Darts

Darts in a dartboard

Darts is a variety of related games, in which darts are thrown at a circular target (dart board) hung on a wall. Though various different boards and games have been used in the past, the term 'darts' usually now refers to a standardised game involving a specific board design and set of rules. As well as being a professional competitive activity, darts is a traditional pub game, commonly played in the United Kingdom (the first country to officially recognize darts as a sport), across the Commonwealth, the Netherlands, Ireland, the Scandinavian countries, the United States and elsewhere.

Dart boards

Dart boards are usually made of sisal fibers or boar bristles; low quality boards are sometimes made of coiled paper. A regulation board is 18 inches (45.72 cm) in diameter and is divided into 20 sections. Each section is lined with thin metal wire. The numbers indicating the various scoring sections of the board are normally made of wire, especially on tournament-quality boards, but may be printed directly on the board instead.

Height and distance

In the standard game, the dart board is hung so that the bullseye is 5 ft 8 in (1.73m) from the floor: eye-level for a six foot person. The oche (IPA: /'ɒki/) - the line behind which the throwing player must stand - is generally 2.37m (9' 7.25") from the face of the dartboard measured horizontally. This is the recognized world standard as set by the World Darts Federation and is played as such in most areas. Due to measurement error this may be incorrect in some places (such as measuring from the wall, rather than using a plumb line to measure from the board face). One rule that cannot be broken in any dart game is that no jumping is allowed whilst throwing.

History

The dartboard itself may have its origins in the cross section of a tree, although some historical records suggest that the first standard dartboards were the bottoms of wine casks, hence the game's original name of "butts". Various designs of dartboard have been used, and regional variations remain in parts of Staffordshire, Manchester (log-end board) and Yorkshire. In particular, the Yorkshire and Perrigo Manchester boards differs from the standard board in that they have a single, inner bull and no treble ring.

There is speculation that the game originated among soldiers throwing short arrows at the bottom of the cask or at the bottom of trunks of trees. As the wood dried, cracks would develop, creating "sections". Soon, regional standards emerged and many woodworkers supplemented bar tabs by fabricating dart boards for the local pubs.

The numbering plan generally in use today has a 20 on top; however, a great many other configurations have been used throughout the years and in different geographical locations. By most accounts, the numbering layout was devised by Brian Gamlin in 1896 to penalize inaccuracy. Although this applies to most of the board, the left-hand side (near the 14 section) is preferred by beginners, for its concentration of larger numbers. Mathematically, removing the rotational symmetry by placing the "20" at the top, there are 19!, or 121,645,100,408,832,000 possible dartboards. Many different layouts that would penalize a player more than the current setup; however, the current setup actually does the job rather efficiently .

Scoring

The standard dartboard is divided into 20 numbered sections, scoring from 1 to 20 points, by wires running from the small central circle to the outer circular wire. Circular wires within the outer wire subdivide each section into single, double and triple areas.

Various games can be played (and still are played informally) using the standard dartboard. However, in the official game, any dart landing inside the outer wire scores as follows:

• Hitting one of the large portions of each of the numbered sections, traditionally coloured black and white, scores the points value of that section.
  • Hitting the thin outer portions of these sections, coloured red and green, scores double the points value of that section.
  • Hitting the thin inner portions of these sections, roughly halfway between the outer wire and the central circle and again coloured red or green, scores triple the points value of that section.
• The central circle is divided into a green outer ring worth 25 points (known as "outer", "outer bull", or "iris") and a red inner circle (usually known as "bull", "inner bull" or "double bull"), worth 50 points. The term "bullseye" can mean either the whole central part of the board or just the inner red section. The term "bull's ring" usually means just the green outer ring.
• Hitting outside the outer wire scores nothing.
• Any dart that does not remain in the board after throwing (for example, a dart that hits a wire and bounces out of the board or drops out with the impact of a later throw) also scores nothing. Variations on this rule exist - some judge that a dart which obviously hits a scoring section but then subsequently drops out will count if caught before it hits the floor or if it rebounds behind the throwing line before touching the ground it may be thrown again. In professional rules, a dart's tip must be touching a scoring section for the dart to count.

The highest score possible with 3 darts is 180,commonly known as a "ton 80" (100 points is called a ton), obtained when all three darts land in the triple 20. In the televised game, the referee frequently announces a score of 180 in exuberant style.

Playing darts

A game of darts is usually contested between two players who take turns in throwing up to three darts. Starting from a set score, usually 501 or 301, a player wins by reducing his score to zero. The last dart in the leg must hit either a double or the inner portion of the bullseye, which is the double of the outer bull, and must reduce the score to exactly 0. Successfully doing so is known as "doubling out" or "checking out" (see the Glossary of darts for more darts terminology). A throw that would reduce a player's score to less than zero does not count, his turn ends, and his score is reset to what it was before that turn. (Sometimes in friendly games a player is allowed a dog's chance by "splitting the eleven" if he has a remaining score of 1: this requires placing a final dart between the legs of the number 11 in the normally non-scoring part of the board.) Since the double areas are small, doubling out is usually the most difficult and tense part of a leg. Longer matches are often divided into sets, each comprising some number of legs.

Although playing straight down from 501 is standard in darts, other variations exist, notably "doubling in", where players must hit a double to begin scoring, with all darts thrown before said double contributing nothing to their score. Other games that are commonly played differ in their scoring methods. These include "Round The Clock", "Jumpers", "Killer" and the more complicated "Cricket".

In "Round the Clock", players must hit each numbered section in turn, finishing with a bull to win. Far from being a beginner's game, Round The Clock is a good training game since it practises targeting all areas of the board, a skill which is essential when finishing a classic leg.

In Killer, a number of players "own" a number on the dartboard (often selected by throwing a dart with their non-playing arm) and compete to build up "lives" (by hitting that number) until a threshold is reached (usually 4 or 6) before attempting to "kill" other players by removing the lives they have built up (by hitting those other players' number) until a single player is left.

Professional organizations

see also: main article split in darts

Of the two professional organizations, the British Darts Organisation (BDO), founded 1973, is the older. Its tournaments are often shown on the BBC in the UK and on SBS6 in the Netherlands. The BDO is a member of the World Darts Federation (WDF) (founded 1976), along with organizations in some 60 other countries worldwide. The BDO originally organized a number of the more prestigious British tournaments with a few notable exceptions such as the News of the World Championship and the national events run under the auspices of the National Darts Association of Great Britain. However many sponsors were lost and British TV coverage became much reduced by the early nineties.

In 1992 a breakaway organization was formed, initially known as the World Darts Council (WDC) but shortly after known as the Professional Darts Corporation (PDC). The PDC tournaments have a considerable following, although due to their coverage on subscription-based Sky television, the PDC World Championship has lower TV viewing figures that of the BDO.

The PDC tournaments often have higher prize money and feature the leading player in the history of the game, 13-time World Champion Phil Taylor. The highly successful BDO player Raymond van Barneveld switched to the PDC and won the World Championship at his first attempt in 2007.

Professional competitions

The BDO and PDC both organize a World Professional Championship. They are held annually over the Christmas/New Year period, with the PDC championship finishing slightly earlier than the BDO tournament. The BDO World Championship has been running since 1978; the PDC World Championship started in 1994.

Both organizations hold other professional tournaments. The BDO organize the World Masters and many Open tournaments. They also organise county darts for their 64 county members in the UK including individual and team events.

The PDC's major tournaments are the World Championships Premier League, UK Open, Las Vegas Desert Classic, World Matchplay and the World Grand Prix. All of these are broadcast live on Sky Sports television in the UK. They also hold PDC Pro Tour events and smaller category events around the UK. As of 2007 the PDC have introduced two new televised major tournaments - the US Open (to be broadcast on Challenge TV) and the Grand Slam of Darts (to be screened on ITV).

There are two Dutch independently organised major tournaments the International Darts League, and the World Darts Trophy which as from 2007 feature a mix of BDO and PDC players. Both organizations allocate rankings to the tournaments.

The WDF World Cup for national teams and a singles tournament has been played biennially since 1977. The WDF also organize the Europe Cup.

Televised darts

Darts first appeared on British television in 1962 when Westward Television broadcast the Westward TV Invitational to the south-west of England. In 1970, ITV broadcast the News of the World Championship and from 1972 the Indoor League, which featured a darts tournament.

Over the next decade darts coverage expanded with many major tournaments appearing on both ITV and BBC through the 1970s and early 1980s, but the cancellation of ITV's World of Sport show in 1985 was the start of their gradual withdrawal from coverage. The BBC also cut back on their coverage to the extent that one major event was still broadcast on either channel by 1988 - the World Championship.

With the creation of the PDC and expanded coverage of the BDO on BBC, darts has since grown again. There are again several major tournaments broadcast in the UK, Europe and the rest of the world.

In Europe, Eurosport broadcast the Lakeside World Championships, having signed a three-year contract in 2006, and that year also broadcast the Finland Open, the BDO British Internationals, the BDO England Open and the BDO British Open. There has been no Eurosport coverage of Open events thus far in 2007.

In the UK, The Lakeside and the Winmau World Masters are currently broadcast by BBC. However it wasn't until 2005 that viewers were able to see every dart thrown live at the World Championship. This was the year that BBC introduced interactive coverage on its BBCi service.

In the Netherlands, SBS6 broadcasts the Lakeside (since 1998), International Darts League, World Darts Trophy and the Dutch Open. RTL 5 broadcast the Dutch Grand Masters in 2005. Some of these tournaments can also be watched on the internet for free using a live stream, depending on contractual restrictions (external links: SBS Streams [2][3][4][5][6] and Watchdarts.com stream [7])

The PDC's Premier League, UK Open, Las Vegas Desert Classic, World Matchplay and World Grand Prix are all televised live and in their entirety in the UK by satellite and cable broadcaster BSkyB on Sky Sports. Dutch station, Sport One, DSF in Germany and several other tv stations across the globe also broadcast the PDC events.

The PDC launched the World Series of Darts for the first time in the United States in 2006. Its $1 million prize showcased professional darts in the United States. Unfortunately the programme was not a ratings success and was taken from its peak time broadcast slot on ESPN after just a few weeks. The tournament was replaced with a US Open event in 2007 which was screened in the UK on digital television channel Challenge TV.

The PDC have also confirmed that a new Grand Slam of Darts event will be broadcast on ITV1 and ITV4 in November. This represents the first major darts tournament to be covered by the ITV network in almost twenty years.

The Grand Slam of darts went ahead in November 2007, with Phil Taylor beating Andy Hamilton in the final. It was broadcast jointly by ITV1 & ITV4.

Betting

In places where alcohol is consumed, English law has long permitted betting only on games of skill, as opposed to games of chance, and then only for small stakes. An apocryphal tale relates that in 1908, Jim Garside, the landlord of the Adelphi Inn, Leeds, England was called before the local magistrates to answer the charge that he had allowed betting on a game of chance, darts, on his premises. Garside asked for the assistance of local champion William "Bigfoot" Anakin who attended as a witness and demonstrated that he could hit any number on the board nominated by the court. Garside was discharged as the magistrates found darts, indeed, to be a game of skill. More recently, in keeping with Darts' strong association with pubs and drinking, matches between friends or pub teams are often played for pints.

In the professional game, betting is prominent with many of the big bookmaking companies sponsoring events (particularly within the PDC). Sky Bet (World Grand Prix, Premier League), Stan James (World Matchplay), Blue Square (UK Open) and Ladbrokes (World Championship) are all title sponsors of major PDC events.

On FSN broadcasts in the United States, the logos for Ladbrokes are pixelized out and digitally obscured, along with any audible references to Ladbrokes, due to American laws and policies against online gambling.

Famous players

For a list of famous players nicknames see: List of darts players nicknames

World Champions

Current World Champions BDO: Martin Adams Wolfie PDC: John Part Darth Maple Multiple World Champions 13 Phil Taylor The Power (11 PDC, 2 BDO) 7 Trina Gulliver The Golden Girl 5 Eric Bristow Crafty Cockney 5 Raymond van Barneveld Barney (4 BDO, 1 PDC) 3 John Part Darth Maple (1 BDO, 2 PDC) 3 John Lowe Old Stoneface 2 Jocky Wilson 2 Dennis Priestley The Menace (1 BDO, 1 PDC)

Former single-time BDO World Champions Bob Anderson The Limestone Cowboy Steve Beaton Magnum-PI/ The Bronze Adonis Richie Burnett The Prince of Wales Ron McIntyre The Deadly Boomerang Keith Deller The Fella Andy Fordham The Viking Ted Hankey The Count Jelle Klaasen The Matador Leighton Rees Les Wallace McDanger John Walton John Boy

Other famous players

BDO

Martin Atkins The Assassin

Gary Anderson The Dreamboy

Dick van Dijk The Player

Darryl Fitton The Dazzler

Bobby George Bobby Dazzler / Mister Glitter

Shaun Greatbatch 9 Dart

Phill Nixon Nixy

Tony O'Shea Silverback

Gary Robson Robbo

Co Stompé The Matchstick

Mark Webster Webby

Tony West The Tornado

Simon Whitlock The Wizard

PDC

Ronnie Baxter The Rocket

Mark Dudbridge Flash

Tony Eccles The Viper

Terry Jenkins The Bull

Mervyn King The King

Adrian Lewis Jackpot

Colin Lloyd Jaws

Wayne Mardle Hawaii 501

Peter Manley One Dart

Chris Mason Mace the Ace

Kevin Painter The Artist

Roland Scholten The Tripod

Vincent van der Voort Greased Lightning

Michael van Gerwen Mighty Mike

James Wade 009

Alan Warriner-Little The Iceman

Former Players

Tony Brown

Richie Davies

Alan Evans

Mike Gregory

Rod Harrington

Paul Lim - 1st World Ch'ship 9-darter

Marshall James

John Lowe

Dave Whitcombe

Superstar Dart Teams from the MMDL

The Incredibles

The Bundy's

Variations

There are a number of regional variations on the standard rules and scoring systems. Round the Clock is a variation that involves hitting the numbers in sequence . Jumpers is a variation played in Asia .

American darts

American Darts uses a board made of basswood, using the end grain. Embedded in the board are wires that separate the board into scoring sections. High-quality boards have rotatable centres that can be turned so the board will wear more evenly. The centre of the cork is 5' 3" from the floor. The distance between the dartboard and the throwing line is 7'-3". Widdy and Dart Shark, dart board manufacturers, set the line distance at 7' 3" from the back of the dart board. This would result in a distance of 106.4" from the centre of the cork to the throw line. The ABDA (American Baseball Darts Association) sets the distance at 7' 3" from the front of the board. This is 107.4" from the centre of the cork to the throw line.

The darts are made of wooden barrels with turkey feather flights glued in place. They have a steel tip, and are 5 3/4 inches long.

The standard game is Baseball (or 1 to 9). Players take turns shooting three darts at each inning. They begin with inning number one and continue in order until they have shot nine innings. If the game is tied at the end of nine innings, extra innings are shot to determine the winner, starting with inning ten.

Each inning on the dartboard consists of a pie shaped area that extends from the cork outward through both a red and an uncoloured outer ring. Darts landing in the thin uncoloured outer ring are worth 3 points. The red ring is worth 2 points, and the inside area is worth 1 point. Darts outside this area do not score. The blue ring is not a scoring area.

The wires separating the scoring sections on the board occasionally overlap. Any dart pieircing the wires and splitting them is credited in the shooter's favour. If the wires separate the two and three point zones, the player is awarded three points. If the wires separate the three point zone and the blue ring, the player is credited with three points.

The American Baseball Darts Association presides over the largest American Dart tournaments. This includes the annual Pennsylvania State Dart Tournament, the largest American Darts event.

There are also a number of games regarding placing pictures of famous people onto dart boards.

Darts cricket

• Cricket

Low Darts

In Low Darts, the board is placed on the floor and leaned against a pole, usually metal. The throwing line is 7' 3" away from the front of the board, as in American Darts, except players place their back foot on the line and may assume a forward lunging position to place their front foot as close to the board as possible to gain an advantage. The player may only have two points of contact with the floor and he must demonstrate balance before, during and after throwing. The darts are thrown underhand and the first player to score exactly -21 points wins. If a player "busts" (scores less than -21 points) his score is reverted to -15 and his turn is over. A dart that lands in the thick outer portion is worth -1 point. The thick inner portion is worth -2 points. The thin outer portion and thin inner portion are worth -3 and -4 points respectively. The outer bull's eye is worth -5 points and the inner bull's eye is worth -10 points.

See also

• Darts world rankings current ranking lists for BDO & PDC.
• Darts Tournaments previous winners, history and information.
• Darts Players profiles.
• List of darts players nicknames
• Nine dart finish - the "perfect" game in darts.
• Glossary of Darts
• Pub games & Pub Sports
• Bullseye - A British game show based around darts.
• Dartitus

External links

• Darts Videos
• Dartcalculators.com

Organizations

• World Darts Federation (WDF)
• British Darts Organisation (BDO)
• Professional Darts Corporation (PDC)
• American Baseball Dart Association

American Darts Organization

American Darts Association

Darts Federation of Australia

National Darts Federation of Canada

Dutch Darts Organization

Czech Darts Organization

Norwegian Darts Organization

Swedish Darts Organization

Danish Darts Union

Polish Darts Federation

Swiss Darts Association

Italian Darts Association

Turkish Dart Federation

History

• Online history of traditional games - lists pubs in England where traditional variants of dart boards are preserved
• The Dartboard Interactive Forum containing many unique features and professionals of the game
• Superstars of Darts Contains detailed player achievement profiles, history of major tv tournament winners and popular discussion forum