From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Darts

Darts in a dartboard
Highest governing body	WDF & PDC
First played	approx 1870s[1]
Registered players	655 WDF ranked players 679 PDPA ranked players
Characteristics
Team members	Team events exist, see World Cup
Mixed gender	Separate men's & women's championship although no restrictions on women competing against men.
Olympic	No

For current information on this topic, see 2009 in darts.

Darts is a form of throwing sport where darts are thrown at a circular target (dartboard) 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 recognise darts as a sport), across the Commonwealth, the Netherlands, Ireland, the Scandinavian countries, the United States and elsewhere.

Dartboards

Before the First World War, pubs in the United Kingdom had dartboards made from solid blocks of wood, usually elm. They had to be soaked overnight to heal the holes made from the darts, and it was a messy business for the publican, although darts was a popular game. This changed when a company called Nodor, whose primary business was making modeling clay (which has no odor, hence the name Nodor) made a dartboard. Their model of dartboard was not a great success until someone came up with the idea of making a dartboard from sisal fibres. Small bundles of sisal fibres of the same length were bundled together. The bundles were then compressed into a disk and bound with a metal ring. It was an instant success, as the darts made little or no damage to the board—they just parted the fibres when they entered the board; this type of board was more durable and required little maintenance.

Modern dartboards are made of sisal fibres; cheap boards are sometimes made of coiled paper. However, several types of sisal fibre are used in dartboards today, originating from East Africa, Brazil and China.

A regulation board is 17¾ inches (451 mm)^[2] in diameter and is divided into 20 radial sections. Each section is separated with metal wire or a thin band of sheet metal. The best dartboards have the thinnest wire, so that the darts have less chance of hitting a wire and bouncing out. The numbers indicating the various scoring sections of the board are also 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 dartboard is hung so that the bullseye is 5 ft 8 in (1.73 m) from the floor: eye-level for a six-foot (183 cm) person. The oche (IPA: /'ɒki/)—the line behind which the throwing player must stand—is generally 7 ft 9¼ in (2.369 m) from the face of the dartboard measured horizontally. This is the recognized world standard as set by the World Darts Federation and is used in most areas.

The London 5 board or narrow 5's board set up is slightly different from the standard board. The height is set at 5 feet 6 inches to the centre of the bull and the oche is at 9 feet from the face of the board.^[3]

History

The dartboard may have its origins in the cross-section of a tree. An old name for a dartboard is a 'butt', which might imply that the bottoms of wine barrels were the original dartboards; but the word in fact comes from the French word butte, meaning target. In particular, the Yorkshire and Perrigo Manchester Log End boards differ from the standard board in that they have no treble only double and bullseye, The Perrigo Manchester board being of a smaller diameter, with a playing area of only 25 cm across with double and bull areas measuring just 4mm. The London Fives board is another variation. This has only 12 equal segments numbered 20,5,15,10,20,5,15,10,20,5,15,10 with the doubles and triples being a quarter of an inch wide.

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 standard numbering plan with a 20 on top was created in 1896 by a Lancashire carpenter called Brian Gamlin.^[4] However, a great many other configurations have been used throughout the years and in different geographical locations. Gamlin's layout was devised to penalise 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 would penalise a player more than the current setup; however, the current setup actually does the job rather efficiently. There have been several mathematical papers published that consider the "optimal" dartboard.

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. The dartboard featured on the "Indoor League" television show of the 1970s did not feature a triple section, and according to host Fred Trueman during the first episode, this is the traditional Yorkshire board.

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 alternately 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. The double-20 is often referred to as double-top, reflecting the 20's position on the dartboard.
  • 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.

The highest score possible with three 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. A "quad" ring appeared briefly in the 1990s, leading to a potential 240 maximum (three quad-20s), a 210 maximum checkout (Q20-Q20-Bull) and seven dart finishes from a 501 start (five quad-20s, treble-17, bullseye), but was swiftly dropped from professional tournament play.

Playing darts

The sport 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 (or exactly one) 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.

The holy grail of 501 darts is considered the nine-dart finish—there are two main ways of achieving this:

• Two 180 maximums followed by a 141 checkout (T20-T19-D12)
• Three 167s (T20-T19-Bull)—this is considered a "pure" nine-darter by some players, most notably the flamboyant Bobby George

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" and "Tactics".

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 involves 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

Of the two professional organisations, 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 organised 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 organisation 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 the PDC World Championship attracts lower TV viewing figures than that of the BDO.

The PDC tournaments often have higher prize money and feature the leading player in the history of the game, 15-time World Champion Phil Taylor. The highly successful BDO player Raymond van Barneveld switched to the PDC and won the PDC World Championship at his first attempt in 2007.

Professional competitions

The BDO and PDC both organise 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 organisations hold other professional tournaments. The BDO organise 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 Championship, 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 organisations 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 organise 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 meant they had to cut back on darts coverage but despite this they still showed the World Masters until 1988. 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 WDC/PDC in 1992/93, darts gradually returned to television with Sky Television covering the new organization's World Championship and World Matchplay events from 1994. Sky's coverage continued to increase throughout the 1990s, with more new events added. The PDC's World Championship, Premier League, UK Open, Las Vegas Desert Classic, World Matchplay and the World Grand Prix are all televised live on Sky.

The BBC finally began to expand their darts coverage in 2001 when they added the World Masters to their portfolio. 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.

Darts has continued to grow again on television and there now several major tournaments broadcast in the UK, Europe and the rest of the world. Dutch station, Sport One, DSF in Germany and several other TV stations across the globe also broadcast the PDC events.

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 since 2007.

In the Netherlands, SBS6 has broadcast the Lakeside (since 1998) and the Dutch Open. They also shown the International Darts League and World Darts Trophy, however they are now defunct. 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^{[5][6][7][8][9]} and Watchdarts.com stream^[10])

The PDC has also tried to break into the television market in the United States by introducing the World Series of Darts in 2006. It had a $1 million prize to showcase 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, with Nuts TV showing the 2008 tournament.

ITV returned to darts coverage in November 2007, showing the inaugural Grand Slam of Darts—its first major darts tournament coverage in almost twenty years. They also added a second PDC event in October 2008 with the new European Championship. Setanta Sports have also televised darts tournaments for the first time during 2008 by showing several BDO Open events and the new League of Legends.

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.

Notable players

For a list of notable players' nicknames, see: List of darts players nicknames

World Champions

World rankings

PDC

• As of January 4th, 2010. (PDC)

Ranking	Player		Ranking	Player
1	Phil Taylor		17	Simon Whitlock
2	Raymond van Barneveld		18	Co Stompe
3	James Wade		19	Steve Beaton
4	Terry Jenkins		20	Mark Dudbridge
5	Mervyn King		21	John Part
6	Ronnie Baxter		22	Wayne Mardle
7	Adrian Lewis		23	Wayne Jones
8	Colin Lloyd		24	Wes Newton
9	Dennis Priestley		25	Denis Ovens
10	Colin Osborne		26	Jelle Klaasen
11	Andy Hamilton		27	Peter Manley
12	Alan Tabern		28	Andy Smith
13	Mark Walsh		29	Jamie Caven
14	Robert Thornnton		30	Mark Webster
15	Kevin Painter		31	Michael van Gerwen
16	Vincent van der Voort		32	Gary Anderson

BDO Men

Ranking	Player		Ranking	Player
1	Tony O'Shea		=8	Joey ten Berge
2	Scott Waites		10	Alan Norris
3	Darryl Fitton		11	Scott Mitchell
4	Ted Hankey		12	Martin Atkins
5	Martin Adams		13	Stephen Bunting
6	Ross Montgomery		14	John Walton
7	Steve West		15	Willy van de Wiel
=8	Dave Prins		16	Mark Barilli

BDO Women

Ranking	Player		Ranking	Player
1	Trina Gulliver		10	Sue Biddle
2	Irina Armstrong		11	Carol Forwood
3	Julie Gore		12	Carla Molema
4	Tricia Wright		13	Robin Curry
5	Francisca Hoenselaar		14	Zoe Jones
6	Dee Bateman		15	Corrine Hammond
7	Karin Krappen		=16	Deta Hedman
8	Lisa Ashton		=16	Louise Carroll
9	Karen Lawman		18	John Chalmers

Other notables

Other darts games and variants

An 'East-End' or 'Fives' dartboard

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.^[11] Jumpers is a variation played in Asia.^[12]

There are also a number of games regarding placing pictures of famous people onto dart boards.^{[citation needed]}

Fives

A regional variant still played in some parts of the East End of London. The board has fewer, larger segments, all numbered either 5, 10, 15 or 20. Players play down from 505 rather than 501, and stand further (9 ft) away from the board.^[13]

American darts

American Darts, despite the name, is a regional USA variant of the game (most U.S. dart players play the traditional games described above). This style of dart board is most often found in eastern Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, and parts of New York state.

Darts cricket

Dartball

Shanghai

Shanghai is a darts game of accuracy.^[14] Hitting doubles and triples is paramount to victory. This game may be played with 2 to infinite number of players. The standard version is played in 7 rounds.^[14] In round one players throw their darts aiming for the 1 section, round 2, the 2 section and so on until round 7. Standard scoring is used, and doubles and triples are counted. Only hits on the wedge for that round are counted. The winner is the person who has the most points at the end of seven rounds (1-7); or you can score a Shanghai and win instantly. To score a Shanghai you have to hit a triple, a double and single of the number that is in play.^[14]

Killer

Killer is a 'knock-out' game for two or more players (at its best at 4-6 players). Initially each player throws a dart at the board with their wrong hand to obtain their 'number'. No 2 players can have the same number. Once everyone has a number, each player takes it in turn to get their number five times with their three darts (doubles count twice, and triples three times). Once a person has reached 5, they become a 'killer'. This means they can aim for other peoples numbers, taking a point off for each time they hit (doubles x2, triples x3). If a person gets to zero they are out. A killer can aim for anyone's numbers even another killer's. You cannot get more than 5 points. The winner is 'the last man standing'. 15

See also

• Darts world rankings—current ranking lists for BDO and 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 and pub sports
• Bullseye—a British game show based on darts

Further reading

• Chaplin, Patrick. Darts in England, 1900-39: A Social History (Manchester University Press, distributed by Palgrave Macmillan; 2010) 258 pages. Scholarly history showing how darts figured in publicans' efforts to improve their establishments, and how the sport moved from a working-class pursuit to gain middle- and upper-class players.

References

• Dart board history

External links

• Online Darts Game
• Darts news & articles
• The Oche - Darts news
• Online history of traditional games
• PDC & other event & player database and stats
• Latvia Darts Organisation (LDO)
• Free in-browser darts calculators
• Darts guides & articles
• BDO Players discussion forum

From Wikiquote

Darts is 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 standardized 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 to officially recognize darts as a sport), the Netherlands, Ireland, Israel, the Scandinavian countries, the United States, and elsewhere.

Sourced

• We couldn't have more excitement if Elvis walked in and asked for a chip sandwich.
  • Sid Waddell on the atmosphere at a darts match.[[1]]

• Ladies and gentlemen, let's play darts!
  • Martin Fitzmaurice legendary words in the darts world[003/2621747.stm]

Unsourced

• Darts really can help with literacy.
  • BBC presenter Ray Stubbs to Sports Minister Richard Caborn

• Is ballroom dancing a sport? It's recognised as a sport but I don't see any balls there.
  • Bobby George defending darts as a sport.

• He's been given pain and nothing but pain by John Part!
  • Tony Green on John Part beating Bobby George.

External links

Wikipedia has an article about:

Darts

Look up darts in Wiktionary, the free dictionary

From Wikibooks, the open-content textbooks collection

Prologue

I have decided to start this book to teach people how to play the game of darts. I start it also because no other book on this subject was present on Wikibooks. I hope that it will be helpful to you.

Setup of Darts and Dartboard

There are only 2 things that a person needs to play a game of darts: a set of darts, and a dartboard. A set of darts usually consists of three identical darts. A single dart is made up of of four sections:

• The tip of the dart is the foremost section of the dart, and holds the dart in the dartboard.
• The grip of the dart is directly behind the tip and is where a person holds the dart while throwing.
• The shaft of the dart is directly behind the grip and connects the grip and flight.
• The flight is in the back of the dart, and keeps the dart moving straight through the air.

The dartboard.

A normal dartboard is a circle that is divided into 20 scoring sections, has a bullseye, a double-point ring, and has a triple-point ring. This board is usually hung on a wall 7 ft 9.25 in away from the player and at eye level, which is usually a standard 5 ft 8 in high.

From BibleWiki

an instrument of war; a light spear. "Fiery darts" (Eph 6:16) are so called in allusion to the habit of discharging darts from the bow while they are on fire or armed with some combustible material. Arrows are compared to lightning (Deut 32:23, 42; Ps 7¹³; 120:4).

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