Monday, December 29, 2008

Unicorn Hero 95% TA, 27g

Now I've had the chance to use my recovered darts alongside the replacements I can see a couple of differences between them. You can see in the picture the new gold ones have a slightly longer grip area and the the part where the point joins the barrel is slightly less bulbous. The new ones are exactly 27.0 grammes as opposed to 26.9 (they are laser etched with their weights to 0.1g precision).

These differences cause no problems at all, but the grip on the new ones is far more effective, and this is causing a worse release and my darts are veering to the left. I think this will decrease as they take a bit more damage and become smoother, but in the meantime I'll use the old ones for matches and the new ones for practice. Overcoming the poor release on the new ones seems to help overall technique when using the match darts, so I think this arrangement will work well.

Now I have tried these in both the Latinum and plain finishes I can see the benefit of Latinum. Maybe it is best to get them in this smoother finish and then roughen them up with the blade of a metal file if required. The pattern on the plain finish is extremely grippy.

Tuesday, December 23, 2008

Moorcock 4 - 6 Chelmsford

I don't think too many of us settled into our games tonight as we saw several good leads wasted. On any other night I think we'd have scored a few more points but we just seemed determined to make a close game of it.

What a great location up at The Moorcock though. It feels like it should be aother County as you drive West past Castleside and out onto the moors.

Sunday, December 21, 2008

Thanks!

Many thanks to Paul for finding my darts and passing them on.

Losing them was easy enough; being stupid enough to take them out with the dog for a walk in a coat that doesn't have decent pockets, but getting them returned was a harder journey. Someone found them and left them in a prominent position on a fence. Paul spotted them and left them thinking that the owner would find them easier if he left them where they were. Then he remembered the blog and matched the "lost" story. By this time they'd fallen off the fence and were in a field.

Many thanks to him for digging them out and letting me know. A huge relief, and I'm getting my 26's with the haymakers now :o)

Wednesday, December 17, 2008

New Darts

Unicorn Golden Hero 95% 27g

I lost my regular set of darts last week. Maybe they'll turn up somewhere, but in the meantime I have been using the excellent Harrows Magnum 27g's. They're the best set I've ever owned (courtesy of Les allowing me to swap with him when we were given a free set each in Barbados), but sometimes they can be "twitchy" ; my tons become 140's with them, but the 45's become 26's if that makes any sort of sense.

I bet if I stuck in with them they'd be "the ones", but they're no longer available in 27g and I don't want to become dependant upon a dart which is no longer manufactured.

I've therefore ordered direct replacements for the Unicorn Hero 27g's from Pure Darts, and I've opted for the titanium finish pictured. When they arrive I'll need to file the points down to 2.5cm, so while I do that I may need to call upon the Magnums again for next week's game.

Tuesday, December 16, 2008

Team Cup Competition V Jolly Drovers

Tonight we played the Team Cup Competition where dominoes wins are just as important as darts wins. Basically it's a Team game of 1001 DSDF darts followed by a Singles game of dominoes, with the games swinging between the two disciplines until a winner is found.

We had no problems in the darts at all, but the dominoes were causing concern. Thankfully Roger hit the winning double for us in the final game of the night, but it was Willie who lead the way for us, sinking a D1 in one of the darts games and then winning his dominoes game.

Its a strange format, but this puts us into the final four. I was happy enough with my own game, but you don't get that many shots at the board in this format so it was hard to get into any sort of true rhythm.

Wednesday, December 10, 2008

Chelmsford 7 - 3 Stanley Masons

Picture from last week's Away game

We carried a bit of good luck in last night's game, with several wayward shots finding their way into D20 and T12 etc. Mark H even scored a lucky ton with two unintentional D20s. Apart from that he played a strong game though, leading the way in the Team Game and carrying me in our doubles game.

Dawn from their team will be sick of the sight of me after four games against me in three weeks in Singles, Doubles, and Cup. There were many similarities to last week's game.

We're still quite low in the league table, but these 14 points in the last fortnight should see us moving in the right direction.

Saturday, December 06, 2008

"Too Many" on a 72 finish

I mentioned in the previous post I avoid finishes that can "bust" if the first dart is wayward, but I noticed Bobby George took this to a higher level while commenting on the World Masters Darts today.

For a 72 finish he avoids my favoured T12 route as if you're left with 60 after the first dart you can bust it while aiming for a S20 to leave D20. It's a fair point, especially after seeing this happen on the stage today.

So I've had a bit of a rethink about a finish which was previously a reflex. The T20 approach must also be ruled out, as with 52 remaining you'd have the same problem on the S20. By illimination this just leaves the T16 route : Getting the treble leaves D12, but the single would leave 56. Again, I'd avoid S20 for the afforementioned reason and go S16 to leave D20 where an unwanted treble would still leave a nice D4.

This is hard to follow, isn't it? I bet I just go T12 next time I'm on 72 :o)

Wednesday, December 03, 2008

Stanley Masons 3 - 7 Chelmsford

A Stanley sunset by Karen Burnip

It was a bitterly cold night last night and it was no surprised to find both our own bar and the Stanley Masons deserted apart from the participants themselves. We were at full strength apart from our non-playing captain's absence, but SM were missing one of their best players.


I've picked up a virus with all the dog walking in the early morning frost so it was just a night I wanted to get through, and I think I played a decent game under the circumstances. Hopefully It'll clear up by next Tuesday if I look after myself.

There weren't too many moments worthy of mention, but our new player Kris has developed a really steady throw and is hitting the steady S20's which are so valuable at this level.

Actually, one thing worthy of mention: I noticed one of our players tackle a 49 finish by going S17, D16. As so often happens he bust it by hitting an unwanted T17 with the first dart. I'll blog about this aspect of finishing later, as I would have tried S9, D20 to avoid that. Even an unwanted T9 would have left a nice D11 at shoulder height. We all know s**t happens, so why give it a helping hand?