Darts can be a funny game sometimes. It is one of the few sports where you are not in direct competition with your opponent, by which I mean, you have no control over or “defense” against what the other player does. Ultimately, it is you against the board. The way you beat someone is to throw better and smarter than they do. And yeah, at least at the amateur level, luck can also be a factor. I have often said that the mental aspects of darts are every bit as important as the physical act of tossing the arrows. When I’m throwing poorly, rather than think about my mechanics, I tell myself to “focus”.
So, I say all of the above as a prelude to recounting what occurred at last night’s dart tournament. It’s a standard “luck of the draw” format–everyone picks a number and gets paired of with the person who drew the corresponding number; one plays with two, three plays with four, etc. Sometimes the results might not appear “fair”, for example, when two top players get paired up to play together. But that’s the luck of the draw. Everyone has a chance to draw a good partner, sometimes you do, sometimes you don’t. I learned early in my darting “career” not to complain about the player you wind up with–what’s the point? I’ll try and mentor a beginner or offer advice on strategy, but I try not to disparage the skills of the person I’m paired with. Now, that’s not to say that I enjoy playing with certain players. Sometimes it’s a personality conflict, other times I find their lack of situational awareness frustrating. Again, my reaction is on me and I don’t fault my partner overtly, it just messes with my head sometimes and throws me off my game.
For example, on Tuesday night I drew Bhae as my partner. I don’t really know her, but I’ve seen her around and I have always thought she’s the ugliest Filipina I’ve ever seen. Yeah, that’s how shallow I can be sometimes. But don’t get me wrong, when the game is on i don’t give a shit what my partner looks like. In fact, a hottie can be distracting, especially if I start thinking about the dart in my pants rather than the ones in my hand. But back to Bhae, I’d say she is an average darter at best. Very inconsistent though in her throws, sometimes even missing the board altogether. She does tend to get lucky more often than others (for example, throwing at a 20 and hitting a triple 18). Anyway, I can deal with a partner like that. You throw, you miss–that’s just part of the game. What drives me crazy with Bhae is that she seems clueless sometimes when it comes to what to aim for. In 501, you have to finish with a double out–so you want to leave your partner an outshot, or at least an even number to work with. Strategy is even more important in cricket and luck is less a factor. When to throw at certain numbers and when to go for points are critical aspects of the game. I have much more success in cricket than in ’01 because I usually have a better understanding of the strategic opportunities than do my opponents.
Bhae oftentimes doesn’t appear to know where, when, and what to throw at. One example–we were down on points in cricket. Our opponents had all of their numbers closed and we still had the15 open. Now, you can’t win if you are behind in points, and the only way we could get points was to throw as many bullseyes as possible. Bhae chose to go for the meaningless 15. After her throw, I asked her in frustration “why do you think the 15 is important in this situation?” She just gave me a blank look. I immediately regretted calling her out that way, reminding myself it was just a game. A game played in a bar where we are supposed to be having fun. It was stupid darts, but who cares? Yeah, we lost the game and lost the tourney and I hate to lose, but so what?
Which (finally) brings us to last night. We picked our numbers and were waiting for the teams to be announced. I’m thinking to myself “anyone but Bhae, please”. Then they called out Billy and Espie as a team. Damn, they are both outstanding (finishing #3 and #4 in the upper division of the singles league), I figured they were going to be a shoo-in for first place. And then came “John and Bhae”. Damn. Well, I figured it was going to be an early night of darts. Started thinking about where I might go after my exit from Alley Cats. Maybe Mango’s for dinner or It Doesn’t Matter for beers. Or both. In the meantime, I had a tournament to lose.
Except it didn’t turn out that way. Surprisingly, we won our first match. And then we won another. Bhae was throwing her usual darts; occasional incompetence, periodic luck, and sometimes hitting what she aimed at. I was having a good night at the line–lots of bulls and even the coveted 180 (best possible score). I’m not saying luck wasn’t a factor as well, it just seemed the stars aligned for us. Well, I knew that we still had to play Billy and Espie, but the idea that we might actually finish in second place seemed attainable. Then came the head-to-head with the strongest team in the bar. I don’t know how, but we managed to beat them two straight. We were in the finals!
Not surprisingly, Billy and Espie came back up from the losers bracket to play us for the championship. And they were out for revenge! They won the first set and I figured it had been a good ride, let’s get this over with. We won 501, they won cricket, so it came down to the third and deciding leg. I won the coin toss and surprised the bar by choosing to play 501 again, despite cricket being my best game. Well, I knew my partner was better suited to 501 and we were a team, after all. Both teams played a great game and in the end, we both had an outshot. They missed theirs. I hit mine. We won the tourney!
Luck of the draw, indeed!
In darts, you’re not in direct competition with your opponent but you can directly put them off. Break seditious wind, mutter something left wing under your breath, or pretend to be drunker than you are. Darters are a more sensitive bunch than their huge waistlines would suggest. It’s a game of wiles every bit as much as pigeon racing. There’s good reason why Churchill called darts a sport invented by gentlemen but played by the unpalatable chasing the inedible.
Congrats on the unlikely win!
But now, Mr. I’m Working on My Punctuation, it’s time to face the music! I’ll show you three problematic sentences and offer you a hint for solving each problem:
1. When I’m throwing poorly, rather than think about my mechanics, I tell myself to “focus”.
Hint: you’re not British. If you were, this wouldn’t be a problem because it’s perfectly legitimate in British English.
2. Everyone has a chance to draw a good partner, sometimes you do, sometimes you don’t.
Hint: look up “comma splice” on my blog. The way I’d solve this, stylistically, is by replacing one comma with a semicolon and adding a conjunction after the other comma. That’s too much of a hint, frankly.
3. Sometimes it’s a personality conflict, other times I find their lack of situational awareness frustrating. Again, my reaction is on me and I don’t fault my partner overtly, it just messes with my head sometimes and throws me off my game.
Hint: three errors in the above, maybe five. The “maybe fourth” error comes right at the beginning; the “maybe fifth” error comes later in the same sentence. These “maybe” errors are more a matter of style than of grammatical rigor.
And I have to ask: was that “I find their lack of situational awareness frustrating” a nod to Darth Vader’s “I find your lack of faith disturbing”?
I could go on, as there are many such errors in this post, but three examples will suffice, methinks. Continue your Jedi training!
Yup, that is why they play the game, rather than just taking the results from what is predicted.
Overall, seems like the evening turned out pretty good.
On a side note, and spoken as a complete amateur when it comes to darts; I always thought that you did have an influence what your opponent had to play. More of an indirect influence I guess. Forcing them to go for a different number for example.
Guess I should’ve said “problematic locutions” rather than “problematic sentences,” given that selection #3 is actually two sentences. Ah, senility.
Dan, love the (alleged) Churchill quote! Thanks for the darting tips, too. Passing gas is no problem for me, and I usually AM drunker than I appear, but I’m just not capable of uttering leftwing dogma–I have my pride you know!
Brian, yeah that’s right, limiting options of your opponent is one of the strategic aspects of the game, at least in cricket. You close a number and score some points, you force your opponent to move to an open number to try and catch up. I still see lots of players who foolishly “chase” and throw at already closed numbers. You can’t win that way!
Damn, Kevin. Thanks for giving me a headache first thing in the morning! I’ll get back to you on my proposed corrections once my coffee kicks in. But no, I wasn’t intending to channel Mr. Vader with my “situational awareness” statement. Believe it or not, I am trying to improve. Not succeeding, obviously.
Kevin, here goes nothing:
1. Since I am of Scottish descent, I deem this sentence correct. However, if I had a do-over I might say instead: “Rather than thinking about my mechanics when I’m throwing poorly, I tell myself to focus.”
2. “Everyone has a chance to draw a good partner; sometimes you do, and sometimes you don’t.” Thanks for the hint!
3. Not sure about this one, but here’s a re-write: “Sometimes, it’s a personality conflict, and other times I find the lack of situational awareness frustrating. Again, this reaction is on me, and I don’t overtly fault my partner. It just messes with my head sometimes, and that throws me off my game.”.
Anyway, I appreciate you taking the time to critique my work. My problem in part, I think, is that I’m writing like I’m having a conversation. It sounds good in my head but doesn’t look so good on paper (pixels).
Reactions to rewrites:
1. Yes, indeed: if you’re British, then the period should be outside the quotation mark. If you’re a damn Yankee, though, you need to tuck the period inside.
2. Correct! That was too much of a hint. Problem is… I’m not sure you understand the why behind the punctuation. You’ll need to go back and reread post #1 in my comma series. Or just read on: I’ll explain further below.
3. This was actually a cluster of three sentences, and each sentence had one or more problems. For the first sentence, you wrote:
Sometimes, it’s a personality conflict, and other times I find the lack of situational awareness frustrating.
The comma before the “and” was the crucial addition. The comma after “Sometimes” was more a stylistic matter than a matter of strict grammatical rigor. Normally, the guideline is: put a comma at the end of an introductory phrase (This past September, I got my first pubic hair.). So many people are ignoring this guideline, though, that it’s safe to say it’s falling out of favor. Old-schoolers like me still do it, but every once in a while, even I will neglect the comma.
The problem, though, is that if you decide to follow the comma-after-intro-phrase rule, you have to be consistent about it. That sentence contains a second intro phrase: “and [at] other times.” If you put a comma after “Sometimes,” then you have to put a comma after “other times,” which introduces a second independent clause.
But again, you put in the crucial comma before the “and,” and that matters most.
To spell it out: when you’re separating two independent clauses, you have to use a comma-conjunction to do so. By “conjunction,” I mean a coordinating conjunction like for, and, nor, but, or, yet, so, i.e., the so-called FANBOYS. Instead of the comma-conjunction, it’s also possible to use a semicolon. Using a comma when you actually need a semicolon is called a comma splice. For example: It’s raining out, you’ll need an umbrella. Corrected: It’s raining out; you’ll need an umbrella. Or: It’s raining out, so you’ll need an umbrella.
For your second and third sentences in that snippet, you did indeed put the commas where they needed to be. Woo-hoo!
In many cases, correct comma usage comes down to the ability to define what clauses are, to know a clause when you see one, and to know what type of clause you’re looking at. Again, post #1 of my comma series goes into all that.
So for me, the frustration is this: when I point out, specifically, that there’s an error in a given sentence, you’re often pretty good about making the correction. This makes me wonder why, if you’re aware of what the correct way to write something is, you keep making these mistakes. I know you’ve said that you write according to what sounds good, but to me, that sounds like you haven’t bothered to read my posts on commas at all—or you’ve read them and decided to ignore them. Going by what “sounds good” or “sounds natural” or “seems to flow” is never a good way to approach writing. There are almost always grammatical and mechanical rules to help you figure out how to write a certain locution correctly. Once you learn those rules, it all becomes a matter of habit, and you’re able to listen to a properly authoritative voice in your head that tells you what’s legitimately right or wrong.
Anyway, thanks for being a good sport about all this. Not many folks have a tolerance for the grammatically preachy.
So much to learn, so little time left in this lifetime!
I had to laugh when I saw my mistake in #1 was period placement. I never thought of that as a hard and fast rule, I guess. I think the quote usually looks better with the punctuation outside. Although, I see when I did my re-write I inadvertently managed to get it right.
Aren’t there exceptions to the FANBOYS rule? It seems to me that “but” doesn’t always need a comma, but I can’t think of an example right now.
As to why I continue repeating my mistakes even when I “know” the rules, it is probably just sloppiness as much as anything. Old habits die hard, and I still need to stop and think, “comma or no” when I’m writing. It always seems right in my head, but obviously, that’s not the case.
Anyway, I’m not giving up, and I will strive to improve!
Rock on.