Monday, September 30, 2019

The Smartest Maximum?

My 49th lifetime Ton-80 came off what was billed as "the world's smartest darts".  I never had any business dealings with the guy who made and marketed these darts, but whoever it was included a few very interesting things into his dart design.


The points are spring loaded, and a fairly standard spring loading at that, however, the design of the nose is kind of nice.  These were made in the era of ugly conversion points so these, at the time, were a breath of fresh air.  The springiness of the points is a bit on the soft side though.  I happened to get this set on ebay so I did not get the case or the original stems or flights.  While the stems themselves were a standard in-between length nylon stem, the flights were a unique size and shape which I found highly, highly appealing.  They were almost the same shape as a standard flight but probably 10 to 20% smaller.  I wish I'd bough 100 of them when they were available.



Alas, the gentleman is no longer in business, so neither the darts nor the flights are readily available.  The darts are 22 grams with a fine ring going the entire length of the barrel, and they are currently dressed in short spinning aluminum flights, and pear polys. 

Thursday, September 26, 2019

A Solid Night Out

For my darts, anyway, not necessarily for me.  I have half decided that I am going to start taking a single set of match darts with me to league nights (and other competitions) along with a disassembled backup set that I go to only in extreme need.  This is not because I think it is better to stick to a single set of darts.  I do not think that.  But rather because I have so many sets of darts that simply do not get their day in the sun, so to speak.  As such, I have (half) decided that each set of darts I have will get "a solid night out" of competition so I that I can really run their paces and they have a chance to do something nice and special, like hit a Ton-80, or hit that high-stakes out!  So this week in league I treated my 15 gram "Aviators" (I call them that because they aesthetically remind me of 1950's aviation design) to their solid night out:


The night was the most meh of meh nights you can possibly imagine in terms of my own performance, but I did enjoy throwing the Aviators all night long.  And they got some modest appreciation from teammates and opponents as well.  I saw my good buddy Richard there and I regret not being able to spend some more time with him after the match but I was developing a migraine and decided to get out of there as soon as I could.

Last night we hosted Misunderestimated at Kate's.  They beat us 11 to 10, and I do believe that is the closest my team has ever come to winning a match.  And I think the reason we lost is because I couldn't hit my fucking doubles when I needed to.  That, and I got my ass handed to me on a platter during my singles Cricket.  So here is how the match went:  I played three singles games and lost two of them; I played five doubles matches and lost two of those as well.  And I hit the winning out in the team games, which always feels nice.

My first singles game was 401 against Bill.  I didn't hit a single effing triple during that entire game, but I managed to take out my double 2 before Bill could take his out.  He had a higher average than me in that game but neither of us were on fire.  My second singles game was also a 401, this time against Jim.  That was an earned loss on my part.  I whittled the score down to 32, and then proceeded to spend 15 darts missing the doubles until Jim finally took his out.  I despaired after that game. (But I bounced back emotionally within a game or so.)  My last singles game was Cricket against Bill and he trounced me thoroughly.  I had one five marker early in the game but threw a 1.6 against his 2.6.  It was a command performance on his part and there is no question I lost because he was hot and I was not.

Doubles was more meh. I threw three doubles 501 and two doubles Cricket.  My first 501 was with Julia. I hit my only Ton of the night in that game and took out a double 6 before they could take out theirs.  It was a B League effort on the part of both teams.  My next 501 was with John and we lost.  I threw poorly, not hitting any big numbers and I missed my outs.  My last doubles 501 was with Dani and we won.  I didn't hit any big numbers in that game either but I took out a 32 for the win.

My first doubles Cricket was with John.  I started off pretty strong but then hit a slump, accumulating three dead rounds and mostly missing my bulls.  We lost but both teams sucked that game.  My last doubles Cricket was with Julia and we won that one.  I didn't hit any big rounds but I didn't have any dead rounds either.  I hit the first two bulls and the Julia hit the last one for the win which made her quite happy.  That was nice.

The team game was also anemic (for all of us) but I did hit the winning Double 8.  I have not done that in a while so that felt nice.  On the whole the evening was a poor performance on my part. Here is my winning 16:


This is the final score sheet.  I blame myself for the match loss:



Wednesday, September 25, 2019

Unicornity Questioned

The following darts are UFO's from my perspective.  They are clearly of an earlier era of darting:  fat brass barrels, push-in wooden stems, feather flights.  All of which tells me that they date back to the 60's or much, much earlier.  When I got them they came in a plastic two-piece Unicorn case which, honestly, seems like the perfect case for them in terms of length.  However, I have not been able to find either the barrels or the stems in any old Unicorn catalog.  As such, I question their Unicornness.  Unicornity?

They fly nicely.  Here you can see a nice double-double up top.  I went for a third but it miss wide:


And here are some close ups of the darts and the barrels:



Thursday, September 19, 2019

An Unhappy Ass-Handing

Last night's league match was an ass handing of the less pleasant variety.  I had fun, of course, because its darts, and I enjoy all my teammates but my darts were not flying true for me for most of the night.  At a high level, I won my only two singles games, but lost all four of my doubles games.  And while I hit 416 glory points on the night, I was not hitting the 60's at all.

My first singles game was 401 against Wanni and it was a well played game on both our parts.  Better on his part, even.  I won by taking out a 20 on my third dart at it and throw a 57.3 average.  In the game I had a single ton against hit two tons and a 61.5 average.  I have no doubt he would have won the game on the next round.  He is a good player.

My other singles game was a Cricket game against Casey.  Also a good player but in this game I clearly out shot him.  I threw a 2.1 to his 1.3, I hit one five mark round early in the game, and hit two dead rounds.  In the last three rounds I hit a single bull and a double bull to win.

My first doubles game was a 501 with Jacob.  My only good shot was a 116, and I didn't even hit any other 60+ scores. I also missed several shots at the out which is what cost us the game.  The second doubles was also a 501, but with Cory.  This time I put up no big numbers, only hit a single treble during the entire game and missed lots of doubles for the loss.  That was a C League effort through and through.

I also lost both doubles Cricket matches.  They went like this:  The first was with John.  I hit no big rounds and had three completely dead rounds at the end when we needed bulls.  Had I hit even one each round we might have won the game but we earned that loss.  The second was with Dani, and while I happily did not have any dead rounds, I didn't have any fivers either, and we just got outshot.

In the team game I hit two tons but missed my outs. Luckily a teammate did hit his so we only lost 7-14.  Given how I was playing it could have definitely been worse.



The darts I took with me were the 22 gram Harrows Bristow Power Points, and the 26 gram McCoy smooth barreled copper tungstens.  Threw better with the McCoys, but only marginally.

Next week we are hosting Misunderestimated at Kates.

Monday, September 09, 2019

100 Darts at the 20's

This is a nice practice routine that I picked up from Dartsnutz.net.  The idea is quite simple and allows you to have a short intense 20's practice session.  The idea is that you throw 100 darts at the Triple 20 and track what you hit.  As you can see:


At the pub the other day I wrote 1 thru 33 (and added the +1 to represent the lat 1/3 round) so that I could track the game easily, and notated the hits each round. A '1' represents a single 20, a '3' represents a triple, etc.  So a notation of '113' means I hit 2 singles and a triple.

in the game above I use the Voks Bandits.  One pleasing note regarding that game is that I didn't have any dead rounds until that last third round.  I only had one dart and it missed wide into the 5, as I recall.

I've only played this a couple times, but score 78, which I am hoping is not bad but can still be improved upon.