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Practice drills and evaluation.

To improve your darts skills the first thing you need to do is make sure you are throwing with the right dart for you. Most players can throw any dart reasonably well, but darts is a game where if you miss by just 1/8" you may score 1 point instead of 60, so it's worth trying other darts, shafts and flights, even if you think yours are OK.

Many players play best with a dart weighing between 24g and 30g, with a diameter of 1/4" or 9/32", a barrel length of 1.3/4 inches to 2.1/8 inches, and a barrel shape that is straight with a simple uniform grooved grip. (see picture below.) If you've never thrown a dart like this then it might be worth borrowing some to try for an hour or two. Try different length shafts and different sized flights till you get the best balance. Try propelling the dart from the back. It sometimes helps.

You can use the drills below to see how consistent you are with any particular barrel/flight/shaft combination. Repeat the drills from time to time to evaluate your current skill level, and discover strengths and weaknesses in your game.

NOTE: always take some warm-up throws before starting any of these drills.

Evaluation 1: Consistent high score.

This drill will tell you if you should aim for 20s or 19s to achieve the highest score possible consistently when playing '01' games.

Throw 3 darts at triple 20 then 3 darts at triple 19. write down the marks you get for each. Triples count 3 marks. Doubles count 2. Singles count 1.

Repeat this 20 or 30 times.

Add up the number of marks you scored for each number. If you are scoring significantly more marks for 20s or 19s then you are probably better off aiming for that number when playing 501.

The result may surprise you. I have been throwing for twenties at 501 for years. However, recently I've been playing quite a lot of cricket which seems to have changed my number. Yesterday I did this drill 11 times and scored 32 twenties and 41 nineteens! Maybe next time I play 501 I'll aim at 19s.

Can you beat the monkey?

The next two drills will tell you how good a player you are. Many Darts Associations divide their players in to groups. Normally there are are 'A players', 'B players, and sometimes "C players'. For our evaluations we will add two extra groups. 'Experts' and 'Monkies'.

Evaluation 2: Average score.

Now you know which number to aim at to get the best consistently high score, you can work out your average score with three darts.

For best results do this drill over several days.

On day 1: throw about 90 darts (30 throws) and try to score as high as possible. Note down all your scores, add them up then divide by the number of throws (in this case 30) to get your day 1 average. Write down the day 1 average score.

Repeat this for about 5 days.

At the end of 5 days, add up your daily averages and divide by 5. This will give you a fairly accurate current "average score".

How did you do?

• Under 38: Monkey. You are scoring about the same as the monkey does. You may be aiming at 20s and hitting a lot of ones and fives. If so, try aiming at 19s instead. You may be getting a lot of bounce outs and non-scoring darts. If so then maybe your darts are not right for you, or unbalanced, or maybe you need to adjust your throwing technique. see: flights, shafts, barrels, throwing tips, .dart sharpening.



• Under 48: 'C' player. Some of the tips for monkeys (above) may be worth looking at. Practice for half an hour a day or so to improve.



• 49 to 55: 'B' player. Well done. Any dart association will be happy to have you as a member. If you are at the top end of the scale, you might like to try entering a few tournaments. If you are interested in playing better, try the practice drills below on a daily basis.



• 56 to 64: 'A' player. You are definitely a tournament class player. You need to seek out and play better players than yourself to improve, and bang away at the board for several hours on a regular basis. Obviously it would help if you hit a higher percentage of triples so practice them particularly.



• 65 and over: Expert. No advice necessary.

Practice and Evaluation 3: Cricket.

See also: Cricket Strategy

This one is easy. Throw 3 darts at 20 and write down the number of marks. Triples count 3 marks. Doubles count 2. Singles count 1. You should aim all darts at the triple. You will understand why later when you read the "how did you do" section below.

Repeat for 19s, 18s, 17s, 16s, 15s. Then add up all the marks and write down your overall score.

If you do this 30 times you will be able to get a fairly accurate average score by adding up the overall scores and dividing by 30.

How did you do?

• Under 6:. Something is wrong. See: flights, shafts, barrels, throwing tips, .dart sharpening. In future DO NOT aim at the triples. Instead aim at the fat single between the double and triple, it's bigger.



• 6 to 10:. Some of the above links may be worth looking at. In future DO NOT aim at the triples. Instead aim at the fat single



• 11 to 15:. In future aim at the fat single until you hit it, then try for the triple.



• 16 to 21:. You seem to be doing fine aiming for triples. Use your best judgement. You can throw a marker into the fat single before aiming for the triple if you find you are consistently weak on one particular number.



• 22 and over: Expert. You are clearly throwing well. Check to see if any of the numbers are consistently weaker than others. If so, maybe a strategic safety shot into the fat single might help.

NOTE: Cricket is a game of accuracy AND strategy. Deciding what to throw for, which number, which part of the number, when to score points and when to score marks is a big part of the game. The drill above is good practice but it is much better practice to play against other people as often as possible.

Practice drills: 501 and cricket.

Most players bang away at triple 20 or triple 19 for hours on end. This is fine but you also need to get a double out to win. Try the first drill (below) to check your overall ability at 501. Try the other drills for practice hitting doubles.

Drill 1: "501 x 10". Play 10 games of 501 and count the darts it takes you to finish each game. Add up the number of darts it took to finish 10 games then divide by 10 to get a game average.

NOTE! if your first 2 games are both over 45 darts don't bother with the rest.

• Under 21 darts is good:
• 21 - 30 darts is average:
• 30 - 45 darts is poor:
• 45 and over is monkey city!.

Drill 2: "48". Start with 48 points and try to finish. Obviously your first throw will be an attempt to hit single 16 then double 16. Try not to end up on double 1.

Drill 3: "Round the board in doubles". Throw 3 darts at double 1, then double two, then double 3 etc. till you get to 20. Keep a score of how many you hit so you know if you are getting better.

There are other variations. For instance start with double 20 and work backwards to 1. If you hit a single 20 throw for double 10, then double 5. In other words try to go out on each number.

Drill 4: "101, double in, double out". Play this with friends or by yourself. My favorite shot is 'double 20' - 'single bull' - 'double 18', as it doesn't require a triple to finish in three darts.

Drill 5: "Cricket and bulls". Repeat Evaluation 3 (above) to practice cricket accuracy. Bang away at the bull for hours when you have nothing better to do. Best of all, play a lot of cricket with better players, or watch better players to see how they handle strategy.