English Darts Practice Routines

When playing the game of darts in league or pickup matches, it seems that the exact method of a practice routine is never discussed. Players might mention that they practice at home for a few hours a week but they don't always talk about how (or what) they practice. When I first started playing league darts 10 years ago, I would practice by playing matches against others. When shooting darts at home, I would practice by playing matches against myself and keeping records of how many rounds it would take to finish a game. The fact that this number decreased was a sufficient gauge of improvement in my abilities as a shooter at the time.

It soon became apparent that this was not enough. As I progressed to higher divisions and the level of skill associated with them, my deficiencies as a shooter became apparent. That's when I decided to look up practice routines. My research on the internet led me to several dart specific web pages and there would occasionally be an article or page devoted to practicing darts. Mostly this would entail a breakdown of a "proper" stroke, characteristics of the dart flight in midair, and then a paragraph or two about keeping track of how many you land in the 20's when you throw 10, 30, or a 100 darts during the practice session. I attempted to apply these lessons but somehow they seemed lacking. I've put together my practice routines in the hopes that they might be useful to other league or competitive dart shooters. It is not meant for the casual players but beginners might find it informative.

When shooting the '01 games (501, 301, etc.) a player will most likely spend the majority of their turns on the stripe or oche trying to hit the triple 20 (T20). When trying to get to the out shot, only a few turns are actually spent on the double ring of the board, depending on the player ability of course. When stuck at the double 1 for the out, it can be an eternity before someone actually lands the shot.

It would stand to reason that most of a practice session should be spent trying to hit as many points on the 20 wedge with three darts. I would argue that because of the fact that so little time is spent at the double ring in an actual match, then shooting at the doubles should be practiced at least as much, maybe more, than shooting at the 20. The ability to hit the double number on demand will mean the difference between winning the game or giving the other shooter or team the chance to catch up and win.

I prefer to spend every other practice session focused solely on the double rings. If time allows, I will take out every number, including the double bull. If not, then I focus on the numbers I'm most likely to encounter during a match.

The routine is as follows: I assume that I have 40 points left during the match and I need to hit a double 20 (D20). I will need to total 40 points using only three darts before I can move on to the next number for practice. So if I try for a D20 and hit a single 20 (S20), that leaves me two darts to shoot at D10. If I hit S10 with my second dart, I move to D5. Failure to take out the number by the third dart means I start over with 40 points and try at D20 again.

Once this is accomplished, I will move on to the next number to practice, which is usually 38 points or D19. But if I don't have the time to go around the board, then I will focus on the natural progression of outshots as they might happen during match play. I will shoot at D20, D10, and D5. I will then shoot at D16 (32 points), D8, D4,D2 and the dreaded D1. That makes up a short practice session however they can be broken down further into the two separate components.

For games that require a double in, I shoot at the D16. This is my preferred number for that kind of shot because my stroke has a better chance of landing high on the D8 or low on D7. For a short session, I will try to hit a double in for at least three rounds in a row. If I don't get in during the next set of darts, I start the count back at zero and work my way up to three. If I hit three in a row, I try to see how many more rounds I can accomplish this and try to beat my personal best. I have yet to hit an in shot of 152, which is the highest score achievable if you start at D16 (D16, T20, T20 = 152). This is also something I try to accomplish when practicing this aspect of the game.

I haven't mentioned my practice session for shooting at the 20 for '01 games. It's quite simple really, I shoot until I hit 180 (Ton80). If I start getting frustrated, I stop. Usually I devote an entire session on this. Sometimes I don't achieve it, other times I can't seem to miss the T20 and I can hit it several times. Darts is funny that way.

Finally there is my practice routine for a cricket dart game. For short sessions, I practice closing a number with three darts and work my way down, to include the bullseye (B). I can work this progressively, meaning if I miss closing a number with three darts, I move back to the preceding number and start there, or I start over at 20. For more challenging practice sessions, I don't close a number unless I hit 5 marks or more on it, which means one must be a triple. If one dart misses the target wedge, then I can still close it with two triples on that number. For the bull the minimum becomes 4 marks, which forces me to hit at least one double.

I hope it's clear that these sessions can be shortened or lengthened by the shooter as they see fit. This is by no means a comprehensive method of practice and it should be tailored to meet personal ability. It's my belief that these are the skills that a shooter should work on before they step up to the oche during match play.