Perennial Posts

Has it been a year already? I guess it has. One year ago today I posted my first blog post to try to find some darts for a set in which I was missing a dart. The Mystery Darts. How appropriate for my one year anniversary post to concern those very darts. They are still mystery darts and I have not found anymore like them but I did find a guy who would make me a duplicate third dart so I could have a complete set:


Notice that there are some differences. The new dart is shinier which I would expect, but also the striations that run the length of the dart missing. He said that this was created by running the dart through a particular kind of machine which he did not have and asked if I'd like the other darts to be made smoother so they were all identical. I opted to keep the longitudinal pattern on the others because I have not given up hope for finding some more of them. The same guy in Canada who made my new set also made this one. Here is a close up of the barrels together:


Well, I hope you few who follow my ramblings have enjoyed the blog for the last year. Cheers!

CPC: Current Preferred Configuration

Hi all, time for a CPC update. As it happens I have been limiting my barrel usage to the new set (the Dagnabits) and I have put away all of the other sets. So all that is left to mess with is the stems and the flights. I have thus far tried short nylon stems and "in-between" nylon stems, both of which are acceptible but nothing else. The medium nylons are too long for a barrel that is a full 2 inches long such as mine. The flights that work with this barrel and stem combo are many and varied. I have tried the Spiraline flights which I like quite a bit, the standard dimplex, and smooth dimplex. I have also, much to my delight, found that the mini dimplx flights work nicely, leaving the darts pretty much perpendicular to the board with no left or right slant. My CPC is as is pictured to the right. Black smooth pear shaped flights with black short stems.

The Quest for the Holy Grail

Perhaps the greatest aspiration for your average darter is not to master those difficult shots like the Ton-80 or a Deadeye, but rather the assembly of the perfect dart. This is the true Holy Grail of darting in the modern world of nearly infinite options. So the trick now is to break this problem down to its constituent parts and assemble the dart from front to back. Here are the components in order of appearance: point, barrel [weight, shape, texture, material], stem, flight, extras.

What are the options? Points can be fixed or moving, sharp or rounded dull, roughed or smooth, long, medium or short. Barrels, not to be outdone, have many more options. They can be tungsten, nickle-silver, brass, copper or rhenium (gimme a break already). Knurled, ringed, grooved, barbed, smooth, coated or bare. Front loaded, middle weighted, reverse tapered, fat pencil, skinny pencil, scalloped and may be anywhere from 8 to 45 grams. Stems are aluminum or nylon or plastic, short, medium, long, inbetween, extra-short or micro, spinning or static. Flights can be standard, kite, pear, heart, slim, cut-off, delta, combat or spinning. Smooth, dimplex, ribbed and with any design you can imagine. For extras you've got o-rings, stem rings, crowns, flight protectors and add-a-grams.

With all of these options there is a near infinity of possibilities. So how does your average bar room darter assemble a superior, if not perfect dart? And do not tell me there is no such thing as a perfect dart because one of the imperatives of the human condition is that there BE a Holy Grail.

The Silence is Broken

In the best possible way. Announcing some new darts. Some darts which will in fact herald quite a few new posts because when I got these, I also had a couple of sets repaired and they are begging to be blogged. So here they are:


And for that matter, I think these are the finest darts I have ever seen. I took them out tonight for the first team practice and I did pretty well with them for being new to me. I was hot on the doubles and I hit a hat trick, at least one ton and sprinkled several treble 20's throughout the night.

About the darts: These are darts of my own design which I hired a master lathesman to lathe for me. I had two sets made. One for me and one for my good dart pal in my old city. I call them, as a model name, Dagnabits. So the official catalogue line item description of these darts would be:

"24 Gram Fixed Point Dagnabits, Smooth Finish."

It is hard to tell from the photo unless you zoom in on it, that the barrels are actually tapered, but it is a very subtle taper. The barrels are a full two inches long, and the alloy is 90% tungsten. They were drilled a bit to make them exactly 24 grams.

Switching Flights

Funny how droughts come and go. I have not been able to hit the trip 20 recently to save my life.

When you have been playing for a few years it is difficult to know what to point your finger at as a cause for suddenly loose groupings and failing accuracy. On the one hand you have enough experience to know the theory behind the throw, and even a little unrefined skill. You will have had periods of superb darts and so you know you CAN hit the trip 20 consistently, even if you cannot always do it. But on the other hand, just a few years of play is not enough (for me anyway) to reach that level of Mastery that allows for the 'expectation' of hitting the trips you aim for. But merely you have the confidence that it is possible, and you are doing your best to push the possible towards probable.

In the last couple of weeks I have been 26ing myself into a bout of worry. I have tried many things to snap out of it, most importantly sticking with a single set of darts as best I can. I have modified my Random Practice Script to return only games and not darts, I have re-examined my form and grip and stance. I have tried looking for failings in my mental game and improving the confidence aspect. None of these things worked. Switching flights DID work, however!

I switched from the top dart to the bottom dart and suddenly started hitting more trip 20's. Consistently, too. A few Ton-40's but at least one every few rounds or more. Go figure.

Tricks for Kicks

I had a terrific practice day yesterday. Okay maybe it wasn't terrific but it had a few good points. I used my new program to generate a list of random practice games with random dart sets and I ended up with at least two sets of Bulls practice. I call that "20 Bulls" since all I do is throw at the bull till I hit 20 of them and then move on to the next practice game. I finished both of those practice games in style: with Hat Tricks. The first game was with the 25 gram Crossfires that you see in the first pic. The second was with the 25 gram Great Whites that you see in the second pic. Click on the photos for closeups. Note that both tricks are 4-counts.

One thing I have noticed so far about the perl script I am using is that, even though it is technically random, it seems to favor a handful of dart sets. I am thinking about re-writing it so that it will use a set and then remove it from the array until the array is empty and then start over. That way it will cycle through all of the darts randomly. However, within a few weeks I hope to actually have my new darts from Canada, as well as be on a league team, so I will likely just use the f switch all the time for practice. That way I am sure to always be using the new darts.

Mathing Your Oche

I decided on blue masking tape. Actually in the beginning I just decided to use tape again since the black electrical tape worked well at the old place, and comes up easy not leaving a mark on the floor. Any residue cleanable with something like 409. So when I wandered into the basement to find it I saw this stuff sitting on top a shelf, left over from painting. I thought, Hey. It's medium stickiness so should come up pretty easy, it is wider than the electrical tape, and is nicer looking.

Putting the oche down also gave me the chance to double check my math. The 7' 9.25" is supposed to be from the face of the dartboard, not from the wall, so adding this distance to the thickness of the board and backboard combo I get 7' 11.75". But then subtracting the thickness of the baseboard and cord a round I really end up with 7' 10.5", which as I'd measured before, really DOES correspond exactly to a line in the hardwood floor. Nice to have an official oche anyway.

Practice Script Improvements

I have added a few features to the perl script I posted a few posts back. Here they are:

1. An additional array for your favorite darts. So I know that most folks have a lessened affinity for switching between multiple dart sets between games, and most people in fact stick to a single set or two. Thus I have added an array in which you can list these few (or one) sets called @priority_sets and provided a way to call it with a switch. Simply include an 'f' anywhere on the command line after the name of the program. 'f' stands for 'favorite darts'. Example: $practice.pl f

2. Args act like switches. Instead of now having to have a number followed by a space followed by the 'f', you can specify the number of games and put your 'f' in any order and spaces do not matter. So these are all equivalent:

practice.pl 10 f
practice.pl 10f
practice.pl fav10
practice.pl f 10

3. Doubles array. I added an array to be picked from randomly that holds different ways of practicing your doubles. Clockwise, counter-clockwise, up, down, etc. This of course is only called when doubles is selected as the game to play.

Note on arrays: the arrays in this prog are written with one element on each line on purpose. This way you can comment out dart sets that have fallen from grace or which you wanna set aside for what ever reason. Notice in the pic to the righ I have commented out two of the fav sets so that when I use the 'f' switch I always end up throwing with the Bombs.

Alias for "quickie" and "practice" modes: Add this line to your profile (on a Mac: /etc/profile) so that you can just type 'quickie' at any prompt without having to worry about what the pwd is. As you can see form the pic below you can use the f switch with these as well:

alias quickie='/Users/robert/projects/random/practice.pl'
alias practice='/Users/robert/projects/random/practice.pl 10'

New Digs

So these are my new digs. Once again in the new house I have arrange the darting area in the same room as my office which works out nicely because it is long and narrow. I like the new setup a hell of a lot better than the old place though even though it is smaller. There is nothing new here, just a different environment, although I think I am going to by an oche if I can find one that doesn't have the name of a beer on it. Otherwise I'll just put black electrical tape on the floor again. I don't have an oche now but I still dart because I have measured it and the 7'9.25" corresponds to a line in the hardwood floor.



One of my favorite things about the new dart room is that I can attach the backboard to the wall with screws (which you can see if you zoom in on the picture). In the old place I had it hanging by a chain and so the board would wobble shift and move from time to time. Now the board is solid and I can just yank the darts out with little worry. I think I brought the number ring with me but I am not sure. I never use it anyway.



Another difference is that I never really had a place to keep all my dart crap before, whereas now I have a shelf. Zoom in and you can see the contents: my plastic jars of flights, the only dart trophy I ever earned in league, a wooden box with shafts and othe miscellaneous, a gram scale (I actually use that for backpacking more than darts) . My books will go in here too, when I find them.



One of the nice features of this setup is the glass-block window right by the board. Makes for terrific natural lighting during the day and the sill is the perfect length for my dart holder.



When there is no daylight to guide my arrows I rely on this fifties-looking psuedo tracklight. The room originally had one of those funky Japanese lantern type globes hanging from the ceiling but it gave off no light and got in the way of the dart line of sight. So I replaced it with lights I could aim at the dartboard. Works extremely well.


As always, click the image for a larger picture.

Perl Program

Those of you who have a Perl compiler, and like to randomize everything (like I do) might enjoy this little perl script I wrote last night during the Mariners game. It basically generates a practice routine for you that is different every time. It takes one argument, and that is the number of practice games you wanna play. You will obviously need to change the content of the arrays to suit your dart collection and your favorite practice games, but this little program will certainly "keep it fresh" for you.

The usage is as such: $ ./practice.pl 9

In this example '9' is the single argument indicating that you'd like a list of nine random practice games. The default argument is 1. So if you just type 'practice.pl' at the prompt with no argument at all it will give you a single practice game.

This is what the output looks like:



========================= begin practice.pl
#! /usr/bin/perl

$sets = $ARGV[0] || 1;

@dart_sets = (
'27g Razors',
'24g Merv Kings',
'16g Unicorns',
);

@practice_games = (
'Three 101\'s',
'SIDO 501',
'DIDO 301',
'Cricket',
'Doubles',
'Paul Williams Challenge',
'Chase',
'20 Bulls',
'20 Sixties',
);

for ($i=1; $i <= $sets; $i++) {

$index1 = rand @dart_sets;
$darts = $dart_sets[$index1];

$index2 = rand @practice_games;
$game = $practice_games[$index2];

print "$i. play $game with $darts\n";
}

========================= end practice.pl

A Nearly Perfect Robin Hood

I've hit enough robin hoods now that they have lost their novelty, and I almost didn't bother taking a picture of this one. But then I noticed that this particular robin hood appears to be perfectly straight and the point split the flight of the blocking dart so perfectly that you can actually see the point of the dart from both sides. The only improvement I could imagine for this robin hood would be if the wings of the flights lined up as well, so that they were on the same plane.

The number ring is up in this pic which is a departure from normalcy. When I do put it up though I usually hold it with three spare darts. In case you are wondering, I missed the double with the third dart too.


As always, click the image for a larger picture.

Discontent and the Opposible Thumb

I once had a professor in college who claimed that the two contributing factors that most accounted for homo sapien's rise to the top of the food chain were the opposible thumb, and discontent. He was one of those charismatic professors whose popularity propelled him to blowhard-dom and somewhere along the line he lost the respect of most serious students.

As it happens I think he was dead on regarding this particular theory, and I think these two things also account for most of darting in the modern world. The opposible thumb because, hey, who can throw a dart without one, and discontent because no likes a score of 26, or 41, or 41's equally miserable cousin, 45. Discontent also accounts for the predicament I find myself in now with my GT3's.



The set of GT3's pictured above were bought on the cheap, about $30, recently and from a bar owner in Seattle who didn't want them anymore. I wanted them, though, but knew I'd have to modify them before they became good darts, and I set about doing so. First let me say this: The GT series' darts of the era predating the screw in shafts had a couple of major flaws and a few minor ones (strictly my opinion). The first flaw was that they came MP only. Not much can be done about that. The second was that the shaft end of the barrel had a smooth threadless hole to accommodate their push-in shaft system, which left much to be desired. However, with the advent of their new screw in shafts they started threading those holes. Good move. But the GT3's I bought second hand were the earlier kind, and so I asked a friend to tap them with the proper thread size, so I could use the new shafts with them. In the picture below you can see the GT3's above the GT's each with the different shaaft systems. The GT is a much more solid dart to throw since the shaft can be screwed in with a drop of lok-tite. If I could do the same thing with the GT3's I'd be much happier throwing them.



Oops! As you can see in the pic below, the tap broke off in the first dart he was working on and he couldn't get the tap end back out. So now, the entire set is screwed until I find a replacement for the third dart, or figure out how to get that tap end out of there. What I'd really like to do is just have a full set made, fixed point this time, but somebody with a lathe. So if anyone has an idea how to get that tap out of there, or would like to make a set of similar darts for me, please let me know! It should be known, btw, that I do not have any hard feelings toward my friend at all in this mess. He was doing me a huge favor by attempting to tap them out in the first place.


Click to embiggen.

Sixth Ton-80

This is my sixth lifetime Ton-80 and my first with these new darts. They are now officially broken in. This shot occurred tonight during a practice routine which also happens to be the now infamous 10 Game Challenge (XGC for short) on www.paulwilliamsdarts.co.uk. The way it works is this: You play 10 games of 501 on Dartpro and then post your score and notes in the Challenges thread. Tonight I did better than I normally do and had a few noteworth occurences.

First, the Ton 80. That is obvious, but also the round after the Ton-80 my first dart hit the triple 20 again, and I do believe that is the first time in my life I have hit four trip 20's in a row. Unfortunately the next two produced single fives for a score of 70 in that round.

Second, I had a feel good out. That is I had 90 left and three darts to get it with. I figured I'd go triple 18 double 18 and leave a dart in my hand. The first dart missed into the single one, but then I hit triple 19 double 16 for the out and I really enjoyed that.

Third, mid way through the 10 game set I happened on a slightly different throw. It worked well enough to generate good score, many trip 20s and I had tight groupings. But by the time I finished the set I'd lost the new throw!! How do you explain that?


As always, click the image for a larger picture.

A Mouse for My Skill

This is the fruit of my darting toils.

My girlfriend and I attended a Fourth of July celebration at the Point, which is a very nice State Park just off downtown Pittsburgh. The crowds were insane but it was a good day all around and we even were able to catch a Pirates game. In addition to the numerous vendor booths, military recruiting stations and munchies, there were a few carnival style games. One of which, was a darts game!

Now, I have a pretty cynical opinion of carnival games. I figure the ones that are not rigged are money sinks and only those suffering from high jubilation play them. Take the dart game for instance. For the price of $2 you get a single dart. For $5 you get three. This seems like a high price to me to play a game that doesn't give out very big prizes. You have to accumulate many wins (12 or so) to upgrade to a medium sized stuffed animal. On top of this, the darts themselves are tiny, light, and dull, and the balloons are underinflated so that the darts are as likely to bounce off them as they are to pop them.

This was certainly the case at the point. After the ball game I wandered over to take a toss or two at the dart booth. Afterall, I just got out of a ball game, it was a beautiful evening and I was suffering from all sorts of high jubilation. Conditions were ripe for losing money at a carnival game. There was a line which I didn't expect, and the guy at the front of the line was apparently doing pretty well. I watched him for a while. This guy slapped down money fistfulls at a time. His throw was less than studied, and it appeared that his philosophy was that this was more or less a numbers game. Throw enough darts and eventually he'd end up with the prize he wanted, regardless of cost. So I watched as he chucked dart after dart at the under inflated balloons. About a third of his darts popped a ballon, another third bounced off the balloons and a full third missed altogether. The crowd behind him was growing restless and it appeared the attendant was perfectlt happy to keep trading darts for dollars unitl he had no choice but to move on. I headed back to our blanket since the fireworks were about to start.


As always, click the image for a larger picture.

But fate was not done with me yet. Just today my girlfriend and I went into Squirrel Hill to run an errand and found all the streeets blocked off for the street fair. Lo and behold, the booth blocking Murry was none other than the very same dart game I saw a couple of weeks ago at the point. I walked right up to the booth, slapped down a fiver and said, "I would like three darts, please." The darts were smaller than I remembered and lighter than they looked. The points were dull too, as I suspected, but nonetheless I squared up and went set. I examined the balloons. They were not inflated evenly, and not all the same size. I could tell which were better for the popping because they were shinier and more transparent, wheras most were duller and more opaque. I found two that looked pretty full, right next to each other and half way up the wall, right where the double three would be if it were a board. The first dart found it's mark. Pop! The second dart did as well. Pop! But what to do with the third dart? There was one more well inflated balloon on the bottom row and way off to my right. I decide to go for three in a row so the third dart went to a balloon that was right next to the first two.

Bad decision. Sure enough, the dart hit the balloon, more or less dead on, but bounced off anyway. The balloon won that battle and survived to see another darter. So for two out of three balloons popped, I earned a small stuffed animal or an inflatable baseball bat. You can see my choice above. I turned to my girlfriend and offered her the mouse and she was genuinely happy. I immediately understood why the guy at the Point was so willing to part with his hard earned money.

A Nice Finish

The other night I was running through some practice rounds and I ended up with a 74 out shot. I took a shot at the triple 18 and hit it, then hit the double ten for the game. It is nice when the darts go where you ask them to. I was left holding a dart so I decided to throw it at the double bull and voila, there it went. I noticed lately that I feel 'on' more and more often and that I am hitting the trip 20 with greater frequency. This is a nice feeling considering that my score have been stagnating after my initial improvement spurt that occurred during the first year of playing. I feel I am ready to move on to the next level of play but I do not know how to get there. So this new trend of hitting the trip 20 more often is more than encouraging.


As always, click the image for a larger picture.

Down with Beer Fingers

A bar player's hazard.


As always, click the image for a larger picture.

A Whole Blue Attitude

No I have not become a Dodgers fan. The new darts have already given me a few B Grade gems. Here is my first Ton-40 with them. I have not Ton-80'd yet but that is rare for me anyway, and I certainly get excited by anything over 100.



And here is my first Almost Deadeye. This is the second five count I have thrown in the bulls that I remember, and it is the closest I have ever come to a deadeye (except another five count several months ago). As you can see for the two photos in this post and the photos in the previous post I have been playing around with shaft and flight combos. The blue aluminum shafts with the shiny eagle flights is a nice combo. It has a bright esthetic appeal and it flies well. I have tried the short nylon shafts on these darts with standard flights but that is not a good combo (I think the barrels are too short). Someone needs to make a better in between length nylon shaft.


As always, click the image for a larger picture.

First Robin Hood with New Darts

Well here is my first Robin Hood with the new darts. This hood had a very curious sound to it. Despite the flight absorbing all the damage, there was a very solid think to it as if it had been thrown into sound board. No ripping or tearing sounds as you might expect. Just a resounding, dull *Thud*.



A close up of the penetrated flight is below. Be sure to click on the photo to embiggen it. You can see how the point of the incming dart splits the mylar just barely off center.


As always, click the image for a larger picture.

New Darts!

Got some new darts today. Actually my girlfriend got them for me as a gift from a lady selling at a fair. She came down over ten dollars on the price so they were a good deal. They are FP 23 Gram County Corks by GLD. They feel nice and throw well.



Here they are in the package. She threw in a set of flights and I chose the Eagles.


As always, click the image for a larger picture.

Know When To Quit

Sometimes it's over before it begins. These days I have been practicing by playing several games of 501 on DartPro. I aim for ten games but sometimes it is fewer and sometimes more. Anyway, I very often switch between darts when I practice and when I do so, I afford myself three warm up rounds to get accustomed to the new darts. I always throw those practice darts in this order (but I usually miss): Double Bull, Triple 20, Double 16. Today I hit it. What a nice feeling. So being a person who knows when to quit, I am going to have some beers and watch some baseball. The darts can stay on the wall.



Here is another shot of the hit, but from a slightly broader perspective. I cannot remember the last time I had my number ring on, and I quite like having it off. My board has looked like this for a while so perhaps it is time to rotate.


As always, click the image for a larger picture.