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The dates are out for the 2009 Barbados Darts Festival, and as you can see from the picture John Lowe is not hosting it this year. I'm sure Wayne Mardle will do a great job, but I'll really miss John and Karen.
The 10 days quoted include all of the touring party activities and tournaments, but the serious participants from USA / Canada / Caribbean / Guyana etc usually only participate in the final four days for the major tournaments. I have a brief PDF format flyer which I can forward to anyone who'd like to see it : my e-mail address is simon dot d dot thomas at gmx dot com.
The package prices start from £770 per person sharing, but if you prefer to book it all yourself just make sure your hotel is in the St Lawrence Gap district. My initial rough calculations show that for just a little more money you could have a full 14 days and stay in better accommodation if you book it privately. Plus, the official party only fly from Gatwick which is a real pain for me.
We normally don't fare to well up at LCC, but we were good value for our 7 points last night. However, just a little hesitation on some of the finishes will leave both teams thinking they could have scored more points.
The good news is that we're back on track in the opening 1001X Team game to bring our poor stats in this event back to a more reasonable 56% success rate.
Some highlights were Kris' bull finish, great score building from Alan P and Roger, and a fantastic finish from their veteran player Alan where the final 2 darts of the throw got the required 76 with T12, D18.
I had picked up my practice darts by mistake, but they threw OK for me. They just need a few more months of use to get the grip right. They're still a bit grippy, but a bit more wear will improve them. I was happy with my own game but it was well short of what I'll need next week in the last 16 of the Singles Cup.
Table courtesy of Blackhill DartsI 've just seen the draw for the last 16 of the Singles Cup posted on Blackhill Darts.
Its more than a little daunting to be on the same list as these players (notice how they represent only the top few teams), and I'll really have to up my game to avoid taking a bashing.
The practice starts now - it's only twelve days away. All of this practice on Doubles could be of little use if I don't get anywhere near a finish!
It was a surprising result last night. I practice with the Derwentside team in the close season and I know how good they all are, but it just didn't happen for them on Tuesday night. The opening Team Game was tight, and winning that got us off to a good start which we maintained.
These were good points to pick up after the disasters against Shotley Club. Willie R covered for the unavailable Roger and continued his good form whenever called upon.
Here's a decent doubles practice routine I've been using for the last few months. It has a couple of advantages over Bob's 27 in my opinion ; the doubles have to be hit as they would in a match with near misses causing a switch to another finish, and also it doesn't require any chalking.
You have two throws of three darts at each target. The target is actually the finishing score rather than just the double itself, so for example splitting the 20's sees you switching to 10's then 5's etc. This gets you nicely around the whole board, needing single segments and other doubles as you play through the game.
Hitting a target with the 1st or 2nd dart gives you a free throw at the next target which doesn't count as one of your two throws if you miss.
I like to use all three darts when practicing, so totally messing up a target and busting can be rescued by hitting a 50 Bull, giving you all three darts again.
Take the targets in any order, but I find top, bottom, left, right, the diagonals works well. It's game over if you fail to hit a target within the two throws, so it's back to the 20's for the order I take them in. The game is completed successfully when you hit the final target within the two throws.
[Picture credit]Tuesday's games were all called off on Monday evening due to the poor weather conditions. We had a practice night instead, and it went well.
I'm not sure what'll happen this Tuesday as the conditions are nearly as bad at the moment, with more snow forecast for Saturday, Sunday, and Tuesday.
The dates are out for the 2009 Barbados Darts Festival, and as you can see from the picture John Lowe is not hosting it this year. I'm sure Wayne Mardle will do a great job, but I'll really miss John and Karen.
