Fun Darts in Philly

I had a blast this weekend in Philadelphia at the Rae Chesney Dart Tournament at the Raddison in North Philly. It's always good to catch up with my old friends from Philly. This year we made it a family trip, and I took Margaret and my eight year old, Oliver, along to throw in the youth events.

Oliver likes to swim so we spent a fair amount of time inbetween events in the indoor swimming pool, playing games and watching the snowflakes fall outside. On Saturday he threw in the 6-12 year old division. The young kids throw on a standard board, and play single in, single out 401. Oliver was much younger than his competition, but had some good rounds throwing my wooden American Baseball darts. He managed to take one of three legs off his opponent Edgar, which was a good confidence booster.

The next day was a youth-adult event, and Oliver again managed one leg off his opponent Tyler in a best of three legs event. The youth-adult event has the same format. The youth diddles and starts, and the adult cannot take the out. The adult basically drops out after score gets low enough for the youth to hit the out. At one point Oliver was looking at a 116 out. He hit the double bull, and then a 16. I held my breath as he lined up the bullseye with his third dart. It was off in another zip code, but then I laughed at my expectations. Hey, the kid is eight years old, after all!

The winner of both events was a 12 year old named Ed, who had a great game and deserved the win. Congrats Ed!

The only event that I threw in besides that was the singles cricket event. It was one of those days when I was distracted and the darts just would not go where I wanted them. My opponent took good advantage and I was a first round casualty.

As a reminder, the New York New Jersey Open is this coming weekend. I have some family obligations so will unfortunately miss it this year, but don't let that stop you from going.

Dave Who?

Dave Hascup was out last night in our American Darts League match against the second place team at Kelly's, so Howie kindly subbed. The last time we played that team we won but it was a nail-biter. That time each game came down to the last inning and a stray dart or two could easily have determined the outcome. With Dave out, we knew we would have to hit well.

Maybe it was a weekend of throwing darts in Philly, but something picked my game up big time. In the first game everything seemed effortless and I hit a nice 45 game. The rest of the gang was a bit off that game, but it was good enough for a team win. I settled back to a more typical 33 and 34 the next two games, and had to count it a good night because Howie, Tom, and John picked up the pace. We managed a sweep, which puts us out in front by a comfortable margin at this point. After the win, Howie said "Dave Who?" (Just kidding Dave!)

When I have a good night I try to think about what was different so I can try and reproduce it. I definitely felt relaxed and focused. I was not thinking too much. When my turn came I would just walk up to the line and throw. That's not much to go on, but it's something.