Snakes & Ladders

Here’s the practice game I use. It helps with treble and single accuracy, though you can include doubles as a target if you don’t mind losing points for darts which are out of the board.

The object is to go around the board from 1 - 20. For each number the "par" score starts off at two, meaning to progress to the next number you need to hit more than two of the target number. Hit two and you stay on that number. Hit just one and you move back one number. Hit none and you move back two numbers. Using an example of aiming for the 1 as your first shot :

Hit 0 = Move back two to 19
Hit 1 = Move back one to 20
Hit 2 = Par. Stay on the 1 and try again with the next shot
Hit 3 = Advance to 2
Hit 4 (e.g. a treble and a single) = Advance to 3
Hit 5 to 9 = Advance accordingly, with 8 being the highest number you can land on with this first throw.

This isn’t so difficult, and it’s a good warm-up for moving around the board at different targets. I usually find I’ll slip right back from the initial 1 to 16, and need to get right back up to the 1 before I make any progress.

The challenge really starts once you’ve been round the entire board from 1 - 20 and you then increase the "par" for each number to 3. This is really difficult, as a nice neat three in the single will not be enough to progress to the next number ; you’ve got to be hitting the equivalents of tons and ton fortys on the numbers to progress. Of course a par of 4 is well beyond my current standard, but it’s something to aim for (no pun intended).