Thursday, November 19, 2009
Congratulations to Pennsylvania Darter Darin Young
I checked on Planet Darts for the results of the Grand Slam of Darts and noticed that Darin made it through his group to the top 16. Darin beat English stars Adrian Lewis and Dennis Ovens to advance. He will play again Friday against Scotsman Robert Thornton. See the report of his latest match here. Good luck D!
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
Darter's Anxiety
It's always fun to coin a new phrase. Darter's Anxiety... a condition felt by a dart player under stress in a match...may result in sweaty palms, racing heartbeat, loss of focus and missed shots. This surely came in to play in our Monday night match at Kelly's Tavern.
Everyone reacts differently to tension at the oche. Some darters are as cold as ice and nothing phases them. Others may react if money is on the line, a lot of people are watching a match, or in a pressurized situation at the end of a game. Psychiatrists call things like this "stressors." Personally, one of my stressors is when my fate is no longer in my own hands in a game.
On Monday night we were playing the first place team and had to give up 45 marks a game due to the handicap system. Ouch! Stressor one. We were hot in the first game and made up the handicap easily. For some unknowable reason, we fell apart in the second game. Everyone but Dave posted our worst performances of the season. We went into the decider trying to figure how we could kick start our games and avoid our first overall loss of the season. Stressor two.
We shot first in the decider, and our skills were showing some signs of life. We made slow but steady progress against the 45 mark handicap. However, we went into the final inning about 8 marks behind. We were only able to produce a mediocre round of 16 marks, leaving our opponents with the normally easy task of hitting 8 marks (2 for each player) to win. We were resigned at that point to a likely defeat, and our fate was out of our hands as we watched them throw.
The first player scored 3 marks, and the next 2 each scored 2 marks. Their final player, who had been shooting well, needed only 1 mark to tie, and 2 or more to win. He hit 1 mark in the first shot, and had two darts in hand to just hit a single mark to win the match for the night. I could hardly bear to look. His next dart missed high. The room fell silent and you could almost see the tension in the air. His next dart fell low, and we all let out a huge sigh of relief at the unexpected result. The tension drained right out of us.
The league rules stated that to break the tie we had to throw a 10th inning, straight up with no handicap. We threw our best inning of the match (23 marks) and won easily, for a final score of 5-2. It was not pretty, but we were relieved with the result. Man of the match has to go to Dave, who was the only one seemingly unaffected by whatever ailed us that night. He posted a nice performance of 49 marks in the first game while we all struggled. All of us will be looking to bounce back with better performances next week. Until then, good darts!
Everyone reacts differently to tension at the oche. Some darters are as cold as ice and nothing phases them. Others may react if money is on the line, a lot of people are watching a match, or in a pressurized situation at the end of a game. Psychiatrists call things like this "stressors." Personally, one of my stressors is when my fate is no longer in my own hands in a game.
On Monday night we were playing the first place team and had to give up 45 marks a game due to the handicap system. Ouch! Stressor one. We were hot in the first game and made up the handicap easily. For some unknowable reason, we fell apart in the second game. Everyone but Dave posted our worst performances of the season. We went into the decider trying to figure how we could kick start our games and avoid our first overall loss of the season. Stressor two.
We shot first in the decider, and our skills were showing some signs of life. We made slow but steady progress against the 45 mark handicap. However, we went into the final inning about 8 marks behind. We were only able to produce a mediocre round of 16 marks, leaving our opponents with the normally easy task of hitting 8 marks (2 for each player) to win. We were resigned at that point to a likely defeat, and our fate was out of our hands as we watched them throw.
The first player scored 3 marks, and the next 2 each scored 2 marks. Their final player, who had been shooting well, needed only 1 mark to tie, and 2 or more to win. He hit 1 mark in the first shot, and had two darts in hand to just hit a single mark to win the match for the night. I could hardly bear to look. His next dart missed high. The room fell silent and you could almost see the tension in the air. His next dart fell low, and we all let out a huge sigh of relief at the unexpected result. The tension drained right out of us.
The league rules stated that to break the tie we had to throw a 10th inning, straight up with no handicap. We threw our best inning of the match (23 marks) and won easily, for a final score of 5-2. It was not pretty, but we were relieved with the result. Man of the match has to go to Dave, who was the only one seemingly unaffected by whatever ailed us that night. He posted a nice performance of 49 marks in the first game while we all struggled. All of us will be looking to bounce back with better performances next week. Until then, good darts!
Thursday, November 12, 2009
Good Luck, Bad, Then Good Again! A 5-2 Win in Week 3.
I returned last Sunday night from a nice week-long vacation in Florida. With the weather starting to turn here in Jersey it was nice to relax and catch some warm rays by a swimming pool. The day after my return found me back at Kelly's Tavern for another match with the guys. I found that despite being out last week I did not miss a match because league play was postponed due to the Governor's election. Good luck there!
Dave was out this week but arranged a substitute so we had a full complement of four. We started off hot against a new team that had only started playing darts two seasons ago. We had to make up a 38 point handicap but in the first game we eliminated that deficit by the fifth inning. I posted my best game so far, scoring 42 points. That's between 4 and 5 marks per round on average.
Just to show how quick fortunes can change, in the second game none of us were hitting well. At the same time, our opponents hit their stride, shooting some excellent innings. We rallied late in the game to narrow the deficit to eight marks by the last inning. In the ninth inning, our opponents threw, and our first three players made up some of the ground. The game literally came down to the last dart. Tom was the last to throw, needing a difficult shot of seven marks to tie and eight or more to win. The first dart hit a solid triple, and a hush settled over the crowd. The second struck the double, leaving the game shot in Tom's hand. You could almost see the sweat dripping off our opponents. Tom let the third dart fly and it raced right between the two darts, struck a flight, and deflected out of the scoring area. Bad luck, and our opponents picked up two points for the second game!
This setback only seemed to motivate Tom, who started out the third and final game on fire. We rallied to an easy victory in the third match, with Tom leading the way with a League high score of 56 in 9 innings (between 6 and 7 mark per round average). Our margins of victory gave us the extra point on the night, so we finished with a 5-2 win. To top it off, the team contributed to the 50/50 raffle and we won that for the second time in three weeks. Good luck there!
John had three very solid games, but man of the match has to go to Tom for his remarkable performance in the third game. I am still struggling to get a feel for these light wooden darts but I am having some improvement. I posted scores of 42, 29, and 35 which was better than last time. Hopefully that will keep improving.
Thanks to Kelly's for providing a great spread of food including pasta with seafood, chicken and hot dogs! We all had a great time, and I look forward to playing again next week. There is some good tournament action coming up for Jersey darters that I will report soon as well. Until then, good darts!
Dave was out this week but arranged a substitute so we had a full complement of four. We started off hot against a new team that had only started playing darts two seasons ago. We had to make up a 38 point handicap but in the first game we eliminated that deficit by the fifth inning. I posted my best game so far, scoring 42 points. That's between 4 and 5 marks per round on average.
Just to show how quick fortunes can change, in the second game none of us were hitting well. At the same time, our opponents hit their stride, shooting some excellent innings. We rallied late in the game to narrow the deficit to eight marks by the last inning. In the ninth inning, our opponents threw, and our first three players made up some of the ground. The game literally came down to the last dart. Tom was the last to throw, needing a difficult shot of seven marks to tie and eight or more to win. The first dart hit a solid triple, and a hush settled over the crowd. The second struck the double, leaving the game shot in Tom's hand. You could almost see the sweat dripping off our opponents. Tom let the third dart fly and it raced right between the two darts, struck a flight, and deflected out of the scoring area. Bad luck, and our opponents picked up two points for the second game!
This setback only seemed to motivate Tom, who started out the third and final game on fire. We rallied to an easy victory in the third match, with Tom leading the way with a League high score of 56 in 9 innings (between 6 and 7 mark per round average). Our margins of victory gave us the extra point on the night, so we finished with a 5-2 win. To top it off, the team contributed to the 50/50 raffle and we won that for the second time in three weeks. Good luck there!
John had three very solid games, but man of the match has to go to Tom for his remarkable performance in the third game. I am still struggling to get a feel for these light wooden darts but I am having some improvement. I posted scores of 42, 29, and 35 which was better than last time. Hopefully that will keep improving.
Thanks to Kelly's for providing a great spread of food including pasta with seafood, chicken and hot dogs! We all had a great time, and I look forward to playing again next week. There is some good tournament action coming up for Jersey darters that I will report soon as well. Until then, good darts!
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