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Due to commitments and Holidays etc only four of us could make it to practice night on Tuesday. We still managed to make a good competitive evening of it however, and in the last few games of the evening we had a mini competition. It must've been good because the match nerves surfaced, although adrenaline is probably a better word for it because it brought out the best in us.
I've been working on getting darts into the board with a good horizontal accuracy, as the vertical accuracy has usually been OK. This seemed to work on practice night and I was getting a really good success rate at steady 60's and 59's. Far fewer darts strayed into 1's and 5's, and when you're getting steady scores you just need the odd T20 to push the scores up. I've also been working on small odd finishes like 3 and 7 where the first dart needs to be a big 1 or 3 etc without busting.
There's no news to report at the moment as The League takes its Summer close season break. We've kept the habit practicing down at The Chelmsford on Tuesday nights though, and there'll always be at least five of us down there.
The practice night game consists of single legs of 501 SSDF where the winner stays on the board against the throw in the following game against the next person in the queue.
Mark threw a 180 as his opening shot throwing first last night but still managed to lose the leg somehow. Its strange how often that seems to happen with some of us.
The past 4 Seasons' Stats
My personal win rate continued to improve in the season just gone, and I'm really pleased with the increase in both Doubles and Singles games wins.
I just felt generally more relaxed when playing, and even when I took a bashing (for example against Davey Gill in the Singles Cup - my 60 / 59 / 45 shots were no good against his constant 100+'s) I felt good and wanted to keep on playing. This is a big difference from previous seasons where I became discouraged too easily.
DartPro Practice Stats
I think practising a bit less has helped, as sometimes when I was practising several times a week it all became a bit of a slog, and by the time Tuesday night came along I wasn't enjoying the game as much.
The practice stats are far more constant however. Each of those orange bars represents a month's average 501 SS/DF and there's no improvement there. Just a strange pattern of peaks and troughs.
I can only conclude what we all know already : There's no substitute to playing competitively, and practice is just an opportunity to experiment with equipment, stance, and finishes. Its nice to be able to swear loudly in the house too - I'd be thrown out of the pub if I chuntered on like I do on the practice board.
Finals Night again showed the standard required. 15 and 18 dart finishes are very rare from me, but they were the standard currency from all of them last Tuesday.
Finals night was again held at Leadgate Cricket Club last night. The big screen was not in use this time, but there were plenty of great darts to see if you got near enough to the board.
Davey Gill and Timmy Richardson won the Doubles final with a strong 3-0 victory over Chris and Sean. I got to mark the board for this one, and thanks to Macca for asking me.
The Singles final was a tight affair with Davey Gill coming from 2-0 down to even it up for a tense final leg against Dave Dodds. DG would have been a very popular winner but he seemed to lose his way a little after a big finish to make it 2-2 and his first shot throwing first in the decider seemed to immediately hand the throw back to DD. From that point DD kept his nose in front and took the title after a night of great darts from him.
Congratulations to all who took part though. There were a couple of 180's on the night and some long strings of 100+ shots. It was all played to a very high standard as always
Pictured : Switching to 19'sFirstly, sincere thanks to Zeeple and all the other people in the Shoot It Forward chain for allowing me the chance to try out something different, and these darts have been unlike anything I've thrown before.
As a thrower of 27g darts I found the step down to 17g to be a step too far, but I can still appreciate the quality of the Evolutions. The picture shows how I often needed to switch to 19's because the angle of the first dart would cover the T20, but I must stress this would have happened to me with any light dart. I might have fared better with something nearer the 20g mark.
I had no problem at all in finding the T20 with these, and it felt great when the first dart hit the T20 right in the middle of the bed. Strangely from this point 100's and 140's weren't as numerous as usual with such a good marker, but that would've come with more time.
Pros - Very high quality machining.
- They feel absolutely superb in the hand.
- The grip is the best I've thrown with. Those lugs allow you to position the dart perfectly in the hand. I don't get this consistent address with my current set.
- The all-in-one design means you just need to replace flights - not stems.
- They're different. No mean feat in dart design.
Cons - At 128 Euros they are a considered purchase which may deter people from experimenting with them. When you see the tolerances they are produced to on the Evolution site you can appreciate why they're not cheap.
- They are only available in one weight, and a very light one at that. This is because they are a hard point version of a successful soft tip model, where heavy darts are not allowed. I'd love to see a tungsten version of these steel darts.
Conclusion
The Evolutions are fully recommended to throwers of light darts. If you play soft tip too you will be able to have a similar Evolution dart in this format to give you consistency across both disciplines.
Don't be put off by the price - If they are right for you they are worth it, and I really wish I threw lighter ones after two weeks with these. I've enjoyed my time with them, and now I'll post them on the to next person in the chain.
Sadly the Evolution darts didn't make much of an impression with the team at last night's practice. The main complaint from them was the light weight. Alan throws a light dart but even he found the Evolutions to be just too light for him.
I watched the darts hitting the board as they were thrown and they didn't look that bad to me but a couple of the players mentioned the darts veering in flight. This may be due to the grip, which takes a little more time than they had on Tuesday to become accustomed to. In contrast to this I have found the Evolutions have helped with my problem of veering into so many T5's and I'm a big fan of the grip.
It was a different story from Peter though. His first throw was millimetres away from being a maximum (T20, T20, S20), and the next two throws were both high scores with the T20 being found with ease.
A ton forty
The Evolution darts certainly are unlike anything I've thrown before. They're a very dark “gun metal” colour with what appears to be an oxidised finish which I'm hoping will provide a good grip.
They spin perfectly true in a point protector block, indicating they've been well machined and pointed. Cheap darts don't do this, and give a wobble as you spin them in the block. I've often wondered if the wobble of cheap darts would give the benefit of a rifled effect when thrown (gyroscopically stabilizing them during flight), but I certainly feel better about darts which don't have the wobble.
They are shorter than my usual 5cm darts with Medium nylon stems attached. They're probably the same length as my usual darts with Short stems fitted, and of course with the Evolutions there is no option to alter the length due to their “all in one” design.
The first thing I checked was the flights end of the darts to see if there'd been any damage from incoming darts. They are fine though, with no damage at all. I must admit I'm nervous about causing any damage to them myself, as in the past I've wrecked a set of shafts in a single week. This isn't happening to me any more though, so maybe a combination of switching to 19's when the T20 is blocked and a better throw has developed over the last year.
At 17g (steel) They're a fair bit lighter than the 27g (95% tungsten alloy) I usually throw so they may not benefit me personally, but I'm going to give them a full and fair assessment.
Evolution darts Picture courtesy of Zeeple
This morning I received in the post the set of Evolution "all-in-one" darts from Zeeple via Chavis Mutschler (spelling?) as Zeeple's "Shoot It Forward" concept comes to our small part of North East England.
You can read about Shoot It Forward here.
I'll post them on to the next person in the list when I receive instructions, but in the meantime I'll put them through their paces and post the results on here.
[L to R] Mark, Kris, Jean, and RogerOi, get those glasses away from the table!
We signed off the 2008 / 2009 season with an 8-2 defeat up at Chopwell, on a warm evening. The games progressed pretty much in the same manner as last week, but this time we were unable to take enough of our chances in what turned out to be 10 evenly matched legs.
Top marks to Lena and Alan P though, scoring our only two points of the night in their Singles games to put us on the scoreboard and avoid a whitewash.
We had a great time up there to round off a really enjoyable season which should see us finish in roughly 6th place from 15 teams, and I'm really not going to read too much into last night's defeat. We did enough over the season to allow us the odd off night.
I thought both teams struggled tonight and it was a fairly low key event. We won the opening Team game against the run of play and at least we took the few chances that came along to get some points against a good Chopwell team.
Sadly for me my good run of 12 consecutive Doubles wins came to an end, but we went out with a fight and this will be a great target to aim for next season. That's a decent run in a two horse race, and I'm really pleased with it, especially as it spanned the Delves and Wheatsheaf games.
Man Of the Match was definately Norman from Chopwell Central who played a strong game all night and hit a 180. Alan P played our best Singles game.
It's the last game of the season next week. I'll take the camera and there'll be the usual Season review to disect and take to my usual OCD level :o)
We had a much better showing on Tuesday night. Admittedly The Wheatsheaf stepped down a gear from last week, but we still had to be there and ready to take our chances as they came along.
Even though we lost the opening Team game every one of us had the chance to win the game in what became a D1 marathon. In contrast to last week we were close in all of the games, and can even rue a few missed chances after we got to five points with a couple of games remaining.
Alan P hit a nice 111 finish (S20, T17, d20) in his Singles game, and there was some good, confident play again from Kris to send us into the last two games of the season against Chopwell Central with some momentum. A good night for us.
Pictured : A practice Maximum
Our excellent recent run came to an abrupt end at The Wheatsheaf on Tuesday night. Our scoring was generally poor and this meant every time The Wheatsheaf hesitated over a double we were rarely in a position to take advantage, sometimes being a couple of hundred points behind.
They were good though, with some long strings of decent scores. Our only two points came from Peter and myself in our Doubles games, and Kris in his Singles game.
If we want to get a few more points in the home game we've simply got to score better than this. We were rarely near a finish in most of the games, with a few single digit scores to quickly forget!
Great food and hospitality as always up there.
The Chelmsford, April 2009
Neither team played particularly well last night, and The Commercial will be disappointed with a scoreline which flatters to suggest we were four points better than them.
We lost the Team game in a low scoring opening match where neither team were able to get steady scores. The points from the three Doubles games were shared evenly between us, and the first few Singles game went the same way. Luckily for us we won the final four Singles games of the evening to make it 7 - 3 for a scoreline which looked unlikely for most of the match.
A highlight for me was an 81 finish in two darts (T15, D18) in my Doubles game with Roger. I was teased that it would appear on here - they know me so well!
We have a week away from the darts and play in the Dominoes Singles competition up at Chopwell next Tuesday.
The sign has taken a battering!
We got off to a really poor start last night, losing the opening Team Game as The Commercial hit a string of 60+ shots and we struggled to keep up.
We equalised in the first Doubles game but the crucial part of this win was the way Roger and Mark beat their best two players on the night in their Singles games, both times needing to hold on and hope for errors in their finishing.
I had a horror show on Double 5 in my Singles game which you really can't cater for in practice. You tell yourself its just the same as a D20 shot, but it doesn't always help. Alan had some terrible luck with bounce outs but didn't let it bother him, and these were good points to collect with just five games remaining.
Great food and hospitality as always up there from Andy and company.
A Practice maximumLast Tuesday saw the end of our final chance at a cup this season - unless one of us can check out on 170 or score a bunch of ton eighties that is!
We were beaten by The Derwentside in the Team Cup Competition. This is the one where dominoes wins are as important as darts wins.
The Derwentside made amends for for their poor showings against us in the two league games, beating us 4-2 to progress to finals night. They won the darts 2-1 and beat us in the dominoes by the same scoreline. They're really well balanced in both disciplines, so they have a very good chance of winning this competition, and all the best to them from all of us at The Chelmsford.Also, apologies for all of the typos and rank bad spelling in the last post - I'll leave them there as punishment!
Bracken at One Year Old
The puppy I showed off last year is now one year old. It's been a lot of hard work because he's a very exitable dog with a real yearning for the outdoors but it has been worth it, and now the Winter is passed and I can quickly forget walking him on those bitterly cold mornings when I was full of flu and he was delighted to be covered in ice and tracking long gone rabbitts.
I pick him up from the kenells tomorrow night after a break up in Scotland and I am really missing him. He's my first dog and we've both been through a lot together. Many more advernture to come, no doubt.
He still loves horses even though he's been stood on and kicked by them, so we obviously have the same problem with memory :o)
A Shanghai start in 301 DSDF
Although the score was the same as last week's Away leg it was a very different game. The JDs put us under a lot of pressure by playing well in the opening Team game and then playing three very solid Doubles games. However, at the end of these four opening games the scores were tied at 2-2, and we'd managed to match their pace.
The Singles games were all close and although our finishing wasn't up to last week's standards it was still good enough to take all but one of the Singles points.
Roger impressed with his first 15 darts in his Singles game, and despite this leg being the only one that descended into a D1 marathon he was able to get the double. In the other legs The JDs made it an uncomfortable night for us, and I was a relief to get the 7 points.
Pictured : D2s in a game of "Bob's 27"
It was a great team effort from us last night. Firstly Kris and Mark kindly provided the transport when the coach didn't show, and we then had a strong success rate on the finishing doubles, with 6 of the finishes being hit with the first dart.
Kris set the tone for these 1st dart finishes by getting the winning double in the Team game, and by the time he did the same in the first Singles game of the night we were in a commanding 0-4 lead.
Although we played well as a team we couldn't quite maintain the pace from this point and The JDs pulled back 3 points in the Singles games before Roger completed a good night for us with a 98 finish on the second dart (T20, D19).
Last Thursday's boardIt may not look a good result for us but I really thought we put the Away leg behind us and competed well tonight. We can even look back on a couple of oher points that were in the balance.
Phil Borthwick looked to be at his usual best but their other players showed a few vulnerabilities which allowed us to snatch three points and make this a more respectable score-line following the 9-1 defeat on the 10th of March.
I was happy with my own game and I thought I got my mental game right despite a few nerves in the Singles game. The Delves games were a bit of a low point for me last season, but i think I showed them my better side this time around.
The Derwentside main BarThese were good points to collect against The Derwentside. I'd seen Mark and Alan play a superb game up at Blackhill Club on Tuesday (Doubles Cup night), and despite not winning they looked in great form (loads of 100+ shots). Also Norman threw a 180 in the warm up and looked to be back to his best throwing his 12g "wasps".
We lost the opening 1001X Team game to take us under a 50% success rate in this point for the season. We really need to do better in this. We then won our Doubles games to take a lead and the Singles games went reasonably well for us. Willie treated us to a D1 marathon though!
Graham and Collie don't play for The Derwentside anymore, but there's still a strong backbone in the team and I thought their two new players contributed well.
The throw at The Derwentside has been changed from last season, with the board now in the side room adjoining the main bar. There are a few more distracions in the preipheral vision when throwing, but I still prefer this new oche to the previous one where a wall to the left of the player made for a more tight feel when throwing.
Due to commitments and Holidays etc only four of us could make it to practice night on Tuesday. We still managed to make a good competitive evening of it however, and in the last few games of the evening we had a mini competition. It must've been good because the match nerves surfaced, although adrenaline is probably a better word for it because it brought out the best in us.
