About darts…

Another dart league season has drawn to a close. Kind of a mixed bag for the Take it Easy boys this time around. We finished in 5th Place, but we had a hell of a good time doing it. We lost a couple of players (military guys that rotated out), but played with a lot of heart and we were competitive in most of our matches. And we qualified for the playoffs where anything is possible.

Blessed Bulls, from our neighbor bar Bless U Pub, took the league championship this year after a real dogfight with the reigning champions from 3 Alley Pub. It was decided on the last night of the season. The other top team is Eberhardt from Scrooge Pub. The have a couple of tough players and really came on strong at the end.

Monday night we will play the guys from Wolfhound, with the unlikely team name of Cake Mix. They are also a quality team, but we managed to eek out two victories in head-to-head play during the season. Of course, all bets are off in a single elimination playoff round.

The two players we lost this year were Mario and Cuatro. Mario left at the beginning of the season, but we really missed his heart, spirit, and clutch darts all season. Cuatro is also a big loss. He left two weeks ago and was ranked #5 in our division. We had him in both of our previous match ups with Wolfhound, so we will really have to kick it up a notch come Monday night.

I had a decent season, although I was a little disappointed that I didn’t play with a little more consistency. I had nights when I couldn’t miss, and other nights when I was mediocre at best. I went through a couple of weeks when I just could not hit the 20 with any regularity, and that is a killer in cricket. My ’01 game was ok, except it is taking me too many darts to close. With the exception of one or two legs, I had a shot at the double out in every game that I lost. No excuse for that. Anyway, I finished ranked #4, down from my second place ranking last season. I don’t feel too bad about that because the two guys who passed me have been playing awesome darts, week in and week out. My Canadian buddy Craig (aka The Goat) wound up with the number 1 spot, and he definitely earned it. Congrats!

On the bright side, I finished first in 5 marks, and second in 6 marks. I also threw my first 9 mark in competition. So, all in all I am not unhappy. If you are interested, check out the webpage for the Seoul International Dart League (SIDL) and follow along as we attempt to pull off some upsets in the playoffs.

Just to prove what a dart fanatic I have become, I went back and crunched some numbers to try and measure my progress as a darter. Here are the results:

Season 1: 38-25 (60.32%) 6.49 quality points and 21 total marks

Season 2: 92-22 (80.70%) 8.54 quality points and 44 total marks

Season 3: 66-21 (75.86%) 8.29 quality points and 50 total marks

Current: 70-23 (75.27%) 8.54 quality points and 83 total marks

So, if you just look at winning percentage I appear to have hit the ceiling as far as improvement goes (ok, strictly speaking, regressing). But you really can’t measure performance on wins alone because there are too many variables. For example, it depends on who you play. I think I drew the top players from other teams more frequently this season, and you can throw well and lose in that situation. Another variable is doubles where the outcome also depends on your partner (I played cricket doubles with Cuatro most of the season, and we played excellent, so that is not an excuse).

Quality points is a mathematical formula based on wins, marks, and legs played. While a better measure than winning percentage, wins are still worth 10 QPs, and marks are worth between 1 and 5 QPs. After my rookie season, I’ve been pretty consistent in that regard.

So, being a “glass half-full” kinda guy, I choose to measure progress by marks thrown. Marks are scoring 5 or more hits per throw in cricket (i.e. a triple and two singles or two triples etc.), or scoring 100+ points in ’01. In that regard I showed marked improvement this season. So, I will call that a positive trend. If I can improve consistency and do a better job with my mental focus I can hopefully take my game to the next level.

Still with me? If so, I’m worried about you. But that won’t stop me. I’m also playing in a Thursday night soft tips league (you know, those monstrous machines that make a lot of noise and require you to feed them copious amounts of money). I joined somewhat reluctantly because I really don’t have a feel for it and I worry that it will affect my steel tip play (I throw 26 gram darts versus 16 grams in soft tips). Bottom line, I really stink at soft tips. My darts are like butterflies in a strong wind as they meander to the board. Just don’t have a sense of control and it is frankly embarrassing to play as poorly as I do. I’m no quitter so I will finish out the season, but absent some miracle it may be a one time thing.

Ok, that’s enough darts for one night, don’t ya think?

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