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 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 country to officially recognise darts as
a sport), across the Commonwealth, the Netherlands
, Ireland
, the
Scandinavian countries, the United States
, Canada
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 fibers; 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) in diameter and is
divided into 20 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
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 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. However there may
be a measurement error (such as measuring from the wall, rather
than using a
plumb line to measure from
the board face). The diagonal distance from the bull's eye to the
oche will be , when horizontal measurement from the dart board face
is not easily done.
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 center of the bull and the oche is at 9 feet from the face
of the board.
The origin of the term "oche" is explained by various
theories:
The first theory surmises that there was a brewery called "Hockey
and Sons" or "S. Hockey and Sons" in the West Country of England.
This brewery supplied bars with bottled beer, and the crates used
to deliver the bottles were exactly 3 feet long. One English pub
owner then made the 9-feet rule by using three "Hockey & Sons"
beer crates (3 x 3 feet) as a distance marker. Many people also
believed this is how the phrase "toeing the hockey" came about,
which added more validity to the theory. However, according to a
statement made by the Brewery History Society in the 1990s, no
records of a brewery called "Hockey & Sons" can be found.
The second theory traces the term's origin to darts competitions
held in the 1920s by an English newspaper, "News of the World".
Allegedly , this newspaper was the first to use the word "hockey"
for the throwing line in their tournament rules. "Hockey" is
derived from the Old English word "hocken" which meant "to spit" .
It is said that spitting competitions were held in the bars of
English public houses, and that the "hockey line" was determined by
the length that a given player could spit from a position with his
back to the dartboard.
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 25cm 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 trebles 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 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 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.
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.
- 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. Despite some house rules,
hitting the inside of a wire number around the edge of the board
does not score any points.
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
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 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" 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, and have considerabely higher TV viewing figures than
that of the BDO, more commonly known as the Bad Darts
Organisation
The PDC tournaments often have higher prize money and feature the
leading player in the history of the game, 14-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. Shirley Welker is
currently the reigning WDF Champion.
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 and Watchdarts.com stream)
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.
Famous players
For a list of famous players' nicknames see: List of darts players
nicknames
World Champions
World Rankings
PDC
BDO Mens
BDO Women
Other famous and notable players
BDO
- Martin Atkins
The Assassin
- Joey ten Berge The
Entertainer
- Andy Boulton
X-Factor
- Stephen Bunting The
Bullet
- Dave Chisnall
Cheza
- Steve Coote
Magic
- Dick van Dijk
The Player
- Albertino Essers The
Sensation
- Peter Evison The Fen
Tiger
- Darryl Fitton The
Dazzler
- Bobby George Bobby
Dazzler / Mister Glitter
- Shaun Greatbatch 9
Dart
- Robbie Green
Kong
- Paul Hanvidge Polly
Boy
- John Henderson
Hendo
- Edwin Max Mad
Max
- Ross Montgomery The
Boss
- Glenn Moody Mr
Muscle
- Phill Nixon
Nixy
- Alan Norris
Chuck
- Tony O'Shea
Silverback
- Davy Richardson The
Face
- Gary Robson
Robbo
- Niels de Ruiter The
Excellent Dude
- Robert Wagner
The Magician
- Garry Thompson
The Cougar
- Mike Veitch The
Cat
- Scott Waites Scotty 2
Hotty
- Tony West The
Tornado
- Brian Woods
Pecker
PDC
- Gary Anderson
The Flying Scotsman
- Barrie Bates
Batesy
- Ronnie Baxter The
Rocket
- Jamie Caven
Jabba
- Mark Dudbridge
Flash
- Tony Eccles The
Viper
- Andy Fordham The
Viking
- Andy Hamilton
The Hammer
- Terry Jenkins The
Bull
- Wayne Jones
The Wanderer
- Mervyn King
The King
- Adrian Lewis
Jackpot
- Colin Lloyd
Jaws
- Steve Maish Mr.
Magic
- Peter Manley One
Dart
- Wayne Mardle Hawaii
501
- Chris Mason
Mace the Ace
- Kevin McDine
SuperMc
- Wes Newton Av
It
- Colin Osborne The
Wizard
- Denis Ovens The
Heat
- Kevin Painter The
Artist
- Roland Scholten The
Flying Dutchman
- Kirk Shepherd Karate
Kid
- Andy Smith The
Pie Man
- Co Stompé The
Matchstick
- Alan Tabern The
Saint
- Robert Thornton
The Thorn
- Vincent van der Voort
Greased Lightning
- Remco van Eijden
Toppertje
- Michael van Gerwen
Mighty Mike
- James Wade The
Machine
- Mark Walsh
Walshie
- Alan Warriner-Little
The Iceman
- Mark Webster
Webby
- Simon Whitlock The
Wizard
Former Players
- Tony Brown
- Richie Davies Lamb
Chop
- Alan Evans
- Mike Gregory
- Rod Harrington The Prince
of Style
- Paul Lim The Singapore
Slinger(made the 1st World Ch'ship 9-darter)
- Marshall James
- Rick Ney
- Dave Whitcombe
Other darts games and variants
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.
There are also a number of games regarding placing pictures of
famous people onto dart boards.
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.
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. 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. 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.
See also
References
- http://hammersdarts.wsnw.net and
http://eastlondondartsleague.co.uk
- [1] Bangkok Jumpers League
- East London Advertiser Fives still alive in
darts
- [2] Dart Games: Shanghai
Dart board history
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