Not much new here, other than darts. I’ve been playing LOTS of darts. League is on hiatus for a couple of weeks while the war games are going on, so I have been occupying myself with darts tournaments.

Saturday night was the weekly tourney at the Blue Frog. Basically everyone just shows up at 1930 and signs up. Entry fee is 5000W. Then numbers are drawn and you are assigned a partner. Now, must of the participants are ‘A’ league players, then there is a smattering of us ‘B’ and below types. It really is the luck of the draw, but if you get with one of the top players and don’t totally suck you can do well. I drew a mid-range ‘A’ player as a partner and we had a nice ride. Until we encountered the top player in Itaewon (a Korean who goes by CH) who had a ‘A’ partner. We fought valiantly, but in vain, and settled for 2nd place. Still, that was good for a 20,000W payout. My first money winnings at darts and I was pretty thrilled about that.

Last night we did a tourney at the Bless U bar. In addition to the pool from the 5000W entry fee, the bar owner kicked in another 100,000W. In the first round I drew a lower end ‘A’ player. We struggled a bit but held on for a 3rd place finish. In the second round I drew Duke, who has kinda been my dart mentor and also plays for Dolce Vita. You may recall Duke was there on the night of my accident and escorted me to the hospital.

Duke is good enough to be in the ‘A’ league, in fact he is ranked in the top five. So, I was feeling comfortable and confident as we entered play. Duke was off his game a bit but I was playing a little over my head, so we balanced out nicely. I doubled out in 01 twice, had a couple of Tons (hundred point marks) and closed out cricket with a couple of bulls to boot. Anyway, we made it to the championship game. And we were faced with my nemesis from Saturday night, CH and his partner Jim, the co-owner of Dolce Vita. CH is top dog and Jim throws much like I do, a little to inconsistent to be considered good, but dangerous when he’s on, especially when it comes to shooting bulls. So we were definitely the underdogs.

Our first leg (game) was cricket. And it was a slugfest. Lots of pointing (scoring extra marks on a number your oppenent has not closed). So it eventually came down to bulls and I threw the winning dart. Then it was time for 701. We got off to an early lead, but CH got hot and it came down to them shooting for a double out 16, and we were shooting at the 2. And by god, I hit it and we were the champs. Payout was 100,000W. WooHoo! Damn I was excited.

I don’t know, I’m just enjoying the hell out of darts. I’m decent at it, and after all the humiliation I suffered in pool it felt good to beat the champ. Now, 9 times out of 10 that ain’t gonna happen, but it did last night. I’m meeting some new people and having a great time and that’s enough for me these days.

Sometimes I lament that I spend most of my time in the company of other foriegners. I mean, that’s not taking full advantage of this Korea experience. But then again, so what? I’m here and having fun and that’s alright too.

So that’s my news. Oh, we had a big fire on post last week and the people issues associated with that have generated some work. I have some great pics I will try to post later. Now I have to head on down to Dolce Vita and get some pool practice in. League game tomorrow night. My pool is what it is, but I owe it to the team to at least make some effort at improving. Hopefully my good mojo from last night will carry over. We shall see.