…than the last one. No drama or bloodshed. Just some nice darts at the Dolce tournament and enough beer to drown the stress of the previous week.

Jim and me were teamed up in the “early bird” tourney. I was throwing pretty much up to par but Jim was on fire. We beat Dave New and Dano pretty handily in two cricket legs (they had destroyed us in ’01). That tooks us to Tom R. and Chris H. for the championship match. When Tom heard who we had played in the first round he exclaimed “you beat those guys!?”. Yep, and then we beat Tom and Chris 2-0 to take home the money. As I said, we were throwing good darts, and being disrespected like that gave us all the motivation required to stay focused on victory.

For Prime Time we did a singles tourney which was nice for a change of pace. I played against Jim in the first round, and you take him lightly at your peril (as we had proved in the first tourney). I started out strong in cricket but he caught me on the 17s and we had a classic pointing battle the rest of the way. It came down to me hitting a double bull to finally seal the win. We had a similar struggle in ’01, Jim had worked it to a 32 out but I got the double duece before he got the chance to shoot for it.

Next up was Chris, and I took him 2-0 as well.

So, it was me and Tom R. for the championship. I opened with 7 20s and continued pointing when the situation dicatated (i.e. 3rd dart no number to close). He didn’t like it much, but I’ve seen him play that way and really, that is basic cricket strategy anyway. The ’01 game was a classic battle. Tom was throwing 60+ consistently. I had two Ton-40s to stay close. He got a couple of tries at the out, but I closed the game first and won the singles tournament, going 6-0.

Betty from XOX and a Korean contingent came in just before the start of the “Die Hard” tourney. I was pretty drunk by now, but I entered on the chance that I might draw a partner who could carry me. Teamed up with Lonnie, and damn he tried but I was too heavy a burden. I had nothing left. Plus, we drew Betty (the number 1 player in “A” division now that Petro is gone) and a tall Korean (like 6’5″) who went by “Q”. We actually hung relatively close thanks to Lonnie, but they were too much in the end and we went down 0-2. Lonnie had chalked my match with Tom and I am sure he was wondering where those 7-marks and high tons went. Oh well.

By the way, since Alistair occasionly reads this blog I should say that he is capable of being #1, but he has got to do it at oche. He’s a teammate on Sliders, so I am definitely pulling for him.

All right, enough about darts. Time to get ready for Scott’s wedding today. He’s a great guy (notwithstanding his Canadianess) and we are all looking forward to the big event.

I’ll be back…