The One That Got Away

This one is for kdog.

Sunday night and I am just hanging with the dog and grooving on this here Johnny Cash.

John Henry said to his captain, A man ain't nothin' but a man.
But if you'll bring that steam drill round, I'll beat it fair and honest.
I'll die with my hammer in my hand but I'll be laughing
'Cuz you can't replace a steel driven man.

Flipping through some old pics I saw on that reminded me of kdog's last comment. This pic is how I think of his balancing act shot that 'got away'. I have had this shot for a long time. I do not remember when I had this happen but I stashed it away in a folder somewhere and just figured I'd blog it eventually. I have a lot of shots like that. The longer I wait though the less topical they become and the less I remember the circumstances or why I took the shot in the first place.


The pic above for example. I don't shoot with the GT's as much as I used to. They go in and out of fashion and these days I mostly shoot with my 16 grammers but I have had out my 12 gram darts in the last few days. Another clue that really dates that photo is the Sprialine flights. I used to be really hot on the Spiraline flights but not so much anymore. Perhaps I will get back into them someday but for now I am stuck on my Dynastar system. I sent some Spiralines to my buddy Barn in Seattle and he ended up wanting more of them (at the time - not sure about now) and just a few weeks ago I sent some to mcvickj. I am anxious to see his opinion of them.

Also take a look at the board. That is my old bandit. I hang an Eclipse now. Take a look at the bullseye in this secong pic. You can really seee the wear in it. The Eclipse is quite pristine compared to it.



This is a nice picture though. A good tight grouping in which one dart slips off the others and is caught by the flight. Just hanging there not wanting to fall to the floor. As if it were afraid of the certain death the distant floor represents.

John Henry told the captain, Tell the kind folks don't worry.
That ain't nothin' but my hammer suckin' wind! (It keeps me breathing.)
A steel driver's muscle I intend.

A Well Balanced Dart

Tossing 60s practice I hit one of these "Balancing Acts" which for me are far more rare than even a robin hood. You can aim for a previously thrown dart, afterall, but you cannot aim for a balancing act.


These are my 24 gram Mega-Thrusts from Bottelsen, with standard hammerhead points and a Dynastar back end. I am still waiting for my low profile conversion points so I can make these fixed point without them being ugly. I am infinitely patient. I guess.

20 gram GT2's

I have traded these darts away to Wazza in exchange for some customs he had made for his soft tip days. Although these are no longer a part of my collection, I wanna leave the picture up.

Care Package

I received a care package this morning from my friend Beni Petris all the way from the Swiss Mountains! The care package contained two awesome things: A Euro Board and a record with some dart related songs on it:


The Euro board is quite special for several reasons. First, it is a bristle board of the highest quality. This is special because normally when you see promotional boards or anniversay boards from banks and non-dart companies, etc. they are of the cheaper paper-wound variety so that they can print both sides. This one is bristle. The second reason it is special is because it is a twelve bed board numbered one through twelve. This is unheard of. The only other twelve bed boards I know of are the Ipswitch and London 5's boards and they are numbered 5, 10, 15, and 20, times three. Thirdly, I am pretty sure this is a limited edition board, which makes it pretty rare. A good find. Thanks Beni!

The record is the most awesome thing I have ever seen. I put it on as soon as I opened it this morning. The small record, 45 RPM, has two songs (one on each side). The Side A song is the very peppy and up beat BDO Theme Song "180" which inspires an involuntary jig when listened to.

"One hundred and eighty, one hundred and eighty,
Everyone tries for the maximum score..."

Side B has a more lilting and slower tempoed Bobby George Theme Song, which starts:

"One hundred and eight,
That is what my life is all about..."

Both are fun songs. I hope to find their digital versions someday. Both items will be blogged in much more detail when I have more time!

The guy who sent these to me is the very same guy who got me interested in collecting dart boards in the first place. I discovered the wonderful variety of dartboards the first time when I say his page dedicated to his boards. I happen to know that he has many more boards than he is showing on his page because I have seen his ebay moniker pop many times in auctions. So everyone please visit his awesome collection and then write him (find his contact link) and tell him to post all his boards!

Thanks Beni for the awesome package and I hope all is well for you in the Alps!
Zeeple

New Boards Coming In

I have not posted in quite a while. This is for many reasons the first and formost of which is the awesome weather, and not the least of which is the tireless adventurousness of my dog, Sequoia.

There is also the fact that my darts interest has been ebbing low lately. :(

However some exciting news. I have had a number of really interesting boards come in lately that I have not blogged yet and hope to blog soon. Here are some of the boards I have received, and have in my possession waiting for a blog entry:

1. Winmau Casino 301
2. Snooker by Marks & Young
3. Harrows Quadro
4. Blade MX by Unicorn
5. Unicorn Eclipse Pro

And I am also waiting for a Blue 12-Bed Euro Board which my friend Beni Petris sent me from Switzerland.

One reason I am holding off on blogging these boards is because I want to be able to mount them and take good pictures of them. And I will soon be getting some sort of fancy Wall Clamp from either Unicorn or Winmau courtesy of the sweeps over at www.paulwilliamsdarts.co.uk. Thus I won't bother until I have that also in my posession (also to blog about).

More to come!

14th Lifetime Ton-80

The jinx of 13 maximums is over, if there ever was such a jinx. You see I hit my 14th lifetime ton-80 today while throwing a set of darts that Mcvickj sent to me. The darts are quite nice although they have the unusal property of being a little difficult to configure well.


The darts weigh in at a cool 23.6 grams each according to my handy dandy electronic gram scale and they are quite short. This gave me the impression when I first picked them up that they were a little heavier than they actually are. I was guessing they'd weigh in at about 26 but I was wrong on that. None the less I attempted to configure them as well as I could at mcvickj's request and I think I have found the correct solution. I dressed them with in-between length nylon curvy stems and smooth poly pears. I tried a lot of different combinations but this worked the best for me, and the ton-80 above seals the deal.


Mcvickj and I have engaged in a dart swap. I sent him my Dagnabits for him to try and he sent me some purists and these guys. I am working on the purists now... incidentally, here was my first pic with mcvickj's darts:


Don't worry mcvickj... the stem is in good shape. The stem ring protected it!!

Unlucky 13

I hit my 13th lifetime Ton-80 today while playing a match against Rob Stark in the Paul Williams Darts Non-Webcam online dart league. Sounds like a mouthful but it is really just a group of dart players using instant messaging and www.ezchalk.com to play against each other in a semi organized way. Hahaha.


Seriously the online league is a lot of fun. I am finishing dead last but that's okay the league seems to have attracted some real dart talent. Rob Stark is one of the guys I can occasionally beat and we trade off whooping each other on a fairly frequent basis. Todays match was my turn as I beat him 4 legs to 1. Two of the legs could have gone either way as we both kept missing the out shots.

The game in which I hit the above Ton-80 was my best by far out of the gate but I barely squeaked out the win. I was stoked to open with 121 but the 180 that followed really made my day. I could have lost the match 0 to 5 and still be happy as a lark. A maximum will do that to me. Actually that game was very interesting, after the first two rounds I went downhill not hitting too much of anything but I almost took out 102! I missed the first dart into the single one, and with 101 remaining and two darts to spend on it, I decided to go triple 17, double bull. I hit the trip 17 but missed the double bull by the skinniest of wires. With 25 left it took me so many darts to finish I lost count. I finally landed a dart in the nuthouse to win but by then my average was down to 41.58!!

From the pic you can tell i was using the 16 gram Radarts that I tout so highly. They are wearing the Dynastar System. This seems to be a very good combination for me.

5 Count Conference Call

I haven't posted for a while so I thought I'd throw up a quick pic of this 5 count in the bulls I hit while on a conference call. I was stoked not only because it is difficult to do but because I was throwing an old set of nickel silver darts that I have not used since the very earliest days of my darting hobby. These are the 20 gram Halex darts I first bought when we were switching from soft to steel:


Also, one of the reasons I am digging through all of my old darts is because I am digging on my nylon dynastar stems and flights and I wanted to see how they do with my other sets. In the past couple of weeks I have worn them on almost all of my sets and some perform better than others. Throughout all of the experimentaion, though, I seems to be always gravitating back to my 16g Radarts. Those are some special darts and I wish I could find another set!

24 gram Bumble Bees

My beautiful wife, whose opinion is invaluable to me, has determined that this is the best possible configuration for these darts. As always, her taste is flawless. And indeed when we still lived in Seattle and we would occasionally go to the bars she would use these darts exactly like this. I have also thrown them so configured and they are surprisingly easy to throw well. My normal opinion of micro shafts is that they belong on really long darts or no where at all, but here they work. These darts I bought from Mueller a few years ago and when I bought them they were called 20/20's. These days you see them around the net as "Chunky Stubbies". I think of them as my Bumble Bees. I do not throw these very often and that is partly because I used to think that they are so hard to configure well. They need either a really long stem or a short aluminum stem, and require a standard sized flight. Since then however, I have learned how to throw a small flighted dart. I think I'll give these another run.

Points: Fixed
Barrels: 24 gram 20/20's
Stems: Micro Aluminum
Flights: Smooth Mini Polys

Rediscovery

I am very glad I decided to back blog my various collections. This way I can simply go to the Month that holds the collection I am looking for and peruse. Usually I keep all my darts in their cases in a box in the attic or somewhere else due to the occasional bout of minimalism that comes over me. So when I am feeling restless with a particular set of darts I can take a quick look at my collection without having to break them all out. I know what I have by scrolling down the page. I did this the other day and saw my KC's by Laserdarts and decided to break them out and see how they did with the nylon dynastar stems I have been using lately.

Wow am I glad I did. I have been burning up the board with them. A week or so ago I did a best of three match against mcvickj on ezchalk and I won in two. And that is saying something because he is quite a good shot! In practice with them I hit several 120+ shots a couple ton-40's and even a Faux Max. The hat trick shot below is what made me think of the idea of "rediscovering" darts.


It seems that one of the benefits of owning a lot of sets of darts is the opportunity to see starkly how your throw has changed. And I believe that sometimes our throw changes without our realizing it. It is similar to owning a puppy and thinking that she seems to have stopped growing but your neighbor says: "Everytime I see her she is so much bigger!" Because we live with our throw every day we do not notice the microscopic changes that settle in. But pickup a set of darts you used to throw with and it is more obvious that something is different. The KC's for example were fun when I first got them but I eventually set them aside because I thought they just were not throwing well for me. Now I think my throw has improved to the point where I can use them with reasonable success.

Changing stem or flight preference is another great way to rediscover old darts. I have fallen back into the spinning flight frame of mind and I have been using my dynastars lately. I have changed my stem and flight preference many time in the past and it seems that when I do I always break out the darts again thinking, "I wonder how these would do on GT's..." etc etc. In the weeks the have passed since I started this post I have now moved on to my old favs the 16 gram Radarts with dynastar stem and flight.

I like them quite well. ;)

The Dynamod Generation 2

My first attempt at the dynamod lasted for a couple of years or maybe more before I was forced to find a a new system. The fatal flaw with the first system was that I was using the rubber gasket from the GT push-in shaft system and the rubber dried up and got weak. And moving the dynamods from dart to dart and back again (I have several weights of GT darts) further weakened it. I guess it was inevitable that the system would eventually break down. The next generation of dynamod is much more solid and much more movable from dart to dart.

While dart surfing one day I came across the spinning flight system over at www.a-zdarts.com and noticed something I'd never seen before. The Pro-Line Dynastar stems. They are these tiny little stems with very small threading designed for the Dynastar (or Pro Line) dart line. I bought a set of them hoping it would be the same thread size as what is used for the GT stems. Alas, it was not. The pro-line stem was much smaller threaded than the GT stems and did not fit the GT at all. I shrugged it off as a failed experiment and set it down for a while.

But look:



I found a way to do it. I ordered a sample of surgical micro-tubing for a different project I'd been working on and I decided to see what would happen if I used a small length of that tubing as a buffer between dart and stem. So I screwed the pro-line stem into the capilary tubing first, cut the tubing off at the end of the stem with a razor, and then screwed that into the back of the GT dart and voila! Perfect fit. It is snug too. I can try pushing the stem left and right and there is virtually no give so it is as if the threading were in the perfectly. In fact it is so snug that I needed to use some plyers to finish screwing the stem in the rest of the way. In the picture you can see the stem, the 2ba adaptor for the stem, as well as the stem in the dart itself. I am very happy with this arrangement, and I have been throwing the Gen-2 Dynamod on my 20 gram GT2's for a couple of weeks now very happily and I have seen no signs of weakness in the new system. However, I have commisioned the creation of yet another generation of dynamod!! More on that later.

The Dynamod Generation 1

For those of us who really like the GT line of darts and who also really like the Dynastar stem and flight system we are constantly caught betwixt two opposing worlds. The GT takes only it's own proprietary shaft system and the dynastar stems come in either 2ba thread or this other very tiny thread meant only for the "Pro-Line" line of soft tip darts.

Oh, East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet,
Till Earth and Sky stand presently at God's great Judgment Seat;
--Rudyard Kipling

However, there is good news: I am working steadily at forcing Earth and Sky before the Judgement Seat with at least two different modifications, and maybe a third, for the dynastar system, which I am dubbing the Dynamod. The GT line of darts is just absolutely terrific. I cannot sing it's praises highly enough. The taper is so salient and supple that any person is compelled to pick it up and throw it at something. The progressive forward weightedness of the dart barrel is very forgiving and will correct many subtle flaws in form and execution. Thus it is the perfect barrel style for me.

I feel similarly about the dynastar system. I like the free spinningness of it, as the slightest whisper of a breeze will send it into a blurring frenzy as it spins on the little wire stem effortlessly. The molded flights are always square, and the whole system resists robin hooding better than any other stem and flight system out there. So it just seems natural to somehow strive to combine the two systems into one dart.

My first effort at this unholy union can be seen below. It all started one night when I was tossing darts and I was using a dynastar stem in a regular, 2ba threaded dart. The stem was nylon with the nylon part very short and the wire stem longer. I did something and I cannot remember what but the result was that the little wire stem came clean out of the nylon base!! I was surprised to see that the stem came out so easily, but nonetheless there it was.

This was back in the days when GT darts only had the push in style stems that had the little rubber housings that held the metal stem that pushed into the back of the dart (oddly hard to describe...). It occured to me to wonder if perhaps the wire stem that has come loose from the nylon base of the dynastar stem might not fit into the rubber gasket portion of the GT stem. Alas it did not. However, it spawned the following idea:


What I did was I wrapped some scotch tape around one end of the dyna-wire to make it thick enough to fit in the gasket snugly, then I bought some of the heat-shrink tubing from a hobby store. I cut the heat-shrink tubing to fit and used my heat gun to form it onto the entire assembly. The result was a slightly unattraactive dynamod for my GT's. When I first put this ssytem together I had not yet started blogging and I did not have a digital camera, whatsmore I only had my 28 gram GT's. I do not have a picture but the dynamod is easily transferable to any GT dart. The darts in the pic above are 20 gram GT2's. This was my dynamod for several years. Until the rubber gasket from one of them broke off inside one of my darts!! Time for a new plan. More to come.

12th Lifetime Ton-80

Last night I was in an excellent beer bar for a Belgian beer fest and they had a dart board. So my friends and I got up to toss a couple. It was only a soft tip board, but we had fun despite that short coming. I'd forgotten how big the targets are on a soft tip board!! I happened to have my "just in case" darts with me which can be configured for either steel or soft, and for once in a long long time, I was required to load the plastic tips instead of the steels to get some darts in. Here is the set we used, and which I ton-80'd with:


They weigh in at 17 grams in this configuration. As seen they are wearing dynastar stems and flights and have the lightest, brass, insert in them to make them light ennough for soft tip. When I have them built for steel tip I have the tungsten inserts in them which adds about four mor grams per dart. We started out playing "Cricket/200" and to be honest I have no idea what the heck the 200 means, as I tried to get 200 points to win but that didn't work. I ended up having to close everything and then I won. After years of steel tip the soft tip world has become a mystery to me. At anyrate the guys I was playing with were not very good but they enjoyed it well enough. I talked them into playing SIDO 701, and in this game I got several tons, a ton 40 and this is when the ton-80 occurred. I do not have a picture unfortunately. I asked the guys if they had a picture phone and they said no. :( I finished that game with a two dart out. I had 73 left, stepped up to the oche and hit trip-19 double-16 as casual as you please, still holding one of my darts. It was fun.

But I wish they'd had a steel tip board.

Fairway Darts

I found this board on ebay and managed to win it uncontested for ten dollars. Probably the best deal I have ever seen for a dartboard. The board itself is a sisal board and as we all know, unique and rare sisal boards are nice to find. Paper wound unusual boards are a dime a dozen as are many of the American made wooden dartboards. But since a sisal dartboard is so much more difficult to make than a wooden board (the process and materials I mean), and so much more expensive than a paper wound board, there are fewer of them.

Fairway darts is the third golf related board I have purchased for my collection. It isn't as well known as the Par-Darts board (I had never seen it before) and not as complete or pretty as the Club House Golf board but it is still a nice high quality board. I have scoured the internet looking for mention of this board and I have not seen a single reference anywhere. Not a mention in any google page or dartboard collection page. This is good from a collector's perspective because that makes it rare, but it is bad because I have no idea who made it, and no idea what the rules for the game are.

So here is a call for help: anyone with any information on this board, the maker, the era, or the rules, please let me know. Thanks!

What's Your Point?

The point puller I ordered from Mueller just arrived last week and I have had some opportunity to use it although only one one set of darts. I am waiting for some conversion plugs to arrive from Jeff Pickup, which is the real reason I got this puller. The puller was half price which I was quite happy about but I suspect the doubled the price before halving it because it was still pretty expensive!

The puller came with two different size allen wrenches. One is for tightening the small block doen on the point to be pulled from (or pushed into) the dart. That one you use constantly. The other allen wrench is much smaller and is for replacing the part that screws into the shaft hole of the dart. The replacement is if you are putting new points on 1/4" threaded darts, of which I have only a few. The whole mechanism came in a cheap plastic dart case.

My first project was to put a set of one inch hypo points on my fixed point megathrusts. When I bought the darts they came with these very long English style points which I wanted to replace from the get-go but never had the means to do it. As you can see from the photo below that point puller was equal to the task but there were two problems. The first is that the point was not straight in the dart. I think this is because the hypo points taper immediately with no initial cylindrical part of the shank. This was easy enough to correct by hand. The second problem was that after a haalf a dozen rounds or so I got back to the oche and discovered one of the darts didn't have a point!! The point stayed in the board. Upon investigation I discovered that the hole had become looser and the points could go in and out by hand. Not good.


So I then decided to see how easy they would be to remove by hand and too my horror I was able to pull all the points out by hand with little difficulty. As well as push them all the way back in by hand. So what I am thinking is that perhaps this particular set of darts I am working with had loose holes and I couldn't really expect the points to stay in with friction and a tight fit alone. So what I did was to coat the points at then end where they enter the dart with lock tight and stick them back in the dart. This seems to have worked as I have thrown a few games with these darts and the points have not come out. It remains to be seen if this device will be useful for anything other than pulling points out of darts. Could be that the points have to be glued in and that forceful pushing is not required.

What you see below is everything that came with the puller except the case which was just a standard dart case without the little crappy plastic molds in it. All in all I am glad I bought it, but I have not used it much yet. Once I have all the pieces I am waiting for I will be sticking carding needles that I got from Dartnut in the the conversion plugd from Jeff Pickup, and then I will have some nice GT mods to blog on.

Wooden Ton-40

I hit this Ton-40 while playing around with the darts that came with the Club house Golf set.



I will probably stash the cabinet away until I can repair some minor UPS damage, and the board will only get minimal use until I can find a second one to keep in good condition (it is the collector in me) but three of the darts will stay of of the box so I can toss them around from time to time. It is amazing how quickly you can adjust to a new dart. These woodies are thick and light. They are easily the thickest dart I have yet they weigh in at a mere 13 grams. They are quite fun to throw though. Perhaps I'll nail a ton-80 with them soon? I was consistent enough with them that I am half considering using them in league. The only down fall to that is that if I really bomb my team will think I was not taking the match seriously, and if I destroy everyone they will think I was just being a pompous doof.

It would be fun to bring them though.

11th Lifetime Ton-80

Here is the second Ton-80 I have hit this year and I am quite excited about it.

I am excited for a couple reasons. First, these are the lightest darts I have ever Maxed with (15 grams) and second because they seem to be flying consistently well for me. This Ton-80 came on the back of a Ton-40, an 85 and a Ton-25. Lots of triple 20's in there to make me think these are viable darts.

The darts:

Points: Fixed
Barrels: 15 gram Featherlights by Red Dragon
Stems: Short Nylon Dynastar
Flights: Black Pear Dynastar

Hole in One

Now that I actually have my Par-Darts board in my possession I have taken to putting it up from time to time and tossing a round of golf. Or rather, since it is 9 hole board, a half a round of golf. I am not the master golfer you may have though I was. Indeed, mini-golf in high school and this dartboard is the closest I have ever come to the real thing, but I am satisfied with both and feel no need to hit the driving range.

What you are seeing below is a hole in one on the eight hole. How is this possible? Well, I have decided I do not like the official rules that go along with this game so I have made up my own that I use when I use this board for practice.


The above shot happened like this. It was a fresh round and I was holding three darts. I had just completed the 7 hole the round before and I was just now about to attempt the 8 hole. Normally I would have taken a shot at the red dot on the 8 hole to attempt a hole in one, but I forgot, and so the first dart went to the first fairway. I hit it. The second dart need to go into the second (light gree) fairway that surrounds the putting green, but I missed into the water. Acording to my rules if you hit water you are obliged to start the hole over. So, now remembering that I allow a single dart to be throw for a hole in one (only when you are about to start a hole), and having only one dart left in my hand, I went for it, and nailed it. The regular rules call for a very short lived and probably uneventful game. My rules call for something a little different. Here are some bullet points to my rules:

• Each hole must be completed in order before moving on to the next
• When you are starting a hole, you may throw one dart to attempt the Hole in One, if you miss, you must finish the hole the old fashioned way, one fairway at a time.
• Failing a hole in one, you must first hit the initial darker green fairway, then the lighter green fairway, and then the green fairway that surrounds the water and sand traps protecting the putting green.
• You must then aim for the putting green. If you hit the red hole you are donne and may move on. If you hit the putting green then you may attempt a put by going for the large red bullseye in the center of the board.
• If you ever hit a sand trap you must go back one fairway. If you ever hit a water trap you must start the hole completely over (and thus are entitled to another Hole in One shot).
• The outer red bullseye ring in the center of the board is only used by novices, and is not used when I practice at home.

So that's it. I hope someday I can play against other people online with this board but in the meantime I'll just break it out from time to time for my own enjoyment.

A Goodly Night of Darting

I had a terrific league night last night. Not only did my team win, but I won all my games except one of them and I hit some good numbers in the process. Lots of triple 20's but oddly never more than one in a turn. So while I don't necessarily have any 120+ numbers to report I at least had many good rounds of 60+ to give myself shots at the out.

The highlight of last night would have to be the hat trick I threw in my one losing game of cricket and the fact that I was hot on bulls and was able to hit lots of them in the cricket games.

I won my singles chicago game in two games, winning first DIDO 301 and then cricket. I won the cork to start the match and chose 301 (as I always do since I m confident with doubles) I got in on my second round and then whittled my way down to a sloppy 39 out. I decided to go S7, D16, but with the firsst dart I missed into the S19, leaving 20. Then I missed the D10 into the S6, leaving 14. But then hit the D7 with the last dart to save the out. Then, the opponent chose cricket for the second game. I opened with 4 20's and after that I hit at least three marks per round until the 17's, but I am certain I averaged at least 3 marks per round for the whole game. When it came down to bulls I hit them quickly, in two rounds and then I got a nice compliment from my opponent. I hit the winning bull witth my first dart, and he said:

"I figured. You usually hit it first dart."

That felt good. All my doubkes games went equally well. In my doubles chicago match the opponents won the cork and chose cricket. I opened with a commanding 4 20's and a single bull. I ended up carrying most of the game for our team and at one point we fell behind. They were pointing us on the we only had the bulls to point with and they had the 16's. They kept pounding the 16's to point us instead of going for the win by throwing at bull. Badd strategy on their part. I ended up just killing the bulls in that game and there was no point deficit too large for me tto overcome, I must have hit 10 bulls in just a few rounds. We won, and then they chose 301. In the 301 game my partner left me with 6. I missed low with the first dart. So now I had 6 remaining with 2 darts. In practice I always go S2 D2 in that situation because aa high miss would leave me with 3 if I were to stay on the D3. And I hit it. S2, D2. I felt vindicated in my strategy.


In my doubles SIDO 501 and DIDO 401, we won both of them. I hit the winning double myself in each game but they were not high outs. The second game I won on bones! The first was a low out as well, probaably D2 but I do not remember that well. In my doubles cricket game my partner couldn't hit anything and I was able to carry us well, but not well enough. Despite a haat trick and many other bulls we were just not able to overcome a two person team.

So that was it. A good night out for me. Even in my one loss I had something to be proud of. I hope next week goes as well!!

Badge of Honor

Thanks to the good folks over at SEWA (and by 'good folks' I mean Erik) I have received in the mail my very first dart patch. And all I had to do to earn it was enjoy the fruits of his labor. The patch is terrific. Now if I can only find that elusive '26' patch, the Sewa patch won't be so lonely on my shirt!

For those of you who have never heard of the internet (because that is about what it would take for you to not have heard of SEWA), the most active darts forum in the ODC (That stands for Online Dart Community) is here:

SEWA

It is the result of the blood sweat and tears of one gentleman who was saddened at the decline of the formor great dartplayer.net site and who decided to offer the equivalent internet sanctuary to wayward net connected dart players all over the world.

So stop by, sign up, and enjoy the company. I might also add that the subject is always darts and dart related and that you can rest assured that if you have a dart related question it will be answered there by many voices quite promptly.

Cheers Erik, and thanks again.

Back Blogging

I have created several back blogs within The Dart Indoors. What is a back blog? It is a blog post that is back dated to a date before the blog actually started. The inaugural post in this blog was posted on September 20, 2004. It was a post requesting help identifying and finding some darts that I had scavanged from an ashtray in a bar (discarded by their former owner). So any post you see on The Dart Indoors dated before that has been back blogged. But I only back blog for the purposes of gathering similar posts, or "utility" posts as I like to call them, into a central point for perusal. What makes this worthwhile is the way that blogspot will archive posts. When an Archive is created, all post from a single month are moved to one page, making it easy to say things like: "Click on this archive to see all of my...." etc. The following is a quick summary of my main Back Blogs:

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May, 2004: Dartboard Thumbnails.

This back blog was created for no other reason than to showcase my dartboard collection. I have created a single post with a series of small (but clickable) photos of each board and a link that will go to a different more detailed blog post discussing the various boards. If you notice, in the upper right section of the blog, there is a section called 'Enjoy this Linkage' with a link that says My Boards. Well, clicking this link will take you to the May, 2004 backblog. It used to take you to the June 2004 backblog but I decided that there was too much scrolling involved to see all my boards at a glance. So now, the June 2004 backblog (discussed below) is now only accessible by clicking on the names of the boards in the Thumbnails backblog or by clicking on the June 2004 Archive link.



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June, 2004: My Dartboards

More detailed descriptions of my boards.












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July, 2004: My Darts

This is a gathering of (what used to be) my darts collection.  These days I am thinking differently in terms of how to group them in the blog.  Still, the July 2004 archive will remain, as a reminder of all the fun and pretty darts I have had in my collection over the years.  Many got traded away for different sets.

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Club House Golf

What a great find. This is one of the more interesting bristle boards I have ever seen, and I bought it in brand new condition. Any holes in the board are made by me and the ultra-light apex style darts that came with the board. My buddy Barn and I staarted throwing a game on it but it was so hard to hit the fairways and holes that we had to quit for dinner. You can really see the biscuits in the board, and I would say not very many tons of pressure went into making the board itself as the darts, even the light ones, slide into the board with minimal effort. This makes me think the board would get chewed up quickly so I will not play on it too much.


The score boards are a sort of black plexiglass with white writing on them and seem to be set up for a very particular sort of golf game. There were no rules sent with the board so I am not real sure what the exact rules are but probably they are similar to real golf. The board also came with one of those white wax markers for keeping score on the black plexiglass. Pretty clever and nice looking set up.


The Board also came with six ultra-light Apex darts. They only weight XX grams. I think these were included so the board would last a bit longer. The sisal fibers are so loose that if you were to throw your average 26 gram MP dart the board would be destroyed in short order!!


One thing I really like about this board is the attention to detail and fine craftsmanship. There are some extras that they didn't really have to include in the building of it such as the sign on top the cabinet, the little golf flag, the green material behind the board, etc. Very nicely done! Here is a good view of the overall effect:

One For The Team

I was subbing for a friends team this week and had a good time doing it. We lost by one game, 11-10, but we put up a good fight against an extremely good team. Probably one of the best in this season's line up.

My performance was hot and cold. In my first singles 401 game I hit a Ton-25, and then later won the game by taking out the double 2. It was a close game and we both missed a couple shots at the out which is the only reason I won that one. It was the first game of the night and my opponent, once he got loose, really hit good numbers in his later games so I was quite please to get the first win against him.

My second singles match was a Cricket against their best player. A guy named Mason, who is truly a superior darter. He is consistent and strong at the oche and he is a good guy to boot. He won that game but not by much. He hit three triple 18s on me bu otherwise I think I would have had that game. I was on fire, and against most other players probably would have won. But in this case I was out classed for sure. I enjoyed that game even though I lost.

Mt darts were unnoteworthy for the rest of the evening until... I took out double 2 to WIN THE TEAM GAME! That's right. Something I have personally never done (according to memory anyway). That's right, I took out the money shot and was quite happy to do so. In my own league I would have been eight dollars richer since we all put a dollar behind the board for the team game. Alas, there is no such tradition here.

Here is a preview of an upcoming post:


Details to come ;)

PPP: Practical Practice Prioritization

You know, when it comes to exercise and weight control and general health matters an activity regmine is very important. But the reality is that most people simply have jam packed lives and cannot dedicate as much time as would be ideal for their bodies to the pursuit of superb fitness. And while a well rounded routine is the best goal, sometimes we simply do not havee that much time and we are either forced to choose to scale the exercise back or skip it altogether. Most people will use the excuse that they do not have time to excercise "properly" so they simply don't do anything. But if they had a sense of exercise priority they would hop on the excersise bike for ten minutes instead of do nothing at all. After all, if you only have 15 minutes to work out the no braainer is cardio. The heart is your most important muscle and you should give it priority. Those biceps can wait!

So why not apply the same thinking to darts practice? I have thought about what areas of my game are weak and I haave put together a prioritized list of whaat I should be working on. This list maay differ for different people mof course, but for me, for now, this is a terrific PPP:

1. 60's: The top priority in my practice routine, these days, is the triple 20. I say this because I cannot hit it with any consistency, and I do not have the confidence to hit it like I have confidence to hit mdoubles and bulls. When I am going for a double, I just KNOW I will hit it. At least with one of three darts anyway, and when I shoot for bulls I reasonably expect to get at least one in there per round. This is the sort of confidence I am seeking with the triple 20. So, before any other practice I am aiming at the 60, or the 'sweet spot' as I call it. My goal is to get 20 of them in there before I move on. The idea behind this being so important has partly to do with the fact that there have been so many league games lately where I have hit consistently low numbers and I am allowing my opponent to get to the doubles sooner than I. I have been playing this game long enough that I should be sinking my score quickly by now and I would expect my average to be significantly higher than it was when I first started. Unfortunately sometimes it is not. Also, I truly believe this to be the key to getting to the 'next level'. My goal for right now is to be able to hit at least one triple 20 per two rounds. That's right: one out of every six darts. This is no where near professional level play but you know what? I think it is a reasonable goal, and achieving this will allow me to win most games in league. It is doable. And the way I am going to achieve this is through sheer determination, and practice. The more 60's I hit, the greater my confidence will be. Soon, according to plan, I will have the same confidence level for 60's as I do for doubles or bulls. The pic below is one of the better rounds from a recent practice session.


2. Doubles: So once you've slugged away at the triple 20 for a while and have added 20 instances of success to your sweet spot confidence fund, you can, as I do, move on to the doubles. Double practice is important. On this every dart player is in agreement. But how important it is depends on a lot of factors. What good are lots of tons if you cannot double out, and what good is being able to hit your doubles if you can never drop your score low enough to have a chance at it? The arguments are good in both directions and for me doubles practice takes a back seat to 60's practice for two reasons. First, I am better at them and have much more confidence in hitting them. Secondly, and most importantly, I do not see improving my doubles to be the key to accessing that next higher level of play. My weakness at the moment is not being able to hit the sweet spot realiably. Thus I only practice doubles if I have enough time, these days. And when I practice doubles, I do so in this order:

• 16, 8, 4, 2, 1
• 20, 10, 5
• 12, 6, 3
• 18, 9
• 14, 7
• 19, 17, 15, 13, 11

This is in the order that I consider them to be important. The pic below shows a recent round that I had just started. I was doing well in the beginning. I hit the 16 first dart, the 8 with the second dart and the third dart went to the 4 but missed (otherwise I'd have snapped a photo of the doubles trick).


3. Bulls: And then, once the doubles have been nailed and I have time for more I shoot 20 bulls. The double bull counts for two hits, and the one caveat to this section of the practice is that I keep practiceing bulls until I have hit at least one double bull. So even if I hit 43 single bulls I cannot stop until I have hit that little red dot in the middle. Bulls are important in both 01 games and cricket. In the 01 games there is a rare occation to go for a bull during the game as a part of your strategy (50 left and one dart in hand), you also always want to win your cork if possible. So it is good to have solid confidence when aiming for the bulls. In the pic below I hit one out of three. That is more or less typical for me. When I am going strong I can usually reliably hit one or two per round. When I'm off, though, boy am I off!

Editor's Note: I took a break from this post and shot a round of bulls and I averaged a little more than one per turn and I had a few hat tricks in there. A HT +1 for that matter. If I can get past the 60's practice then I usually blow through the doubles and bulls vert quickly.


4. Other Triples: It would be nice to someday have the same confidence with the triples ring as I have with the doubles ring so I make a point to throw aa round of triples when time allows for it. I do not do the same order as doubles, obviously. I start with the 19 and work my way down. That way if I only have time for the cricket triples at least I hit the most important ones but if there is time I work my way all the way down to thr triple 1. I have aimed at the triple 1 before in real games. In fact I have aaimed at most triples in real matches at one point or another. 19 through 15 are cricket numbers, 14 through 11 are used if you have 64 through 61 remaining and have two darts in hand, 10 is used for 62 remaining with 3 darts, triple 7 if you have 53 remaining with 2 darts, triple 3 if you have 25 remaining and 2 darts, aand triple 1 if you have 5 remaining. I am not sure about the others at the moment, but I am sure there are uses. Regardless, theere should be no portion of the triples ring that represents difficulty because that is like a chink in your armor.


Can anyone think of uses for these triples: 9, 8, 6, 5, 4, 2?? Any disagreement with the use of the others?

Doubles Trick Finish

Here is a doubles trick I pulled off which also happened to be the three remaining doubles I need to finish a doubles practice session. Normally 15, 13 and 11 are the last three, but I happened to hit my 15 earlier in the session leaving these.

The darts themselves are my old 28 gram GT's. They are wearing Pickup Points, as well as short black GT shafts and Black Widow pear flights. I don't know why I dug these out again, but it has servered to remind me how much I like Bottelsen darts, how much I like tapered barrels and how much I like these darts in particular. Perhaps I'll use them in league coming up. It has also rejuvinated my interest in perfecting the GT Dynamod. More to come on that.

The Trouble with Triples

I almost quit last night. The league games were postponed in favor of an impromptu Luck to benefit a long time league member who had a stroke and I was certainly glad to pitch in for that cause. In fact I had decided from the get go that if I won the luck I'd kick in my winnings toward the guys relief fund as well. But I never came close. I won a total of zero games and was out very very quickly. My partner did not help but I do not want that to sound like I am blaming him because that is not the case. We were just both having an off night. I hit nothing worthwhile, except a bunch of bulls that got us back into the cricket game. It came down to 'Next Bull Wins'.

They won.



Anyway, that is not what this post is about. Rather I wanted to comment on the trouble I have with triples. And not just any triples either. The sweet spot. I stopped taking pictures of 120+ shots a long time ago because when I am in form and having a decent practice round I tend to hit them readily. I'll get a ccouple of 60s and a miss somewhere. The miss isn't always the last dart either, or I'd suspect myself of choking. The missing dart I would say is any of the three with equal frequency. I'd raather it were always the last dart!!!

What's that? I wish it were a case of choking? You see, at least then I'd know what the problem is and be able to work toward a resolution. Choking is covered in ample sports psychology texts and I am certain that I'd be able to overcome it. But when any random dart flies off course what can you attribute it to? The idea that some darts are too fat to fit in the triples is a load of crap. Have you ever seen the darts Jim Pike used to use? Besides, look at the pic below. Those are some Unicorn Brass Beauties I got for Xmas from my lovely wife, and are easily the thickest, or near thickest darts I own and as anyone case see there is plenty of space in there for more! Also, that theory doesn't hold water when it is the first dart that misses.



My current working theory on this issue is that I am just not consistent. I know I am capable of the accuracy, two out of three darts in the sweet spot seems to confirm this. And I know I am capable of the prize because I have done it before. There are so many variables, and worse - nested variables - when you step up to the oche. How you hold the dart, how you stand how you follow through I will not name them all. So to overcome that random dart miss one must reduce the variables. Not as easy as it sounds for sure. The only solution is a more intelligent practice session on a more regular basis. I'll think on this for a couple of days.

Incidentally, The Trouble wwith Tribbles is easily my favorite Star Trek: TOS and my favorite DS9 episode.

Reign of the Hat Trick +1

Hat Trick +1 is the term I have come up with to mean a four count in the bulls, in which all of the darts are in the bull somewhere. So two double bulls and then a miss outside the bull doesn't count since it is not a hat trick. Oddly I have had several of these lately but not much else to comment on, performance wise.


The only meaningful HT+1 that I have hit was last Tuesday in league, and while it came in a cricket game that my partner and I eventually lost, it bolstered my confidence for a while. But only a while. I got clobbered by a sandbagger shortly after. And I mean seriouly clobbered. It was almost the darts version of a mugging.

Bear in mind, though, that when I get to choose I always choose to play against the other teams strongest player even when I know in advance that I am out classed. There is no glory in defeating a weaker opponent and there is no honor in avoiding the toughest possible challenge. I am a bit like Lt. Cmd. Worf in this respect. And last Tuesday I died honorably in glorious battle. Happily I was able to choose my opponent.

It was a Singles Chicago match. He won the initial cork and chose to open with cricket. He beat me soundly that game and was 80 points ahead by the second round. I nearly came back in the end by pounding the bulls and ended up with over 100 points but still lost. He was very strong on the triples and I was missing them.

I chose DIDO 301 as the next game. I got in by the second round but I never had a chance. He opened with 48 points, and then hit a ton-40 in the second round, and then took out 113 in the third round. I was very impressed and he exhibited excellent sportsmanship in terms of attitude, etc, but he was still sandbagging the B League. (I say that with a half crooked smile.)

I digress. The subject line of this post claims that there is a reign of HT+1's. I say that because I hit several in the last few days, and several yesterday. Here is another pic of a Hat Trick +1:

My Par-Darts Board

Howdy ynz. Take a look at this board. This heralds the beginning of a new dart obsession for me and that is the collection of interesting boards. If anyone has any interesting boards you'd like to sell, think of me first! Recent good finds for me include a Casino 301, a Snooker board, a Quadro and a couple of Blade MX's. I will post on them as they arrive. Now I will also need to figure out a way to make them easily interchangable! Also, please note the new nav system to the right. I have a section dedicated to my dart collection and to my board collection.


This is a very nice board that looks like it is in virtally brand new condition. Right now it is at the house of a friend in Seattle and I am looking forward to playing on it. It looks like it would be at the very least an excellent practice board, but I bet the whole game is going to be every bit as fun as a regular darts game. This is my first non-clockface board other than the baseball board below. It is certainly my first bristle non-standard board. At some point I am going to figure out how to replace those wires stapled onto the board with embedded blade-like separaters.

Click here for the rules for Par-Darts.

The Bowtie

I would like to thank an anonymous commenter from a few posts back for offering this idea. I have tried it and it is a terrific addition, or change rather, to the shanghai practice game I use. Here is a pic first, then I will describe:


First, follow the link above to read anon's comment because it is a good description of the Bowtie. But notice in my pic above I am not going for the doubles. I happened to be doing a round of triples at the time and was taking a break from it with a little shanghai (I will do that sometimes if I am missing the trips badly). Well, normally in shanghai, if your first dart hits the bull then you cannot make a shanghai so you just do a round of bulls practice. In the bowtie situation you go for opposite segments. In the pic above you can see I hit the bull first dart, and then the second dart was aimed at the trip 6. I missed low into the trip 10. So the third dart went for the trip 14 and I hit it. Thus forming a bow tie.

Here you can see the only actual shanghai I achieved in that practice round. These are not the normal darts I use though:

Juergen's Trick Shot

Juergen, a frequent contributer to this blog, sent me this photo of a trick shot he pulled off on Saturday. In addition to hitting his 24th and 25th Ton-80's for the year, that is ;)



I am certain Juergen would be happy to note that there is currently a Ton-80 contest going on over at paulwilliamsdarts.co.uk, based on the honor system. So far I have failed to hit a ton-80 after the inception of the contest but I am hoping to get my name on the board soon. Maybe I just need to come up with a set of PT Purists like everyone else is doing.

Harkening Back to Simpler Times

Lately I have found myself reverting back to behaviors and preferences from a couple years ago. There are two things in particular I am thinking of, the first is that I seem to be migrating back to spinning shafts and the second is that I seem to be preferring to carry almost nothing with me to dart night in the pubs.

When I first started playing, I found the Dynastar shaft and flights on some website, probably edarts, and I ordered some. I stuck them on the darts I had and by gosh I thought they were the cat's meow. Eventually of course I started prefering a completely solid, non-moving dart, so I started using the non-spinning nylons and aluminums. I broke the dynastars back out and I am using them again:


Also, other than the small Unicorn Jiffy dart sharpener I put in my pocket, what you see above is all I ever take with me these days to league when I shoot.

Paper-wound Baseball Board

This would be the first board I ever bought and I bought it before I had any clue whatsoever what to look for in a board. As it turns out paper wound dart boards are lower quality, and they are not a good option for the serious darter. Perhaps if you are looking to get a new person into darts, with not much money, you can pick one of these up on ebay for a dollar, but other than introducing steel tip darts to your friends, I would not recommend paper wound boards.

The fun thing is, though the game itself. This is the only non-clock board I have and the idea is intriguing even if I am not sure what the rules are. I have devised make shift rules while playing this with my wife but the rules were clumsy at best. One of these days I am going to track down the official rules for this game.

I found them!

BASEBALL DART GAME (STANDARD GAME)

1. The player throwing is the pitcher attempting to retire the opposing side without allowing runs. This can best be achieved by carefully pitching at the corners of the plate. Put the pitch over the center of the plate and it's a home run.
2. Two players or teams can participate. Each team member takes a turn pitching his team's half of an inning.
3. Each inning is divided into two halves: one for each team. Three outs constitute one-half of an inning. First pitcher is allowed as many pitches as is necessary to get three outs. All runs scored against him are credited to the other team. When he has made three outs the other player pitches his half of the inning.
4. Usual rules of baseball apply. Three "strikes" for an "out". A "foul ball" counts as a "strike" but not as a third strike. Any pitch that misses the "plate" (target zone) is ruled a "ball". Four balls to a batter constitute a "walk" and the batter is awarded first base.
5. Runs are scored by players rounding the basses and crossing home plate. Runs must be forced over to score.
6. At the conclusion of the regulation number of innings, the team with the most runs is the winner.

FP Mega Thrusts

For as long as I have been playing darts I have been aware of Bottelsen and the awesome darts the produce and sell. However, this whole time I never paused to consider that perhaps they have not always produced their current line and may have once offered fixed point versions of some of their more popular darts that now are only offered as MP systems. Well, one day while I was kicking about ebay I saw an odd dart that appeared to be a Mega Thrust, but was FP!!


I have been using these darts in League for the last couple of weeks and I have been loving them. I would rather that they were a couple grams heavier, though and it is making me seriouly consider getting the 24 gram version of the modern Mega Thrust. I have a new idea for an awesome conversion point that will make the dart fixed point to the naked eye. Not sure if I will or not, though. Gotta wait and see how these current 22 grammers pan out.

Doubling your Double Double Out with a Doubles Trick

Here is a fun trick you can only do half by accident and half on purpose. I say that because I did it by accident, but then thought it was neat. Well, not exactly by accident. I hit everything I aimed at afterall.

I had 72 left and 3 darts in hand. I decided to go 40, 32. So I aim for the double 20, hit it. then the double 16. Nailed it. One dart left. What to do.. what to do? I chucked it at the double ten for an attempted doubles trick.

Nailed it.



See, when you take out any number hitting two different doubles (on purpose or otherwise) you are accomplishing a "Double Double" out. When you hit three doubles all on purpose this is a "Doubles Trick". When you happen to be able to do both in one trip to the oche then you are..

Doubling your double double out with a doubles trick.