matter.

I didn't play poorly :)  I played two best of three matches before I had to leave and I won them both. The first 2-1, the second 2-0.

The first match was against a guy named Sean, and he won the first game, 163-160. We both threw a 1.9, which is a bit low for my taste, and I only had one good round which was a 5-mark on 20's and 18's, but I also had 2 dead rounds.  He out played me for the win but only barely.  The second game I clearly outshot him, 1.9 to 1.4, and the win was 114 to 16.  I also only had a single 5-mark round, this time on 20's and 19's, and I had 1 dead round in this game, near the end.  The last, tie-breaking leg was in my favor, 225 - 188, with averages of 2.4 (me) to 1.7.  But again, I had two dead rounds in that leg, and only one nice round, which was a 6-mark: T16 and T20 late in the game to close the open 20's and stop the hemorrhaging!

The next match I played I thought for sure I'd get smashed.  The guy was quite a good shot and hot, hot, HOT on the 17's.  Oddly though, I kept up and was able to win 2 - 0.  The first leg was a pitched battle.  He shot a 2.7, I shot a 2.9.  He had 2 5-mark rounds, I had a single 6-mark round.  I accumulated 341 points, he had 309 points.  My opponent, a San Franciscan transplant named Tom, hit a whopping 18 17's during the game.  I was only able to beat him because I had zero dead rounds, and was able to stay ahead in most numbers getting a little bit of points here and there to counter his incredible slew of 17's, and also because I hit 2 double bulls in the last two rounds to finally catch up in points and put a bow on it.  That was a great game.  And a fun one.

The next leg I also won, 96 - 87.  I hit no high-mark rounds but I also didn't have any dead rounds.  We both shot a 2.2, and in the end I was able to catch up in points and end the game by hitting four bulls in the last two rounds.  Bulls practice is helpful.

Then I had to leave which is too bad since I was still in the winner's bracket.  At least a couple of guys got a couple of free wins off me in my absence so good for them.

The darts I took with me were the 16 gram Harrows Magnums that I hit my last Ton-80 with at home:


As you can see, they are wearing white medium nylon stems, US Darts moving point conversions, and slim poly flights.  They are a nice little dart, although I wasn't wowing myself with them in competition like I was at home.

As you can see, everything fit into that little mints container, including an eye glasses micro-fiber cloth which is helpful for bespectacled fellows like me.

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