MDCQL #4

Today's match was a first for me, in many ways.  I played against Kornfed, whom I expected to wallop me handily, and due to time, circumstances, and weather we decided to play against each other over the internet.  This was the first manner in which it was a first.  I'd played my good buddy barn over the net using ezchalk.net many times back in the day so I guess it wasn't that much of a first, but I'd yet to play an official match this was.  The score keeper was DartConnect, and I used my phone for a camera, and we used a WhatsApp call to share our video streams.  Pretty good set up, I think.

I lost 2-3.  But I did not get walloped which is nice.  Kornfed can throw a mean dart and I expected to put up a strong fight but I knew going in that the competition would be fierce.  Even though it was a loss, the funny thing is, the loss was only slight.  Check it out:

Mine  ------------------------------------------  His

PPR       51.0  --  51.2       PPR

Points  10,035  --  10,132  Points

Darts        590  --  594        Darts

Leg wins        9  --  12      Leg wins

Set wins        2  --  3        Set wins

Pretty fucking even.  The kicker is that I had many opportunities to win more legs but my finishing suffered a bit and I couldn't close the deal resulting in more losses than I really needed to endure.

I had a few highlights:  First, I hit my highest out in recent memory - 113!  Quite proud of that.  Also, my 3DA was 51.0 which is just a hair (.3) higher than it was on Monday against Jeff. Also, even though I didn't get any 180's and only two 140's, my scoring in general was higher and I ended up with more tonnage than last time at 2,834.

The lowlights are that I lost the match (of course) but more importantly, struggling to finish.

Here is what I have learned from my losses and from the match in general.  First, don't ever play a match in your own garage in the middle of winter if the garage is so cold you are actually shivering when the match starts.  Those are not ideal conditions and I think they affected my game.  I had a space heater going the whole time but it did not help much.  Secondly, never start a long match without a proper warm up.  You don't want to give up games or even sets because you are still getting loose.  The coldness in my garage kept me away from the board until the match started and I only took 9 warm up darts.

I lost the first set 1-3.  The first loss was straight up anemia, never having thrown even a single dart at the double ring.  Second leg was my only win and I took out 16 spending about three darts to do so. The third game was mostly anemic. I afforded myself 2 darts at the double ring before I lost and they were both misses. The last game of the set was also a loss but it was a strong game for me, relatively.  I hit at least four triple 20's in there, spread across four rounds, and had a 52.6 average for the leg.  I was able to whittle the score down to 80 when my opponent took out 112 for the win.

The second set I won, 3-1.  In the first leg I won by taking out 52 with three darts, missing one shot at the D16 outside, and hitting it with my last dart.  The second leg was a win, and I dare say it was anemic right up until the end when I pull the game out of the mud.  I hit five 45's, two 41's, a 36, and a 3(!), leaving myself 155.  Then I hit a ton to bring it down to 55, and then took out 55 with three darts.  S15, D20 (miss), D20.  The third leg was my only loss for the set and I lost because I couldn't hit anything.  The game was decently strong as I hit a ton and a few other 60+ rounds, but in the end I floundered.  I was on 61 and somehow scored 36 to leave 25.  Then, in a truly B League fashion, I missed the S9 into the S14, and then miscalculated, hitting the S5 squarely, leaving a 6.  And then I missed the D3 outside. Then I missed it three more times outside and never got another chance.  The last leg was a win. At the end I hit a ton to leave 45, then hit the S13, and missed into the S16 with one of the darts to leave 16, which I took out next round with S8, D4.

The third set I won 3-2, and this set contained some of my strongest games.  The first leg was my strongest of the entire match at a meager 62.6 PPR, and I took out 113.  I wanted to go T20, S13, D20, but my first dart missed into the S20, leaving 93.  Then I hit the T19, leaving 36 and hit the D18 just as pretty as you please.  This is my highest checkout in recent memory.

My 113 Checkout:

In this leg, and in the next leg (also a win) my opponent still had over 100 points remaining.  The second leg I took out 87 with T17, D18, but the second dart missed outside before I took out the 36.  The third game was a loss but only barely.  It was a strong game for me.  I opened with a 9, but then hit 70, 60, 98, 100, 100 leaving 64.  But next round I busted the 64 by missing the D8 into the D16, and then next round could only whittle score down to 16 before I lost.  The fourth leg was a loss but not for lack of trying.  I hit a couple of tons but was only able to whittle the score down to 98 before my opponent won. He simply over-powered me in that leg.  The fifth leg was a win for me, anemic though it was.  No tonnage, and in the end, with 91 left, I hit the T17, missed the D20 outside, then hit the D2 leaving 38. Next round I missed the D19 outside, then inside, then cracked the score with a 3.  Next round I hit the D8 first dart.

The fourth set was a loss, 2-3.  I am not going to analyze every leg, but here are a few things that happened: In the first leg I busted 80 with a miss int the T20 and never got another chance. In the second leg I spent 12 darts missing the D5 before I lost in my worst case of finishing-suffering of the match.  In another leg I was left with 82 and decided to go pro with 50, 32, and hit the inner bull first dart!  But then missed the 32 with the other two darts.  I took it out next round though so that was at least a win.

The fifth set I lost 0-3.  All three were strong efforts on my part, but my opponent was stronger. In the first two legs I never had an opportunity to throw for a double.  In the last leg I did.  I hit a 140 and a 125 in the game and at one point I was sitting on 103.  Hit the S20, T19, but then missed the D12 outside.  Next round I managed to halve it to 12, then next visit I halved it again to 6. Then I spent three darts missing the D3 outside, and then that was it.  Kornfed won the leg, the set, and the match.

In the final analysis, of my 12 losses, three were due to not putting up big scores (anemia), four were due to an inability to finish, and in five I was simply overpowered by a strong opponent.  I have certainly had worse losses!  As for finishing across all 21 legs, I spent 68 darts aimed at the double ring and hit it successfully 9 times.  This is actually worse than last week at 7.5 darts per successful double.

In this match I used the 19 gram Nobu's, dressed the same as last time.  I am liking this dart as my go-to dart.  Funnily, even though I had several other darts available to me I was never tempted even once to pick up a different set.