New Jersey Darts

at 7:32 AM

On Saturday I attended the Phildelphia Charity Luck of the Draw Dart Tournament along with over 140 other competitors and had a great time. It was a good chance to play a few games and visit with a lot of friends from Philadelphia who I had not seen in awhile, all while raising money for a worthy cause. There were also numerous great door prizes and raffle items that helped raise extra money for Charity, including a steel-tip electronic scoring board, won by Moose, and a ice chest of cheer won by Paul.

The format of the competition was best of three legs, 501, single elimination. I was paired with Keith McCarthy and we played a good team the first round. We lost the first leg as our opponents scored well, beating us to the double. We handily won the second game. In the third game Keith and I scored well enough to beat our opponents down to the double but missed several shots at the out for the match. They eventually caught up and took advantage of our double trouble. By the time I had left they had advanced to the semi-final. My scoring was not too bad, but now I know I need some extra work on my outs.

It was great to see such good attendance. I got to visit with George Silzerbahn, who discussed some innovations for his upcoming tournament and who was passing around an interesting cricket survey. I will report the dates and locations of his tournament seeding qualifiers very soon. It was also great to see Mary Jo, Terri, Joyce, Gary, Moose, Eddie K, Jo Jo, Mike Broderick, Russ, Kathy, J.R., Todd, and all my other Philly area dart friends who I had not seen in awhile. The competition there is great and I will be getting out to Philly more often.

As soon as I get final results and the $ amount raised for charity, I will let you know. Until then, good darts!

at 7:46 PM

My birthday is coming around again this weekend. What a great time to think back on all the fun I've had with darts. I started playing back in New Orleans over 13 years ago, and little did I know at the time how many friends and how many good times I would have from playing darts. What a great game!

The birthday fun has already started. Today some of my friends at work took me out to lunch, and on Saturday I am heading in to Philadelphia to shoot in a Charity Luck of the Draw Tournament. Considering that my birthday is also my anniversary I will be taking Margaret out Sunday. Maybe I will get a little time to recover before work on Monday, but then again maybe not :)

I am heading down to New Orleans in April, which should be fun. Who knows, I might even bring my darts. Like many darters, I LOVE good food, and New Orleans is one of the greatest places in the world for that. I will give you a full account afterwards, if they can fit me on the plane back to New Jersey.

Speaking of food, I had a lot of fun lately on iTunes. (Don't worry, I will make a connection between food and music in a minute!) Margaret told me you could make a "iMix" or playlist of your favorite songs that anybody could see and download. With food and our New Orleans trip on my mind, I made a mix of my ten favorite songs to cook by, with a New Orleans flavor to it. If you have iTunes, you can check it out by clicking here. Hey, I wonder...any good dart songs we can make into a iMix?

at 7:04 AM

Planet Darts, the PDC website, reports that three perfect nine dart 501 games were hit in its two events in Germany last weekend. The PDC held two player's events, each lasting one day. In the Saturday event, Colin Lloyd hit a nine darter in his board final against Colin Monk, but still lost the match (click here for details).

In the Sunday event, Dave Askew hit a nine darter against James Wade in the third round, but lost that match as well. In the fourth round Phil Taylor hit a nine darter against Ronnie Baxter in a winning effort (click here for details). Taylor went on to win the event. The fans in Germany sure got their money's worth this weekend!

at 9:54 PM

The Texas State flower is the Bluebonnet, but dart players from the southern U.S. always think of the Bluebonnet Classic when they hear the word. The Bluebonnet Classic Dart Tournament is held in Houston in February. It used to be a yearly pilgrammage for me and many of my friends when I lived in the New Orleans area. I had cousins and grandparents in Houston, so it allowed me to mix the fun of a dart tournament with a family visit. Now that I live in New Jersey and a lot of my family moved to other parts of Texas, I usually don't make it down to the Bluebonnet Classic anymore.

I was recently browsing the American Dart Organization website when I came across a report on the Bluebonnet. A click away was a great slideshow chronicling the tournament. It brought back to mind a lot of my friends in the dart community who I have not seen in awhile. While it is no substitute for being there, it was great to be able to see a lot of faces that I had not seen in so long.

With good and reasonably affordable video technology available, it is easier than ever to take good pictures and video at dart tournaments and post them online. A big New Jersey Darts thank you to the ADO and the Bluebonnet staff for doing such a good job with their slideshow.

at 10:57 PM

I finally finished some edits on a big article that I am doing at work, so I'm able to do some posting. I'm sure a good sized local contingent will be heading down to Virginia Beach this weekend for their big tournament, but I will be staying home. However, the following week is the big Philly charity tournament on March 29. I plan on attending that one. Unfortunately I will miss the Trenton Charity Tournament on April 12 as I will be visiting family in New Orleans, but I certainly encourage everyone to go. Next on my calendar will be George's Players Tournament in Philly in early May. These tournaments should be a good warmup for the PDC U.S. Open later in May. I also plan to get out to a few LOD's. Considering that I did not play league this season and have not been on the circuit that much, it will be interesting. My scoring is improving in practice (mid to upper 70's), but we will have to see how it goes in tournament play. I will certainly want to kick that up a notch if I can.

at 5:15 PM

I have noticed on the Philly Darts website that George Silberzahn is holding one of his tournaments called the Player's Tournament of Philadelphia. According to the announcement, the main event is on May 4, 2008, Jokers Bar & Grill at 7312 Castor Ave, Philadelphia, PA and there will be qualifier events at multiple locations. Qualifiers will be held at Trenton NJ, Mt. Royal NJ, North East Philly, Center City Philly, dates and times to be arranged.

For anyone who has not shot in one of George's tournaments, he uses a unique format which is designed to give beginners a good chance to finish in the money. The qualifiers are merely designed to place you into one of three groups, A, B or C. Each group has its own prize money, but nevertheless everyone competes together. The equalizer is that "A" group players start their games at 501, B group players start at 401 and C group players start at 301. So, if an A player goes against a C player, there is a 200 point handicap. Also, there is a point system. For instance, C players get more points for defeating an A player, than they do for beating another C player. To discourage sand-bagging in the qualifiers, the A group money is better than B, and B is better than C. Also, the number of competitors in the A group is smaller. For more information about how the event works check out George's post on the subject.

This is a great event for local darters who are not experienced with tournaments to get out and see if they like it. The elimination system apparently cannot kick a person out without having played several matches, all in best of five leg format. With the handicap system and by dividing into groups, everyone has a fair chance of winning.

at 5:35 PM

I was checking out the PDC website and noticed that Phil Taylor put on an awesome display in defeating Raymond Van Barneveld 8 legs to 3 in the Premier League recently. Taylor averaged 111 points per round (37 per dart) over 11 games. That is better than a 14 dart game. Wow. I know he has done that well before, but it is still incredible. When he is hot, he is in a class of his own. He ended the match with a 167 checkout.

at 10:59 PM

The Gotham City Dart League announces the 7th Annual Varuna Cup Dart Competition, to be held on April 11-13, 2008 at the Varuna Boat Club in Brooklyn, New York. The flyer (click here) has full information, and reports that over $5,000.00 was paid out last year. This looks like a nice event for those looking for a little competition to get ready for the PDC events coming in May.

Now for the story. I have been relegated to practicing in my upstairs office since the in-laws moved in and took over the play room, where I had my previous set-up. So, I moved my board upstairs and set up some lighting. One table lamp is located behind the oche. Every so often, I would need to replace the regular light bulbs as the filaments would burn out. After I saw several advertisements for those fancy, environmentally friendly mini-halogen light bulbs I decided to try them out. They use less energy and are supposed to save you money over the long run over the cheap filament light bulbs. Stay with me.

There I was practicing a week after installing the fancy new $6 light bulb and my first dart lands in the trip 20. So far so good. The second dart hits the top wire on T20, and it's one of those weird, thankfully rare, high velocity bounce outs coming straight back at me. Before I can congratulate myself on an artful dodge there is a great crash as the dart shatters my poor new $6 light bulb in the table lamp. Looks like I didn't save any money on that one, and somehow I don't think the warranty will cover it!

at 7:02 AM

When I get busy at work, I usually fall a bit behind the latest news going on in the dart world. Here is a good chance to catch up. The American Dart Organization website is much more up to date lately, and reports that Darin Young and Paula Murphy are the respective U.S. Men's and Women's Cricket Champions. You can see how the brackets played out by clicking on this. I checked for local players at the competition and saw where Jim Widmayer made it through the round robins to the knockout round, finishing in the top 8, and Phildelphia's Joyce Hamilton finished top 8 on the Women's side. Congratulations!

Final ADO point lists for 2007 were issued, showing Darin at the top for the men, and Stacy Bromberg for the women. Looking for local players on the men's list, I see Jim Widmayer at #2, Bill Davis #9, Bill Bell #14, Tim O'Gorman #23, and Tom Waterman #50. On the women's list, some local standouts include Joyce Hamilton #8, Doreen Berry #12, Jen Benetazzo #14, Marcia Loche #15, Nikki Passenti #17, and MaryJo Chesney #21. Congratulations to everyone on a good year and best of luck for 2008.

Bullseye News updated its dart calendar, which is one of the best sources for tournament information on the American circuit. As mentioned in my previous posts, Bullseye News is also a great source for information on this year's PDC events in the U.S.

Dartoid had a recent article on a man named Justin Irwin, who took a year off his job to play darts. Irwin wrote a book about his experience. Have any of you regular working guys like me ever wondered how good you could get if you took a year off to do nothing but play and practice darts? Interesting!

The PDC has focused a lot of attention on its Premier League, in which several of the top players in the world play against each other over the course of many weeks. Perennial favorite Phil Taylor has struggled a bit after changing his darts and it looks to be a good battle this year with newcomer James Wade shaking things up a bit.

As a reminder, on March 29, 2008 at 1:00 p.m. at Joker's Bar in Philadelphia the QCEDL is having it's big charity luck of the draw event. See my previous dart calendar entry for more information, or check on Philly Darts. This was a fantastic event last year, raising appx. $13,000.00 for the charity Crossing the Finish Line. Until next time, good darts!

at 6:04 PM

The Greater Trenton English Dart League recently announced details for its 3rd Annual Darts for Dreams Charity Dart-A-Thon. The first two years were highly successful, raising appx. $5,800 and then $8,400 respectively for the Make A Wish Foundation of New Jersey. Gary Yourman has already lined up an impressive list of supporters and hopes to break the $10,000 mark this year.

For the details, see the flyer by clicking on this. The event is on April 12, 2008, between 1 and 7 p.m. at Arbeiter Hall, 151 East Franklin St, Hamilton (or Trenton - some of docs say both). I attended last time and it was a lot of fun. You pay a small entry fee and get to throw a large number of darts (I think it was 100). You add up your score and report it, and every hour the highest scores win prizes. You can stay and shoot as much as you like and the proceeds go to a worthy charity. There were also a large number of good raffle/door prizes. For pictures of last year's event, click on this. I hope to see you out there to support this worthy cause!