Cup Night at The Black Diamond

Pictured : A Black Diamond
By, that Black Orlov is a bit of a beauty, isn't it. It's meant to be bad luck or something though, so lets get on to the darts :

It was the Doubles Cup night at The Black Diamond on Tuesday night. Roger and I joined Jean and Alan to represent The Chelmsford. Lena was at another venue and paired up with someone from another pub, but she fared no better than us.

Jean and Alan were knocked out in the first round (all games were best of three, straight start, 501, with first throw decided on the toss of a coin), and as chance would have it Roger and I would face their victors if we could get past the first round.

Again fate reared it's head as we faced jcoulson and his partner in the first round. Jay comments on this blog, but we have so far managed to avoid a direct clash of the bloggers. We managed to scrape past them 2-1, but were beaten 2-1 in the second round.

I was disappointed by the erratic nature of my darts on the night, swinging from 92 and 60 finishes with some 100+ shots right down to the more frequent poor shots of LT40 and LT30. I'll get nowhere at this rate, and next season is totally dedicated to getting some sort of consistency into my game.

More Cup action tomorrow night though, as we meet The Fountain in the return leg of yet another Cup. Just one cup would do me if I could actually get my hands on one :o)

Cup Game - Fountain 1 – 8 Chelmsford

Pictured : Both teams after the match

Obviously this is a great result for us. We need just 2 point in the return leg on Tuesday night, but the bigger picture is what a superb night we had against the “all ladies” team of The Fountain, Consett. They were an absolute joy to play against. They are a very sporting team.

They were unlucky and could have won a couple more legs, but all of the 9 games were played in a great spirit. We all found it difficult to get into our stride, and all I can look back on with pride is my very narrow miss from a 157 finish which I had to ultimately wrap up as a D15 finish on 30.

“Person of the Match” this week goes to Lena for her great performance in her Singles match. I'm afraid John S was the only one to lose from our team, and I know he reads this blog and won't like me mentioning it :o)
Pictured : The Fountain, Consett

Dominoes Singles Cup Night

My preparation for tonight's Dominoes Singles Knock-out competition at The Castleside Inn was a crash course from Lena and Willie on Monday night. They evidently taught me well, and amazingly I managed to be The Chelmsford's best representative and get all the way to the last 16. I got no further and lost 3-1, but I'm still pleased with the 3-2 and 3-0 nil victories which got me to this point.

Sadly, Jay from Coach & Horses also left the competition at this point, but good luck to those who managed to get into the last four for the big show down on Finals Night.

I definitely have a bit more respect for Dominoes now I have competed in it and seen the skills you need to win. I'll be back for the Dominoes Doubles competition, but in the meantime my major focus is on the 1st leg of the Darts Cup match we have against The Fountain (Consett) on Sunday night.

Cup Nights

Sorry for the lack of updates over the last few days ; we are now deep into the end of season cup competitions, and I am totally out of skew with it all.

Last Tuesday we took a coach up to The Cricketers to cheer Jean on in the second phase of the Singles knock-out. She was up against stiff competition (he finished in just 17 darts in one leg), and hence we didn't get to see too much of her darts! We only stayed for a couple of hours, but the highpoints from a neutral's point of view were Dave Crawley beating Timmy Richardson in a clash of the titans, and Nancy's incredibly precise finishing on 81 and 103 in her first round match. A great darting night, and a chance to see the best of league's players slug it out.
It was interesting to talk to the other players and hear just how famous this little blog has become! Several people mentioned it, so I'll have to be careful about what I say about them in future :o)

Tomorrow night were all playing Dominoes (aaarrgghh!) in the Singles Cup, before normality is restored with a proper darts “Bass Cup” first round / first leg against The Fountain, Consett on Sunday 28/5/06 at the unusual start time of 18:00 hrs. The return leg will be on the following Thursday night at The Chelmsford.

"Singles" Cup Night

Tonight was the Singles Cup night, and despite not progressing to the last 16 I was very pleased with my performance.

I was playing up at the Coach & Horses at Leadgate. My first match went well, and despite the obvious nerves of being 1st up to the oche I edged past my opponent to reach the next stage.
By the time I played my next game I was very focussed and determined. I lost the first leg, but equallised in the second with 3 scores of 100+ which I rarely achieve on the practice board in a leg of 501.

Sadly I was just behind my opponent in the decisive leg, and I really would have appreciated throwing first, but that was decided on the toss of a coin beforehand.

So I'm out of the cup, but I loved every moment. Just walking in there, seeing an assortment of the best players I'd met all season and actually competing against them in a serious way gave me quite a "high".

I played far ebove my "practice" standard, and am totally satisfied with my scores on the night. Would've been nice to win though :0)

Stance

It’s always difficult making changes to the way you throw your darts, and not something which should be attempted unless you think you have a real problem which needs addressing. But last week Alan P pointed out to me that I was leaning too far forward and this was causing my trailing leg to actually leave the floor when I took my shot. I wasn’t aware of this, but I realised it couldn’t be good for consistency and accuracy.

For the past week I’ve tried to change this, and the results clearly prove to me that I need to continue in this way. Essentially I stand in the same position, but a little further back from the mark in a far more upright position with no leaning forward, and my trailing leg firmly anchored to the floor for support. It was difficult at first, but is now becoming natural to me.

Since doing this my DartPro averages have improved (I’m >60 per throw including check outs during the last week – a huge improvement from the usual 54) and in last night’s team game of Golf I hit more trebles with the 1st dart than I thought possible for me. Also, low doubles such as 3, 19, and 17 seem easier and I no longer need to stoop down for them. The only "unkown" is how this fares in competitive games, and I’ll find out next week in the Singles and Doubles knock-out competitions with a further week’s practice under my belt.

The strange thing is, this is probably exactly the same stance I was using at this point in 2005, but I just got into a bad habit during the year and didn’t realise it.

Final Placings, 2005/6

Pictured : The Chelmsford
We have another Tuesday night off while the Knock-out Semi Finals take place (Cricketers V Commercial and Shotley V Steel Club).

Here are the final placings in the League this season. Peter McClean of the Chelmsford won the Highest Finish trophy with 150, and Timmy Richardson won the 180’s trophy with a total of 5 during the season.

We finished 11th of 15 teams in both the darts and the dominoes, so plenty of room for improvement next season. It was pleasing to edge up to 11th after being in 12th for such a long time though.

Darts League Table
1) Steel Club, 214
2) Cricketers, 207
3) Chopwell central, 200
4) Coach & Horses, 177
5) Smelters, 165
6) Commercial, 145
7) Leadgate Cricket, 143
8) Derwentside, 131
9) Shotley Club, 126
10) Castleside Inn, 125
11) Chelmsford, 119
12) Stanley Masons (A), 116
13) Stanley Masons (B), 77
14) Jolly Drovers, 85
15) Black Diamond, 60