28 and Counting

This one came the next morning after numbers 26 and 27. I was grooving on the Mags again and wanted to get in a full session of EMD. I was richly rewarded in high tons, including this one:

27th Maximum

As previously mentioned, this one came within about 20 minutes of the 26th Max and it was even during the same round of EMD. Near the end of course.

More Maximums in Practice

Numbers 26, 27 and 28 came in rapid succession and all while doing my new favorite practice routine, which is "Extended Modified Doubles", which perhaps I will blog on later. It is a very good practice routine that allows you to get in quality practice regardless if you have 10 minutes or two hours to mess around in.



The darts that I was using are my 23 gram Magnums by Harrows, dressed in short twin grip stems and slim ruthless flights.

Dart Matter Debut

Last night was the first match of the new league season and Dart
Matter won handily 21-4. The competition was tough to be sure but all
four of us were in top form, raking in no fewer than 940 all star
points for the team and two 9 counts!

My own game was sharp most of the time. My first singles match was a
DD 301 which I won with a quick in and good darts. Then I played two
singles cricket games. This is where my smile broadens at the
memories of the night. The first game was againt the oipposing
captain, easily their best player. I played the sharpest game I have
ever played. I opened with a fiver - 4 20's and a 19. In the next
several rounds I hit a 7 count and hit the triple during on every
number. In my penultimate round I had one dart left after hitting a
triple 15 and used it to soak up a double bull. Next round I got my
last bull for the win.

My next singles cricket game, while a victory, was not as sharp. But
that is the game in which I hit the nine count. Triple 18, trip 17,
and trip 16. The only other cricket niner I've ever hit in an actual
game came in that very same bar several years ago. We'd just gotten
having our asses handed to us in a league match and we stayed around
to goof off after the match. I wanted to try my teammates new darts
and hit a cricket niner against him with them.

Of the four losses last night I was involved in two of them. They came
in doubles 501 matches. One was a disheartening case of being 300
point ahead and not being able to hit the double. All in all a good
night.

--
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Practice Routine: Foam Axe

The Foam Axe is so named because its pronunciation is identical to 'faux max' give or take a micro pause. It is a very short routine except on the worst of practice days because all you have to do is get all three darts into the triple 20 and they do not need to be all in the same round. In fact by definition they are not! Because then that would be a genuine maximum. I will very often use the foam axe as a warm up routine for regular practice.

Here is how it works: you throw your darts at the triple 20 until one hits. Then you leave it in there! You retrieve the two errant darts and return to the oche. Now your task is to hit the triple 20 with one dart already in there. Believe it or not having your first dart stick in the triple is in fact a cause for a small psychological charge but with repeated practice can be overcome. Once you get your second dart in there, now you leave it and return to the oche with the single errant dart. The task now is to get that last dart in the triple 20 with the other two already in there. Keep throwing and retrieving it until you do. Make sure each shot is a studied determined 'spot' shot. Take a breath. Make a routine out of throwing that last dart for the max, this way you have a behavioral guideline for when this occurs in a match. When this condition does occur in a live game the last thing you want to happen is to be thinking "oh my gosh I hope I don't miss!". Instead you want to have hit the max a hundred times before in Foam Axe situations. The stress of having two darts in the triple 20 is tremendous and for the novice player usually results in a choke (a wide miss) but this is a situation that can and should be desensitized.

A Bear of a Maximum

This is my 25th Maximum. It came during round of Modified Doubles quite near the end of the session, and in fact I only had the double 13 left. If I had not missed that double so many times I would have had to wait a while more for my 25th max. I am very happy with this maximum as it is the first I have hit with my Nobu's.


This is my Current Preferred Configuration for the Nobu's. Short Twin Grip stems and slim poly (non-dimplex) flights. Right now the flights are Black Bear flights but I change flights frequently and that does not affect my CPC (as long as they are still slim poly).

Practice Routine: Modified Doubles

Sometimes I want to practice both doubles and sixties but have a hard time deciding best how to alternate among them. Or at least I used to have some trouble with this. These days I am almost always throwing the Flight School 'Accuracy" routine but when I want a break from that I throw a modified doubles practice that incorporates both sixties as well as the doubles. Here's how it works:

First dart of every round is aimed at the triple 20. If it hits then you stay on the same target regardless of the result of the second dart and try for a 120+ score. If the first dart misses, however, you abandon the sixties and the remaining two darts are aimed at the
doubles as if it were regular doubles practice. So you do the doubles in the standard zeeple order: 16, 8, 4, 2, 1, 20, 10... So let's say we just started the practice and the first dart missed the sixty. The second dart goes for the double 16. If it hits then great, you move onto double 8. If that second dart is a miss though you either go for the double 8 (if you missed inside or missed into the double 8 leaving 16), or you stay on the double 16 (if you miss anywhere else). Once a round is over though all that carries into the next round is where you left off with the doubles. So let's say that the second dart misses inside the double 16, the third dart then misses outside the double 8. The first dart of the next round again misses the sixty. What about the second dart? Do you go for the double 8 because you had 16 remaining last time, or the double 16 because you have not hit it yet? The correct answer is the double 16. It doesn't matter what remained last time.

So that is my modified doubles routine. I have been sticking with the Flight School routines mostly though.

130, Double Bull Out

Today at work during a DIDO 301 game against my teammate I hit a real humdinger. Sitting at 130 I shot for the triple 20 and missed into the single. I then hit the triple 20 with my second dart, leaving 50:



Also of note is that I skunked my opponent. He never got on the board. I felt good about that game all day long!

Sunday Luck(y)

Last night I headed up to my home pub for the weekly Luck of the Draw shoot. One awesome thing about this shoot is that the bar always matches the pot. So the more people who show up the better for the winners. Last night only five people came! A small number to be sure so instead of doing a blind doubles shoot we did a quick singles match in which we all played everyone twice. I won 7 of my 8 games taking home the $25 first prize. The only game I dropped I dropped due to some sloppy doubles and I gave my opponent too many chances to win. Which he did, of course! I can't feel too bad though because he is my teammate during league and I am happy when he wins. As far as my performance goes I only hit one ton all night but I made up for this with plenty of 80+ scores and of course I was spot on with doubles. Rarely missing them with more than one dart. So for this reason I feel pretty good about the evening.

Last night I thew my Nobu's primarily but had my Magnums in reserve for those few times the Nobu's felt funky. The Nobu's were configured with short Dynastar stems and they threw completely awesome with this configuration. A moving point and a spinning flight might be overkill even for the most die hard gimmick junky, especially for me who has professed for years that a solid dart that doesn't rattle shimmy or shake on the way to the sweet spot is a well behaved dart. They served me pretty well last night.

More Fun with Fleece

The quest to create the most streamlined case possible never ends. Darts that come apart into many pieces are prime candidates for having small case designed around them, especially if the points separate from the barrel. The Voks Nobu is a just such a dart:


As you can see in the below pic the Nobu's come apart into four pieces. Five if I were to remove the o-ring from the stem but that would just be silly. The point of any El-C style dart is always going to be the longest piece that you will have to contend with but believe it or not the El-C point lends itself to disassembly far more than the traditional screw in point such as the Pickup Points. This is because to keep the screw in points from shaking loose you either have to o-ring them or loktite them, and loktiting is better for points.


Here you can see all of the pieces that need a home in the new soft case:


And in the below pic you can see my design ideas. The points were the biggest design challenge as they are the longs piece of any of them. What I did was to start arranging all the pieces into rectangles and squares until I eventually came to the patter you see below. Then it was just a matter of making all the compartments tight fits for their pieces. I am very happy with the long skinny compartments for the points. The slide in only with a bit of force and no amount of shaking will cause them to fall out. They have to be pulled out, which means I do not hav to worry about capping the compartments at all. The same is true of the stems. The barrels a bit looser in their compartments, as are the flights.


What you do not see in the pictures here are the small glove snaps I have sewed onto the case in various places to keep the flaps closed and the two halves snapped together.


Here you can see the soft case completely folded shut. It is small enough that it drops into the front pocket of my jeans easily and comfortably. Also in the below pic you can see the ends of the points just barely showing out of their compartments.

Length of Medium Twin

I do not use the medium length twin grip stems, but for the record they are 50 mm without the threading, and when flighted are longer than a standard medium length nylon stem.

Faux Max

Disappointed that no one showed up for the luck tonight at Coops, I came home and decided to throw 60's until I hit a max. It never came but after about forty minutes of dedicated 60's practice and after many tons and a few 120+'s, I hit a would be max but the third dart fell out of the triple. I am not sure how many seconds it was in there. Probably not more than five so I am downgrading this shot to a Faux Max. Oddly not a single ton-40 which is what I am used to hitting.

Fun with Fleece

Here is a new dart case I made from fleece. I made this case because I like very slim streamlined cases that can fit comfortably in your pocket. To make this case you just need a little bit of fleece a small scrap of muslin and some needle and thread and optionally a rare earth magnet if you want the case to have a closing mechanism. It helps to have a sewing machine, which I used, but it is not necessary. After all I have done plenty of quality stuff by hand.

Here is what it looks like closed:

And this is what it looks like open but I took this picture before I decided to add a muslin flight sheath:

The magnet idea came later, I was just going to have a folding fleece wallet style soft case but then it occured to me that I could leverage the steel tips themselves to keep the case closed. So I arrange it so that when folded the placement of the magnet is lined up with the points of the darts. The magnet I used is a neodymium magnet hat has quite a lot of pull.


Here you can see that the magnet is strong enough to hold that darts by their points ( and then some. In this picture they are hanging in front of my fireplace.


A close up of the stem side of the soft case: The wallet is long enough that I could keep medium length stems in there if I wanted to but I prefer short stems so I designed the soft case specifically for their length:


Here is a long shot of the entire case open before I sewed the magnet into it's round pocket:


I strted out by not dividing the stem side into three slots, but later added that for its aesthetic appeal. Of course, once I did that there was no longer anywhere to put the flights since it was no longer just a big open pocket. So my solution was to grab a little bit of muslin and sew a sheath for the flights and attach it in the middle of the open case. I thought about doing it in fleece but I did not want to add too much thickness to the soft case when it is folded closed. Below you can see that the muslin makes for a very thin sheath indeed:


I close up of the middle of the soft case:


Here you can see a close up of the barrel side of the case. I designed it specifically for my 23 gram Magnums but almost any dart will fit. I have been thinking about how to do a similar case with angled pockets for GT style darts.

24th Maximum

So my 24th maximum came on the very second throw of some brandnew darts, the 24 gram Bullets in fact. It occurred early last December but I failed to blog it at the time. That would have made it my last Ton-80 of 2007. I still have not hit one in 2008 but my goal for this year is to hit one in competition. Even if it is friendly competition, it has to be during a game. I have done that in soft tip (that makes me sound like a soft tipper which I am not) but never in steel tip. It is also worth noting that I only hit 2 maximums in all of 2007. That's fewer than even in 2004 which is the first year I ever hit one.

2004 - 3 Ton-80's
2005 - 6
2006 - 13
2007 - 2

The darts in the picture were brand spanking new at the time and I was still learning how to throw them. The grippage is the opposite of what my grip requires and I recall that on that particular throw I two fingered the darts and "pulled" them to the board. Odd feel throw with pleasing, but unrepeatable, results.

While I am going to give my Nobu's priority handling in the months to come my guess is that my next max will come off the 21 gram Assassins. They have been floating in there pretty good for me lately.

19 gram Nobu's

These are my 19 gram Nobuyuki darts from Voks. They are lighter than I am used to and they are significantly shorter in the barrel. I spent several hours trying different stem and flight combinations until I settled on th config in the picture. I am still learning how to throw them well but what attracted me to them in the first place: the rear and front barrel grippage, makes them a very good barrel for my grip style.

As of January 14, 2020, this is my best configuration of these darts:

Practice - Pre-Flight School

What do I want from practice? What is my goal? It is unequivocally to become a better dart player. I do not practice for the joy of the game (although I do enjoy it). Rather, my primary adjective of every practice session is to improve my accuracy and refine my mechanics. I do not race to see how quickly I can complete the doubles or hit a hundred bulls or whatever. Every throw is methodical, practiced, considered and there is a purpose behind it. I do not throw just for the sake of it. That is my practice mentality when I am practicing alone. When my buddies and I meet for team practice it is slightly different, but not by too much. I play to win, I think through strategy and I practice calculating out shots, but still every shot is focused. In theory.

It has not always been this way. I used to be a careless, even luckless, thrower and I got discouraged easily and wound up driving my confidence into the ground, but in the last four or five years my practice habits have slowly but steadily begun to change for the better. At this point I am of the attitude that I can compete aggressively at the A League level - all I need to do is perfect my mechanics and group my darts better! Imagine!! Those two little things are all that stand between me and my goal.

How do I practice? I mean, what specifically do I do? I have my routines of course. But I will divide this discussion into the two primary scenarios in which I practice. When I am with my buddies/teammates, and when I am alone.

When at the pub and with my teammates we usually spend the first beer going around on doubles and the occasional bull or 60. But mostly it is doubles and this is less practice than it is warm up. Once ready we commence playing games. Lately we have been playing Chicago rounds, but historically we would alternate between 01 games and cricket, and usually finish off the evening with a dozen or so 101 games. This is a tremendously enjoyable way to practice. Especially when well Scotched, and happily beered.

However when I am alone I am always completely sober, always relaxed, and the only distraction I have is my dog jumping around trying to get my attention, or deciding to camp out immediately in front of the oche. I start by getting out six or eight sets of darts that catch my eye, an then lay them out on my work bench so that I can alternate among them freely. Sometimes I start with a set and never pick up another, while other times I cannot settle on a single set. Regardless, my first series of throws is a process that I call "Calibration". I throw at the triple 20, the double bull and the double 16, in that order, until I hit one of the targets. If I hit the target then that target has been calibrated and I leave it out of the rotation. I continue this until I have hit all three targets, which usually doesn't take very long at all. Sometimes no more than a couple rounds. Then, I start 60's practice. I take slow focused shots at the triple 20 until I have hit 20 of them. Lately I have changed this just a bit. I used to focus on the entire triple. Now I try to pick out a spec of irregularity in the triple and strain my eyes at it. During 60's practice I usually hit many low tons, and when I am "on" a ton-40 or two. I almost never hit the coveted ton-80. I have only hit 25 in my life time.

After 60's practice, I do a round of doubles, in this order: 16, 8, 4, 2, 1, 20, 10, 5, 12, 6, 3, 18, 9, 14, 7, 19, 17, 15, 13, 11. I concentrate on the doubles but if I miss inside I will go to the next number if it is half the starting value, which is why I do them in this order. Also because that is the order of choice when leaving an out. While I consider myself to be a pretty good shot at the doubles, this portion of the practice usually takes the longest time to finish. I can usually take out a double every couple of rounds but sometimes I take out two (rarely three) in one round.

After doubles I toss bulls until I have hit 20 of them. Double bull counts for two. The only exception to this rule is if I get through 20 bulls without hitting a double in which case I continue until I do. If there is still time after all of this I will shoot the cricket triples but often my time runs out before I get this far. When it comes to cricket triples I will stay one one number until I hit four-ish of them and then move down the board.

I do not have a set time or even a set amount of time for practice. I practice at home whenever I can sneak in a few rounds. Sometimes I have as much as an hour or two, some times it is five minutes while waiting for my wife to get ready to go somewhere or something like that. If I had to estimate an average session length, I'd have to say about 20 minutes since it seems I am always sneaking in a little bit of time here and there.

When I am practicing is is quiet and cold (at least in the winter) and my only distraction is my dog, who is fairly large and who has a playful personality and a thunderous bark. Sometimes she will jump around while I am throwing or even jump up on me and put her paws on my shoulders. I use this as concentration practice. I always practice ignoring her and focusing on the board. Sometimes she will catch sight of a squirrel or something outside and she will really let the poor animal have it. She'll produce the loudest string of barks and growls you have ever heard. I use this as concentration practice too. I don't let any of it get to me. This concentration practice came in handy last Sunday at the pub during a Luck of the Draw shoot. There was an important football game going on at the time and the place was packed. From time to time the entire bar would erupt in cheer, but I did not let it affect me. I maintained my focus and stayed on target. My partner and I ended up winning that night.

My thinking cap is always on. What some people refer to as the Mental game is what I refer to as the Thinking Game and what some people refer to as the Emotional Game is what I think of as the Mental Game.

Thinking Game = Knowing the best out shots and having a solid cricket strategy.

Mental Game = Having superior focus, and being able to completely block out movement, noise, and distraction while on the oche. This also includes being able to recognize, and undermine, attempts at gamesmanship from your opponents.

When I am practicing at home alone I have no need to think about outshots or cricket strategy but when I am practicing with the team and we are playing Chicago rounds I always am careful about not making a mental blunder. I have been thinking about outshots for several years and I believe I know what I would do in most cases without having to sit and review options while at the oche. As far as cricket goes I believe I know good strategy but this belief will be tested when I get to A League next month.

I do not have much opportunity to practice my Mental Game. I have gotten pretty good at ignoring noise related distractions but I do get butterflies when I am up against a good player. This is something I need to work on. Starting late March when I enter A League though, I will have ample opportunity to "steel" myself against trepidation and doubt.

25 gram NT's

These beauties were custom made but not for me. They we commissioned by a guy in Canada who ended up deciding that he did not like them as well as he thought he would. The craftsmanship is remarkable, and the balance quite nice. So far in the 2 hours I have owned them I have hit several low tons and at least one ton-40. I am thrilled to have them. I call them NT's for the same reason I call my other similar set my "CT's". NT stands for Nickel Tungsten.

Update: these were sold to Gene (of SEWA) in May 2011. I hope he enjoys them!

Took First in Sunday Luck (and a double's trick to boot)

Had a successful Luck on Sunday. I was paired up with an A League shark with an attitude to win and we took first place. The whole day was a good day from the afternoon practice before the shoot to the shoot itself.

Messing around earlier in the day I picked up my Assassins for a casual toss and ended up nailing a 171 (this was actually a spot-shooting exercise) so I kept up with them for an hour and hit a couple 140's in practice, then a couple more Ton-40's during the actual luck of the Draw. Feels nice to hit some worthy numbers with on lookers. I hit a few other Ton's but nothing to write home about.

The highlight of the shoot was taking out the winning double in a three way tie for first place. My partner left me with 24 and I missed into the single 12 and then took out the double 6 with the next dart. There were some very good shooters in the Luck so it felt like a well earned win.

Also, Before the shoot I took out a nice doubles trick. d16 d8 and d4 on the
first round that I decided to do some doubles. After that I missed the double 2 several rounds in a row and hung up the doubles before my confidence waned.

In the first game hit a ton and I took out 40 for the win. Second game I hit some nice tight groups but never for more than 60 points. Still this was encouraging as I have been concentrating on taking a breath and throwing slow concentrated shots. And spot shooting.

In the next set of two games I hit a 140 and took out a 16 with a single dart for one more win (I believe my partner and I pretty much split the wins between us evenly). In The fifth game I hit shit and we lost but the sixth game I hit another ton-40 and also took out a 4 with one dart winning it for us. The round before I had 84 left and missed into the single one and then decided to go 51, 32. I hit the 51 but wired the 32 inside leaving 16.

A nice evening.

171

I hit this little gem while practicing my "spot shooting". I already had another set of darts grouped around (but not necessarily in) the triple 20 on Sunday afternoon before the Luck. I decided to pick a spec in the triple 19 and o my best. The first dart hit which pleased me greatly but then I couldn't find the spot I originally was aiming at, so I picked the spot where the point of the first dart hit the board and voila, another 57. I did the same thing with the third dart for a stylin' 171.

26 gram Bottelsens

These darts came in a trade. I'd never seen them before even on eBay and I am very curious what the model name of them is. They are definitely Bottelsen hammerheads of some variety, perhaps even a signature dart for all I know but whose I could not guess. I traded away my 24 gram Dimplex Powerpoint darts for them, and when we were doing the trade, the guy who had them sent me two sets to choose between. The other set I could have chosen were Rick Ney signature hammerheads which I have wanted a set for a long time but I opted for these as they throw better for me, and they are like nothing I have ever seen.