The Little Red Book of Darts

I have had this book in my "will probably never read but it is about darts" pile for I don't know how many years, and so I finally broke it out and started reading it. On the whole, I do not recommend it unless you get it for free or for next to nothing.  The book is a scant 100 pages, mostly cartoons, and the rest is divided into: 80% dry (and very family-safe) humor, and 20% a listing of games.  For me, the humor didn't work, but then, to be fair, my sense of humor is quite different from the average dart player, prolly.  Some may find the book downright hysterical.  I found tremendous value in the section that lists out games, however.

Also, in the section pertaining to the rules of the game I found two tidbits that struck me:

1. The book asserts that once you have busted in an 01 game, you are NOT allowed to throw your remaining darts, and in fact, it is considered rude to do so.  This is a reversal from what I have always believed, which is that the player who approached the oche with three darts is entitled to throw those three darts no matter what.  I shall have to look this up in the ADO rules and see what they say about it.
2.  It validates the notion that is the chalker makes a mistake, it is the player's responsibility to catch it before they surrender the dart lane to their opponent, else the chalker's mistake stands.  This is quite hard for many players to swallow, and I have seen some soreness over it. But it is absolutely true.  I would take this a step further and that is: if you pull your darts out of the dart board, that means you are accepting the chalkers recording of your score no matter what it is.  Your opportunity to correct the chalker ends when you pull your darts.

Click to Embiggen

Now onto the good stuff, the new games I learned about in this book:

Soccer
Two Players.  Take turns throwing at the inner bull (the "50") until one player hits it.  once it is hit the player now has control of the ball and can score goals.  A double (any double) is a goal.  It is now the other players sole concern to wrest control of the ball away from the opponent, else he cannot score goals.  you can only score goals if you have control of the ball.  First player to ten goals wins.

Hm.  My first thought is that at my level of play (B League) the first person to hit that coveted 50 is going to score ten doubles long before the other player can hit the 50.  This might have to be lightened up a bit so that any bull gains control of the ball.

Cricket (Wickets & Bats)
This tired old book, written a good 40 years ago, calls the game I have always known as Wickets & Bats by the name of Cricket, which as we all know is a staple of league play through out America. Here is how the book says to play Wickets & Bats: 

One player chooses to start with wickets (the bull), and the other starts with bats (scoring).  The player scoring builds the highest possible score they can before the other player hits ten bulls.  Once this is done they trade places and now the player who was throwing bulls must build a higher score than his opponent before they hit ten bulls.  The game is played until either: the person currently throwing bulls hits ten of them, or, the player shooting for score surpasses the score of the bull-shooter.

I have played this game many times to great delight.  However, the one deviation from this description is how points can be scored.  In one version I have played, you can only score points on doubles.  In another version, you can score points anywhere, but you discard your first 40.  So if you hit a 41 you score 1 point.  If you hit a 59 you score 19, etc.

Shove Ha'Penny
I have no idea how to pronounce that, although I am guessing it is a contraction of 'half penny' which probably is (or was) a coin in Britain. And I further speculate that it is called this because if you score more than you need to in this game then you give that excess to your opponent for his benefit.

Fives
I have played Fives, with a rather non-trivial difference to the rules, many times with teammates, workmates, and other leaguemates. I'll explain the variation we always use in a different post. Wait, this whole game deserves its own post. 

Scram
Two players. One is trying to close "sectors", the other is trying to score.  Once all the sectors are closed they trade places and go through this process again.  The person with the highest score wins. 

The details in the book are not rich, and I have several wonderings.  For starters, are there 21 sectors in the game, or 62?  I suppose this would depend on the appetite of the players, but my guess is that each entire number wedge is one sector, and the bull is one as well, making 21.  The book also implies that only one dart is needed to close a sector, but I think this also depends on the appetite of the players.  On the whole this seems like a fun game and I will introduce it to my teammates.

Closed Shop
Closed shop sounds interesting but in practice I don't think it will be very compelling. In this two player game, both players are trying to generate the highest score possible. Once a player scores 3 times in any bed, however, it is closed to everybody. So if I go first, hit a triple 20, a single 19 and a double 19, I have scored 117 points, and my opponent cannot use those beds to score. The best they can score on is 18's and down (or bull, which can only be scored twice).  It seems like there would come a point where, there is no way the player behind in score could catch up with low beds.

Round the Clock
This one seems a little too basic.  Any number of players can play.  You must hit a double to start scoring, and then you have to get one dart in each bed 1 through 20. First to hit the 20 wins.  Doubles and triples do not count as anything more than a single as you only need one dart in each bed to progress.  You do not play bulls in this game.

Shanghai
Any number of players, and highest score wins.  You go through all the beds, 1 - 20, except bull, scoring as many points as you can in that bed.  Any interesting caveat of this game though, is that if you manage to score a shanghai (a single, a double, and a treble) you automatically win, and the game is over.  Also interesting are a couple of variations that make it more challenging: 

1. Harder variation #1: you must shanghai in order: single, double, triple.
2. Harder variation #2: If you score zero on an odd numbered wedge (after the 1) you are eliminated from the game.

Halve It
Very similar to the pub game we all know and love called 41.  Some differences though.  Any number of players can play. Instead of playing around the entire board on doubles, you only use 11 targets that are negotiated by the players.  Could be, for example: "20's, 19's, any treble, 17's, 16's, any double, 15's, 14's, inner bull, 12's, 11's". Or anything. You go through the targets in order, one round per target scoring as much as you can in each one.  If you miss entirely, you halve your score.  You cannot go below zero, and the game is started with zero points per player.  Most points wins.

Killer
Killer reminds me of a game we used to play with billiards. Basically you have your home sector which will hopefully stay alive. There is nothing you can do to protect it, necessarily, but it is yours. Any number of players can play (up to 20), and your home wedge is determined by a throw of your opposite hand. Right handlers have to deliver a dart to the board with the left hand until it sticks in a numbered sector, in other words. Then, using your normal hand your job is to kill all your opponents' sectors before they can kill yours, last player standing wins. You earn the right to destroy by hitting your own double, then a double in an enemy sector is one kill, a triple in an enemy sector is two kills. The book doesn't say how many "lives" a player has, I would imagine that is determined by the appetite of the players. 10 would be a fair place to start!  It is not clear whether you have to hit your own double fresh each round, or if once per game is enough. Again, might be a variable determined through negotiation with the other players.

Yay! We Lost!

I am not yaying because we lost, but rather because I was in a position to either win or lose at all.  Last night was the first league match that I have played in about five years and it was a blast. I loved being on the oche again, "chalking" (they've gone chalk-less in my absence), and the general camaraderie of the night.  

We played against the Vagiants at Kate's. Both teams play out of there as our sponsoring bar, but we were the official "visiting" team and got to choose cork all night. They walloped us 8-13 but fun and merriment was had by all, so who cares?

My performance, personally, was more good than bad, I think, but I have loads of room for improvement. I hit too many low scores for my taste and ended up with an 01 five dart average just over 55.  I played three singles matches and five doubles matches, and of course participated in the team game of SIDO 801.  I dropped one of the singles matches (I should not have) and one of the doubles matches (again) but won the rest.  I did not hit any 180's but I did hit one high-ton, and two low-tons for 376 glory points on the night.  I also hit a nice 7 mark round in cricket.

My first 401 was against Joe. In that game I shot a 120, and took out 40 with my first dart at it for the win.  My second singles game was cricket against Lyle, their captain and best player.  I also won this one.  He was behind for most of the match especially after I hit a 7 count on the 17's and 15's, so he opened bulls early.  But next round after he opened them I closed them right up with two double bulls.  My last singles match was against Lyle in cricket again and he won.  All of a sudden I could not hit bulls when I needed to and dropped that one.

I played three doubles SIDO 501 games, and two doubles cricket games.  In the first 501 I took out 4 for the win, but in the second I missed an 83 out.  I hit my triple 17, slopped quite sloppily into the single 16, and then missed the double 8.  They took it out the next round.  That 83 was my one opportunity to win the game and I choked.  In the last doubles 501 I hit a 156 mid-game, and then later took out 40 for the win, again with my first look at it.

The first doubles cricket I played with Henry.  It was an unremarkable game but we won.  The second doubles cricket game was also a win but I hit only rubbish.  My partner tho had a hell of a game.  She hit a 9 count, as well as a first dart double bull for the win.  Team game was a loss.  Other than a single ton I didn't put up any numbers.  I think the team was spent by then.

These are the darts I used last night: 

I went into the night thinking the the Nobu's (top set (medium twin-grip stems with slim poly flights)) would be the primary set and I would switch to the UFO's (bottom set (short aluminum stem with standard mylar (folded) flights)) late in the match, maybe for the team game.  However, after my first cricket loss I ended up switching between the sets pretty regularly throughout the night.

Next week we travel to Redmond for a match against the Three Lions Fight Club B team. Looking forward to it!

Dr. Darts' Newsletter

How did I not know this existed?  To save you all from the same fate I am sharing you it now:

That of course, is just a screen shot.  The newsletter itself is something that you subscribe to and is distributed via email.  It is written by Dr. Darts himself, aka Dr. Patrick Chaplin, who is the world's foremost (and perhaps only) Darts Historian.

If you would like to subscribe to this wonderful newsletter, email him directly at: Patrick Chaplin.

You can also peruse his website which is chuck full of great darts related information at: www.patrickchaplin.com

Happy Reading!

Twin-Gripping the Nobu's

The Twin-Grip stem is absolutely fucking brilliant.  It is the best, "simple" nylon stem and I think it is very very a crying shame that it is no longer made.  I have a selection of mediums still, but I no longer have any short or in-between lengths, so if you would like to to unload yours please let me know!  See here:

What do I like about them?  Basically two things:

1. there is nothing for an incoming point to snag on so there are no robin hoods to worry about.  With normal nylon stems an unlucky shot will hit the cross in the back and either the stem is straight up ruined or a tine or two breaks off.  With these though, because there are only two tines holding the flight on, an incoming point will slip right past.

2. Flights stay on securely during flight, but pop off quite easily when they encounter another dart.  I like this.  Many do not, but I certainly do.  In fact for years I have been thinking about a dart design that would eject its flight automatically upon impact with the board.  I think I ned to get good at 3-d printing first so I can experiment with flight designs :)

Bottelsen UFO's

I picked up the term "UFO" to describe unknown sets of darts from dartsnutz.net.  I love the term.  First, it is cheeky.  Second it borrows from the mystique created by The X-Files, which I am recently watching (and loving) for the first time ever.  I cannot believe I never watched that show before.

These darts, despite being much more massive than other darts in the same weight range, are a meager 20 grams.  This, and the fact that they have a "silvery" hue to them, and somewhat slickery feel, makes me think that they are not tungsten at all, but rather a nickel-silver dart.  Funny how few nickel-silver darts there are out there.  There are literally a gazillion brass darts available, and just as many tungsten darts, but darts of this composition are significantly fewer, in my humble opinion.

As currently dressed:
Points: Bottelsen Hammerhead Points
Barrel: 20 gram Nickel-Silver
Stems: Short Aluminum
Flights: Standard Mylar (folded)

Anyway, the above darts are likely Bottelsen darts because when I got them they came with a Bottelsen leather flap wallet, and the mylar folded flights you see in the pic. Not long ago I reached out to Bottelsen to see if there was anyone there with copies of old catalogs that I could look through and got quite a cold shoulder from them.  This makes me sad a bit.  They are a great dart maker and have contributed to the substance of the dart universe significantly.  I wish there were someone there who was more of a dart geek, cared about preserving (and sharing) their own history, etc.

If I am ever a dart maker I will never, never, ignore a fan who cares about the history of darts equipment!

Aim Small Miss Small

George Silberzhan's book, "How to Master the Sport of Darts", espouses the philosophy of "Aim Small, Miss Small".  Glib but nice.  I like the concept. It goes something like this:

The definition of a "miss" in the context of darts is that your dart lands outside the zone in which you intended to place it.  Simple definition that make sense to me.  If what you are aiming for is the entire dartboard, your misses are going to naturally, and by definition, land off the board somewhere.  Likewise, if you aim for an entire frame, a miss by definition will land in another frame.  Aim for the 20 wedge, and you will hit in the 1 or the 5 wedge.  Makes sense.  Extending this idea further, if you aim for the Triple-20, a miss by definition falls into something that is not the Triple-20, like the Triple-1 or the Triple-5 (or somewhere else).

Assuming that with practice you can narrow the range of your misses to just a small percentage of the diameter of your targeted range then you can further assume that the dart you aim at the Triple-20 bed will not be that far away from the Triple-20 (when they miss).  Daisy chaining assumptions is dangerous, but hey, practice needs to have some results, right? 

So the "Aim Small, Miss Small" philosophy would have you aim for a tiny dot within the Triple-20 so that your misses, are not far from that tiny dot, and therefore probably still within the Triple-20 bed itself.  I love this idea.  See here:

To help me practice this concept, I have taken small thumb tacks with tiny colored (red and green) balls on the end and placed them within the bed I want to hit.  In practice, when I hit the bed that contains the tack I am targeting, I pull it and place it to the outside of the scoring area of the board.  I do this because I usually randomize the doubles and triples that I am aiming for with a handful of 20-sided dice.  In the practice session above, you can see that I was aiming for the tack in the Triple-20, and over the course of several rounds hit the bed three times.

That's a Foam Axe, by the way :(

This also reminds me of something that I have seen many times over the many years I have been in league and thought I understood, but probably did not.  While chalking I would see a player, having missed the 60, after pulling his darts, poke the point of one of them right into the middle of the 60 bed one or more times.  I always assumed this to be a form of prayer.  The dart player was pleading with the 60 bed to attract his darts more better.  Now that I think on it more though, this was probably the player creating a hole in the Triple-20 that they can see, and aim at, allowing them to "Aim Small, Miss Small".

Damn.  I am going to start doing that myself.  Probably in practice before the match starts.

CCC Darts

In 1933 the United States was in dire straits, financially. The Great Depression was in full bloom and millions were out of work. Our newly elected president, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, loved by many and for good reason, hit the ground running. He implemented what he termed “a new deal” for the American people, aimed at providing work for the unemployed, and with that work, dignity and self respect. One aspect of this new deal was the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC).  The CCC was put to use rebuilding, improving, and creating pubic spaces in America and our national and state parks benefitted tremendously for the effort. I am not a historian, nor am I especially knowledgeable in this or any other area of history but I love the CCC nonetheless.

I was lucky enough to be able to visit the official CCC museum in Florida recently and was happily surprised to see that my favorite hobby (I won’t insult you) ostensibly overlaps with this finest (if erstwhile) of institutions. Enjoy if you will, the following pic:



Note the darts on the shelf in the very bottom of the pic. They look period enough, don’t they? I love the idea of these young men playing darts at the end of the day in a camp deep in the woods after a hard day of improving a park. As an Eagle Scout I can tell you that there is nothing more satisfying than knowing you have improved a public space that will be enjoyed by many to come, but the idea of playing darts afterwards is even better. The finer, unstated, aspect of this is that these camps were undoubtedly dry camps. It is unlikely they would allow alcohol to be consumed by hundreds of womenless, exhausted young men, after all, and so these games of darts would have been shot with (mostly) clear heads and with a heightened desire of winning. If indeed darts were played in these camps, then I am certain they would have produced a number of superlative players.

But something doesn't seem right to me here.  I am not a dart historian by any stretch, but from what I know of darts in America, before the 70's (and the CCC lasted from 1933 to 1942) the English dart game was pretty much unknown so any darts that would have been played in these camps would have been the American Dart game.  If that is the case, and I understand my darts equipment history well enough, that would mean throwing light weight wooden darts at wooden American dart boards.  The darts above look like a dart designed to be heavy enough to land in a sisal board and was therefore probably made in the 60's or 70's. 

But I don't really know.

The cynic in me says that what we are probably looking at here is a stylized window display that was cobbled together not with actual CCC artifacts, but rather with the sorts of things the window display creator thought would represent camp activities well enough.  I am going to do a little research if I get the time and see what I can discover.  I could try to discover who created that display, for instance and ask them.  I could discover what company made those darts, and also try to determine when that company might have existed.  I could read a book about CCC camp life.

I'll start with the book :)

Euro Board

This information comes from Beni Petris

"January 2002: 12 countries of the European Union (EU) changed their currencies to the new EURO: (Belgium, Germany, Finland, France, Greece, Ireland (but not Northern Ireland), Italy, Luxemburg, Netherlands, Austria, Portugal, Spain). Denmark, Great Britain and Sweden stayed by their own currencies.

"For this point the Switzerland based UBS Bank (we have our own Swiss Francs here and only deal with any kind of money :-)) brought out this marvelous 12-wedged blue Bristle board with the Euro-Stars.

"I didn’t know of this board and have never seen one; but this month – two of them, both in Switzerland ! I’m proud to have it in my collection."

Well Beni I too am proud to have one in my collection, and it would seem that one found its way into Christian's collections as well! [looking for good new link] This is certainly the most interesting clock face board I own (but I say that about all my clock face boards :/) for a few different reasons. This first and foremost of which is the 12 bed configuration and the numbering of the wedges one through twelve. I have only ever seen a few clock face boards with 12 beds before and those are the Ipswitch and London 5's boards numbered in multiples of five. Also, take note that this is a high quality bristle board instead of the cheaper paper-wound cousin. When you see celebratory or product based boards made for advertising and give aways they are frequently the paper wound (also known as Paper-coil, or just "coiled") variety because they are cheaper to make and because they can be printed on both sides.

The Euro Board is also very esthetically pleasing, being bright blue with the twelve yellow stars.

I love it!  Thank you Beni!

Beni has a pretty amazing Dartboard collection himself.  Check it out here.

12g Unicorn Aluminum Darts

I believe very strongly that these are unicorn darts and are quite old (40 or 50 years) but I am not 100% certain because I cannot find them in their online heritage catalogs.  There are a few reasons why I believe them to be Unicorn. Four reasons, in fact.

First, I know for a fact that Unicorn has made other aluminum darts.  I used to have a set called the Unicorn Bantam which had a brass nose and the rest of the body was aluminum (those were only 10 grams).  Secondly, while I did not see this particular dart in any of the online catalogs, I did see plenty of brass torpedo darts that have the same body.  And I mean exactly the same body. But as we all know, the torpedo shaped dart was not unique to Unicorn.  This brings me to the third reason I suspect it as a Unicorn offering, and that is the ring pattern starts early.  The first ring is just millimeters back of the point, which as far as I know, was a ring pattern common to Unicorn darts, but not necessarily others.

The below pic provides a better view of the overall dart in which you can see the torpedo shape more saliently.  

In the below picture you can see the 12 gram aluminum dart (bottom) contrasted against a 20 gram tungsten dart (top).  The tungsten dart is another unknown, btw, though I would dearly love to know anything about them.  The aluminum dart has nearly twice the mass of the tungsten dart!

The last reason I believe them to be Unicorn darts is because when I acquired them they came in the below case, which says Unicorn on the top.  This is no silver bullet however (second favorite dart pun :), because darts get rehoused in different cases all the time.  I have done it myself more times than I can shake a stick at, and these darts have had a long life thus far to have been rehoused.  That said, the darts do fit pretty perfectly in the case.

So there you have it.  Anyone ho has any informations on this dart please feel free to contribute!

For Posterity

Since I need to update my side bar to reflect the new highest outs and lowest dart games, I'd like to preserve what I had in there before for posterity's sake:

My highest Out: 156. This occurred on 6-5-2008 against my captain at work. I went T20, T20, D18. This was an 18 dart game.

My Lowest Game: 17 darts. This game occurred at work on January 8th, 2010. I was playing a three way 501 with Jake and Nathan. My scores were: 65, 56, 40, 140, 140, 60 (out).

My Best Game Ever

My best game ever occurred one night in my favorite dart bar, Coopers (in Seattle) but it was not a league night.  Rather I was there playing darts with two of my neighbors.  It was very casual, zero pressure, and it was more about three neighbors socializing than about darts.  Darts were the backdrop.  The side-by-side activity that allows men to socialize in the first place. (What do I mean by that? Men socialize differently than women.  Women tend to have "face to face" relationships where they are happy to sit and talk while doing absolutely nothing, which is a very strong form of bonding for women (in general).  Men on the other hand, bond equally strongly in the opposite manner: "side by side". We perform some activity together, frequently saying absolutely nothing in the process. (These are generalizations, not absolutes, obviously, and not original with me. I learned this stuff in a psych class in college :))

And kudos to you if you were able to follow the nested parentheticals.

Where was I?  Oh yes.  My best game of darts ever. It was a fifteen darter that started with an impressive three tons in a row, followed by a 41, and then I took out the 160. With witnesses, against two neighbors in friendly competition:

The icing on this deliciousness would be the highest out I have ever made: 160.  Again, witnesses and everything:

Of course, it came at some cost, as all good things do.  one of my neighbors was royally pissed off at me and to this day refuses to play darts with me.  But thats okay.  We are friendly to each other, stop to chat in a very friendly manner when we see each other in the street or the yards, etc.  He borrows my power washer every year and I very happily borrow it to him!

This game occurred in July 2015 but I was not blogging then and I never thought to throw it up here, or update the side bar.  Now that I am sliding back into my former dartphilia I want to blog it so when I am old and grey I can remember it fondly.

According to the photo, I appeared to by using my 20 gram Monster Hades wearing medium standard Condor flights (which I love near to death).

Something Happens

For those of us that wind up with dart collections, either by way of being in the hobby and slowly, unintentionally amassing them, or though serious collecting, there is the phenomenon of “the random soft tip barrels pile”. Many of my darts, especially my soft tip barrels, come by way of my father who actively seeks out interesting things at auctions. I am always grateful to receive what he sends, of course, but much of it is not something that I would spend a lot of time throwing in league or in practice. So they go into a container that is rarely opened or looked at. It happens. 

Of all the types of darts that I have, the type I enjoy throwing the least, in general, would be the brass soft tip dart. Usually they are large for their weight and frequently esthetically unappealing. But I have slowly come to the realization over the years that even though the barrel is the heart of any dart it lives or dies by virtue of its configuration. You can take any expensive barrel and misconfigure it to the point that it is a non-throwable hot mess of a dart, and conversely, you can take what you though was a cheap, poorly designed, unattractive, too-big-for-it’s-weight barrel and configure it into something really nice. Take this one for example:

Something happens when a dart is nicely configured.  These barrels are unknown to me.  Could be Halex, could be Harrows, who knows?  I'll probably look them up some day but in the meantime, the barrels themselves did not strike my fancy in the least.  But then I took the time to experiment with them a little.  I found some spare L-Style conversion points that look nice on them, found a short marginally curvaceous stem and then when poking through my flights barrels, I came across the perfect flight.  Once I added those it all came together.  Something happened.  The darts became appealing to me and I started throwing them and started hitting good numbers.  No Ton-80's, but good numbers nonetheless.

Then I decided to dig into my random soft tip barrels pile and with patience found configurations for each of the sets that felt good and appropriate for each barrel.  I even discovered an 18 gram Bottelsen "Gap" in there that when fitted with a normal Hammerhead point, medium nylon stems and coal cracker flights flew straight and true.  Lot's of trip-20's with that config!

Moral of the story: don't dismiss random barrels too easily.  Be patient and find a configuration that works with them. You could have a hidden gem!

A Nice Robin Hood

I have been away from darts for a few years but I have been slowly getting back into it again. Tonight in practice I hit this nice shot:

It looks like it could barely hang on but it did. These darts are some Bottelsen Gap soft tippers that came to me by way of my dad I believe. I don't know their weight but they are certainly light. Probably 15 grams tops. 

The Sweetest Girl Who Ever Lived

"At any given time, there are only seven great dogs in the world."

- Horacio Fisk (Dean Spanley)

If you happened to be following this blog 13 years and eight months ago, you will remember reading how I was likely to be playing fewer darts because we had just gotten a new puppy.  I projected that I'd more commonly be seen holding a leash than my darts.

This was true.  It was true for more than 13 years.

Today my sweet baby girl died and I cannot tell you how deeply I feel her loss.  She was one of the Seven Great Dogs, without a doubt, and she was the sweetest girl who ever lived.  She taught my wife and I all about Unconditional Love, and we will never be the same.

Golf Case

I am not a golfer, by any stretch, unless you include golf-related dart games, or mini-golf.  As such, I never really liked the above case very much, although this is the only one of its kind I have ever seen.  I threw this picture up here so I could show it to someone, I don't remember who, now, but I am fairly certain I sent it along to them.  I hope they are enjoying it!

Pitched Battle

Week 1 was a nice start!

Last night went swimmingly. Two of my teammates I have known previously, three I met for the first time last night.  We won the match last night 17-8 against a traditionally strong team, The Dudes Abide.  My own performance was mostly satisfactory, but a little bit lackluster. I had one ton and a few 5 counts, but that was it for glory points. On the other hand I only lost one game all night and even that was a nail biter: Bill B beat me in singles cricket, but I made him fight hard for the win. Despite the loss, that was probably my most enjoyable and satisfying game all night long. 

I really enjoyed playing games with my new teammates as well. They seem energetic, good natured and happy to engage in league play which is a very nice vibe. I have been trying to sell my team on the philosophy that this season is first and foremost an opportunity to have fun and spend time with friends, and secondarily an opportunity to improve ourselves as dart players. I really believe that!  I have captained many times before in my decade+ of playing league darts. But I have always only been a captain, filling out forms and interfacing with the opposing captain. This season I want to also be a coach. I want to help my teammates become better players, both mentally and in technique. I am interested to see how well I do in this regard. I am not completely sure how I will go about it, so I guess I'll just figure it out as we go. Job number one will be to 

1. divide my team between experienced and inexperienced and pair them like that for doubles games. That way the experienced player can coach the inexperienced player on strategy. 
2. I also want to have workshops (or just plain old practice sessions) where we can take the time to discuss the finer points of technique and strategy. 
3. Maybe have short team meetings before each match to do a small pep rallyish kinda thing, remind the team about the importance of courtesy and sportsmanship, and that kinda thing. 
4. Work on the mental game. Not sure I am qualified to do thins exactly but I will be soon. Maybe start with the concepts of not thinking anything that

Louis Brown

My team name this season, Spring 2014, is "Louis Brown". Let me explain.

The very wonderful pub sponsoring my team this season is called The Ballard Station Public House, in Ballard, Seattle. The theme of the pub is narrow enough to be really interesting, but not so narrow as to be obscure. Read about it here: http://theballardstation.com/about/

When my wife and I were living in Pittsburgh, we had a very good friend who was one of the most well read and well versed in history people we've ever known. He had a love of many topics, from WWII to glassware, and had an amazing store of knowledge in almost every area of history. Among his favorite topics were trains, their history and lore, and the intersection of those two.

His name was Louis Brown. He died last year.  We miss him.

I think about him often, especially when I think about trains or history in general.

17 gram Voks Javalins

These sweeties are a nice little dart. I have not maxed with them yet, but they feel real nice coming off my hand at the oche.  They are a 17 gram version of the Voks Javelin style "Fulcrum" dart, although when I bought them they were not labeled "Javelin" in any way so as far as I am concerned they are a one-off creation that may not fit in the Javelin line.  Furthermore, the metal they are made out of seem a heck of a lot darker, than shiny new nickel tungsten, and their size doesn't seem to match their weight, so they may not be tungsten at all.

These are the points. They seem to be industry standard movable points:

A Happy Omen

But hopefully not a jinx.

I am entering league again! Very happily I have managed to scrape together enough players for an A-League team to be played out of Ballard Station Pub this Spring. Half the guys I know and half I don't. Last night we met for a team practice, and as usual I brought two sets of darts with me. The Dennis Priestleys seen above and the old 28 gram GTs that I bought years and years ago. Some how I managed to squeak out wins in most of my games including the five count above and another four count in bulls with the GTs. I feel it will be a fine season!