Friday, October 19, 2007

Bajan Boogie Time, Once More!

Pictured : No Woman, No Cry

Yes folks, it's that time again, so the blog will fall silent while I take part in the Barbados Darts Festival 2007. There are six competitions for me to compete in over the 2 weeks, and in the words of SpongeBob "I'm ready, I'm ready. . . ". Actually, I'll probably feel more like Patrick when the pressure is on!

I hope to have an interview with John Lowe to publish and some great stories about the brilliant hosts, the Bajans.

Take care, good darts, and wish me luck against the mosquitos.

Wednesday, October 17, 2007

Chelmsford 6 – 4 Wheatsheaf

Pictured : The Chelmsford

We were able to repeat last week's result against The Wheatsheaf despite some strong individual performances by them. Things were looking bad as we lost the opening Team 1001x game by a very large margin, but from that point the games were far tighter.

Lena and I got to play against Jay in the Doubles, and in a very closely fought game I was relieved to hit the D8 with my last dart after covering it badly with the first two. I think we all had at least two throws at the double, so this one was in the balance and quite tense toward the end.

My decent form in the Doubles game was spoilt by my poor Singles game. I hit some real junk shots, totally unable to focus and get steady shots into the 20.

Luckily the rest of the team did well. Paul C was as steady as ever, and there was some decent play from Mark, Roger, and Alan.

The season feels so different to last year, and we're getting into the habit of picking up points against strong teams.

Jason has asked me to mention that he beat Willie 3-0 in the doms :o)

Wednesday, October 10, 2007

Roger's 37 Finish

This is the 37 finish Roger used in the game at Wheatsheaf. Instead of the usual method of S5, D16 Roger aimed for the 3, knowing that even if he strayed into the 19 or 17 he would still have 2 darts at a double. This is a great idea, and works well when the nerves are present and you just want to get the most possible shots at a double even if the first dart for the “big single” isn't the best of shots.

It worked well. The first dart hit S3 as planned, and the second dart was straight into the D17. I thought it was a great way to go, and I've learned from that. The only thing I'd try though is to aim as in the smaller diagrams, as I'd rather have D9 or D10 to finish on than the lower D17. Worth trying isn't it, but I think there'd have been pressure to go the conventional way if playing with a partner in a Doubles game.

Dominoes Game

Dominoes rear their head every once in a while in the League. I try to avoid them, but whenever we're short on numbers I'll be forced to play them. Actually my success rate isn't that bad.

This link was mentioned to Jay last night. It's a reasonably good dominoes game which I've found quite challenging > Jamaican Dominoes Have a go and see what you think.

The game is free and doesn't seem to include any malware.

Tuesday, October 09, 2007

Wheatsheaf 4 – 6 Chelmsford

Pictured : The Wheatsheaf team

Not a great game tonight, but one of the Wheatsheaf players hit a 180 while the rest of us struggled to get into our stride.

We won the opening team game to continue our good record in this type of 1001X game. Next up I played a poor game in the Doubles with Peter Mc and it was 1-1. Good performances from Roger and Paul C were probably the difference as we headed to a 6-4 victory on the night.

As fate would have it I got to play Jay in the Singles and I was very lucky to sneak a win against him. He won't be impressed with my game and will no doubt fancy a re-match against me next week :o)

A great night up there in Leadgate and yet another pleasing result for our team. I don't think we had this many points by Christmas last season!

Tuesday, October 02, 2007

Chelmsford 7 – 3 Coach & Horses

This was a really good performance from us. We put out our strongest team with Peter Mc available, and reversed last week's 7-3 defeat to make it “honours even” over the two legs against a team who are usually much better than us in the league.

Personally, this was my best showing ever for The Chelmsford ; I hit the winning X1 in the Team Game, sunk the 39 in the Doubles game (S7, D16), and also finished on 53 (S13 D20) in my Singles game to grab 3 of the 7 points. The scoring wasn't bad either, but I must admit the nerves were still there in the Singles game. Surely I must get some confidence from hitting the double every time I got the chance of one, but it is so hard to concentrate and be precise over the entire game.

We took a 3-0 lead before C&H came back fighting and made it 3-3. From that point we won all of the remaining games. This is extremely satisfying against good opposition like C&H.