Regardless of the current level of a darts player, we all want to win. We want to win the next session of the Killer game with friends, next game at the club, a local tournament or the final in Q-School to get the tour card. But once you reach a certain level, it is not the physical talent that separates good darts players from the great ones… it’s their mindset!

Many darts players thinks it is all about practising as much as possible, and attending as many tournaments as possible. Like that’s the only way to improve and become a better darts player. But we all want to win, and most of us puts in so many hours, throwing thousands of darts everyday. So what is the magic secret to succes?

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The million dollar question: How to improve in darts as fast as possible?!
I regularly get questions like this from new members who are eager to get good enough for joining a team, playing a tournament or just humiliate their friends at next night out playing darts. “Can you look at my stats and see if I practise enough and the right games?” is also something that pops up in the mail every now and then. Let’s look at a few things that generally will be a good start for your darts career.

On GoDartsPro there are members who just started playing darts after watching the World Darts Championship, wanting to be as good as Luke Littler, as fast possible. There are also members here who played at the World Darts Championship this year. So there are wide range of levels here.

When it comes to effective darts training you will get the most out of it if you practise games suitable for your current level! A good start is therefore to first figure out your own current level, to understand how to continue to practise in best possible way. Here are a few things you can start out with:

a) Play the High-Score game to evaluate your scoring power

By playing the High-Score game as evaluation, at least a few hundred darts (but better is thousands of darts, from several training sessions over a period of time of course), will provide you with your own scoring average, without any doubles involved. If you’re an absolute beginner, playing games that includes hitting doubles is not recommended at all. It can be very frustrating throwing many darts completely missing the double and it won’t do you much good. You will only lose your confidence and probably interest in darts.
By only trying to score as much as possible you will at least always get scores and being able to finish the game in reasonable time, and will slowly build up your confidence and will to improve and to practise more.

b) Play the JDC Challenge game to get your current level

The JDC Challenge game is used by the juniors playing in academies all over the world, to find out their current level. The game consists of 3 different segments:

1) Hitting targets 10-15
2) Doubles around the board
3) Hitting targets 15-20

After you finished the game you will not only get a total score, but you will also see which of the 8 levels you reached and will get an indication of your current level. Read the article about the JDC, the game and features to understand their concept with the levels.

c) Get your MICO-Factor to see your level

The MICO-Factor concept was invented by Mikko Laiho (R.I.P), who was a professional darts coach at Winmau for some of their players. Together we developed this fantastic and simple way to measure your skill level. There are 11 MICO-Factor games to choose from and the MICO-Factor range is between 0 and 40.
When you’ve played one of the games 5 times, you will get your MICO-factor for that game.
When you’ve played five MICO-Factor games, 5 times each, you will get your own personal MICO-factor.

If you are a complete beginner, some of the games in the MICO-Factor family will be tough for you, but we recommend to pick these as a start to get your initial MICO-factor: Exponential Bundle, The Three Stooges, Cricket Bundle, 11-19 Big Bundle, and Countdown 90

Hear Mikko talk about the MICO-Factor concept here!

With your current level figured out and in mind, we can continue to the next step.

2 – Set up a start for your training plan

This is a rough division of the different levels and from the results you’ve got from the games above, to give you an idea of what you should continue to practice. Remember that this is referring to an average over time (at least 10 game sessions) and not just after one game.

2a) Find your current level

Scoring average in the High-Score game:

Up to average 35 -> Novice
35 to 60 -> Intermediate
60 to 80 -> Advanced
80 to 100 -> Expert
100 and above -> Professional

Score in the JDC Challenge game:

Up to 300 -> Novice
300 to 700 -> Intermediate
700 to 1000 -> Advanced
1000 to 1250 -> Expert
1250 and above -> Professional

MICO-Factor:

Up to 16 -> Novice
16 to 24 -> Intermediate
24 to 28 -> Advanced
28 to 32 -> Expert
32 and above -> Professional

Again, this is a rough division to give you an hint. And of course, you might get an average for the JDC Callenge game indicating you’re an Advanced player, yet only an Intermediate player according to the MICO-factor. That’s darts and especially when there are different types of games, with different rules and targets.
So please, don’t beat yourself up or thinking of suing me because of this…

2b) What to start training depending on your level

For all levels, I highly recommend you to visit the Support Area on GoDartsPro, where you’ll find many training articles as well as videos about the games.

Novice

I would say it is best for Novice players to continue to play different easier games to build up a confidence and to have fun. It must be good fun in the beginning, otherwise it is easy to lose focus and do something else. There is an article with games suitable for new players that I recommend you to start with.
Mix playing these with the High-Score game and the JDC Challenge game to slowly increase your average bit by bit. Play the games to the end of the month trying to get as high average as possible. Then work hard the following month to increase that average – and repeat… You can also play different FUN GAMES with your friends and family to keep up the spirit and joy with darts!
There’s also a good grouping game called A1 that can be tough to finish but will do wonders for your skills after a while. Don’t give up if you can’t finish the game in 45 minutes or so, but remember to take a short pause after each 20-30 minutes.
You could also play the Dedication game selecting different targets and see how many hits you get after 100 darts for example. This is a great game to focus on your throwing motion and to really focus on one target for many throws, to build up a solid throw.

Intermediate

Now you’re starting to get somewhere with your training. Now it is time to step it up.
You should definitely work with the different MICO-Factor games and play them all (except the Greenzone game which is intended for players with a special Greenzone board). Work hard to increase your MICO-factor decimal by decimal. Remember that the higher MICO-factor you get, the harder it will be to increase it. Then you can work to increase your MICO-Factor the past 30 days instead.

The MasterClass is a great concept to start using as well. There’s only one focus with the MasterClass: To finish the game in front of you, to unlock the next. Even the first game can demand a few tries before you manage to finish it so make sure to focus and work hard to finish it. Then the next one…

It is also time to start working with the Virtual Coach. Enter the initial form to give the coach information about your goals and time for practicee, and make sure to finish the initial games to give the coach enough statistics to start working for you.

Advanced

Continue to practise with the Virtual Coach and try to finish the levels and games of the MasterClass.
Make sure to play the Crown Judgement game as soon as the Virtual Coach alerts you to. It is also time to work more with different Finishing games. Here’s another list with Finishing games to choose from.

Expert

Besides playing the different games in under the Advanced-section above, I also suggest you to regularly play the Mikko’s Megatrain game. That’s a great game which hopefully will give you a challenge!

3) Learn from other players

If you’re part of a darts team or club, watch the other players play and practise and don’t hesitate to ask questions. Most darts players are very positive to share their thoughts and ideas to improve. Every now and then you’ll meet someone that just say “Just throw more darts” or “I never practise, I’ve only played 501’s ” etc. But if you read a few articles on GoDartsPro you should know by now there are better ways to practise darts than that…

Check out the Public Playlists on GoDartsPro and try to find a few playlists with games that you enjoy and can add to your daily training regime. There are many good darts players on GoDartsPro who also shares their playlists and favourite games! Use them!

Summary

When it comes to darts you need to give it time. The improvement will come in different phases and sometimes it will feel like you’re going backwards in your development. Always remember, Darts is not a sprint – It is a marathon!. There are so many ways to practise darts, and even more ways people THINK is good darts training. Make sure to always look at your darts training with objective eyes. Am I doing everything to improve as fast as possible!? Remember there are also ways to make your training more challenging!

The most important thing to remember when it comes to darts and how to improve is that you must enjoy your darts! If you play games or levels that are too hard (or easy) for your current level, it will not be inspiring and fun after a few throws.
That’s why it is so important for you to first figure out your current level, and then practise the games suitable for you. If you visit different darts forums or darts groups on Facebook, and see a beginner asking for advice, more than often someone (or many) suggests to play Bob’s 27 or to just play 501’s and give it time! That is so wrong and frustrating to read. Beginners who start to play the Bob’s 27 will soon be really frustrated, loose focus, and probably inspiration to continue to play darts. That’s why it is so important for you to find fun, good training games that are intended for your level.

So whatever you do, ENJOY YOUR DARTS!

Anders
Founder of GoDartsPro

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There are people who practise darts a lot and still they don’t seem to be improving at all. Shouldn’t practice make you better? What’s wrong?
These are thoughts and questions members/players often emails about, wondering what they’re doing wrong.

This could be compared to: walking is a good exercise but it doesn’t make you better in running. Darts practice should always be focused and even intense to get the best out of you.
You need to have a hunger. You need to be challenged.
But how can we add this to darts training?

One thing a lot of people forget is that practice should be simulating competition with the
a) pressure involved,
b) the time you practice should be equal to a normal competition and that
c) you might not want to only measure your form, but actually increase it

c1) The pressure is very good tool when practicing. There are times that you will not need it as warming up the hand or just getting the feel of the board/venue etc., but solitary home practice should 95% of times require some sort of pressure.
So when you get through of the task you’ve given yourself (or tasks you’ve been given by the Virtual Coach, you feel that you’ve achieved something, you feel like winning a match. But you need to want this. You need to have a hunger, a will to win.

c2) Time is a very important thing. Think about schools in Finland, which is repeatedly considered the best education system in the world: there is 15 minutes long interval/recess after every 45 minutes of teaching.

There are numerous studies and experiments showing that you learn much better if you split up the practice in shorter sections. But there are also numerous studies showing that WHEN you practise during the day is just as important. It is much more effective if you can practise in the morning when you’re relaxed and (hopefully) had a good night sleep, than trying to squeeze in some training after school or work, when you’re head is filled with everything that’s happened during the day. There’s a very interesting book called “Talent is overrated” by Geoff Colvin, that digs deeper into this matter. Read it, it is a great book!

Also, many studies shows that after a physical activity (for example a 20-30 minutes power-walk or other physical exercise), you’ll learn things faster, better finding focus, be more creative, and also reducing symptoms of anxiety. All things good when it comes to darts that is.

All the matches in TV are played with the intervals. So why practice ever more than 45 minutes on the row? So have your breaks, and don’t damage nor tire your hand and mind!

c3) Measuring your form at practice is two-bladed sword. In practice you’re lacking the adrenaline, the testosterone and most importantly the killer instinct.
So why play 501’s in practice to see how good form they are – at all?

You know you need from time to time to be able to squeeze a 15 darter in that deciding leg without practising it.

Playing only 501’s can actually leave a scar-tissue to your mind, if things are not going well. But when on song, when the hand is warm, when the mind is clear and darting life is easy like a Sunday morning, then it’s good to do a few 501’s just to show yourself that yes, you can do it! So leave the 501’s just for as a treat or pudding/dessert in the tail end of your well gone practice session.

Also, make sure to read our article “Bridge the gap between practice and match”!

Interesting practice with suitable goals

Mikko Laiho studied darts practice for over 25 years, and coached players on a high-level for several years. He noticed that differences in practice between equal players in competition are remarkable. For certain practice games, the results can differ between players A and B 30% towards A, when in the other game 30% for the player B. Statistically even 5% change in the results would be reckoned. So the same thing which suits to other isn’t the best one for the other.

We know though that you should do practicing games which is most suitable for you. That helps training being interesting. It helps you staying focused. On GoDartsPro there are many different games for all kinds of levels. You should give them all a go and see which games you like and which are most suitable for your current level. The best games are the ones that you really need to put in all effort and focus to be able to finish them or to get a decent score.

It is way better to try to beat your current average scores rather than just chasing to beat your high-score for a certain game. That’s why we in games like High-Score show your average month by month, so you always can try to beat your previous months average.

(Click image to play!)

This will give you small victories more often and will build up your confidence and your mind-set that you can win and that you are a winner.

From January 2025 this kind of periodical stats is also available in the popular JDC Challenge game.

(Click image to play!)

One of the toughest advices from the Virtual Coach for the GoDartsPro members to follow, is: TAKE A DAY OR TWO WITHOUT DARTS!
This is more important than most players understand. A day or two without darts will get you a hunger and a strong will to play darts better than ever before, and you also feel more alert and focused during the session. Your body and mind needs rest so skipping throwing darts one or two days per week is highly recommended. There are other things you can practise during these days to make you a better darts player. If you’re not 100% sure about the checkout table, you can study that for a few hours. Going to the gym, getting out for a long power-walk, or trying some other sport, will surely all benefit you as a darts player. There are many ways you can improve as a darts player. Be open-minded and creative and you’ll get the slight edge!

In the end, to get the most out of your darts training, you should try to make it so interesting and enjoyable that you can’t wait to get back to board!
That “Just one more time” is the best feeling for improvement…
Try to find that urge, that hunger in your next training session!

Text: Mikko Laiho / Anders Östman

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We’ve been pushing this since the start of GoDartsPro, and my late colleague Mikko Laiho said to me many times: Darts is not a sprint – It is a Marathon!
when I was frustrated about not improving or just unable to finish one of his many new games. But what does it mean, and how to use it in your favour for your darts training?!

I regularly get messages from members who signed up and started to use GoDartsPro and love the games, and the different training concepts. But after just a few months (or even weeks), they’re getting frustrated that they’re not improving as fast as they would like to, comparing themselves with the more experienced players at the club or even at TV.

I check their accounts and see what they’ve been doing. Often they’ve been spending several hours per day, every day, playing different games on GoDartsPro. It isn’t that the actions that are completely wrong (other that they should take a day off or two per week to not over-practice). It’s that they don’t keep doing them over time.

As written in the great book “Slight Edge” by Jeff Olson that I read during Christmas:

“The truth is, what you do matters. What you do today matters. What you do every day matters. Successful people just do the things that seem to make no difference in the act of doing them and they do them over and over again, until the compound kicks in”.

Jeff Olson also writes:

“Successful people do what unsuccessful people are not willing to do.”

It is the same thing with going to the gym. You don’t see or feel any difference after a few visits to the gym (other than just muscle ache), but if you continue to go there several days per week to workout, things will suddenly make a difference. Jeff also writes “The choices you make today won’t affect where you are in life in the short-term, but they determine where you end up in life in the long-term.”

This is exactly what you can expect about darts training!

You need to put in the hours regularly, practising focused and with intention to see any results over time. It is much better to practise 1 hour per day 5 days per week, than for 5 hours 1 day per week.
If you’re not practising fully focused, it is also so easy to get stuck in the rut of just throwing the darts without 100% meaning, which will lead to bad habits. Instead, we all should work on adding good habits to our daily routines (read article here) and do them with our full intention.

It is probably in the human nature to try to take short-cuts. To be honest, I do it myself regularly…
But when it comes to the things you really care about and want to achieve, there are no magic shortcuts.

Luckily, there are things that makes things easier for darts players nowadays, call it shortcuts if you want.

Make sure to enjoy your training sessions

Most of the games and training concepts on GoDartsPro are fun to play, and inspiring to try to master. We’ve added many gamification features to make you feel “Just one more time and I will do better”.

By making darts training fun to do every day, it is easier to do these important training routines time and time again, and making them your good habits. Make sure to tryout most of the games on GoDartsPro. There are more than 100 games available so not every game will be fun or suitable for your current level.

On the GAME ON page where you’ll find all the games, just click the small square in top right of a game image (see image above) to mark it as a favourite and you will easily find it next time. The small square will change to a red heart showing it is one of your favourites. Then you can easily show all your favourite games by clicking the round heart in the top right of the header of the website. You can also make playlist of your favourite games to play, and maybe different playlists to use different days.

As mentioned before, If you’re open minded to improve in different ways, I recommend you to read the “Slight Edge” book, if not only for your darts training, read it for positive thinking in your life and other reasons. The book explains that consistent daily habits, even if they appear to have minimal impact in the short-term, compound over time and can lead to significant positive outcomes.

How to make my training sessions more engaging and fun?

Here are a few tools on GoDartsPro you can use on a regular basis to make your darts training more engaging, more focused and more fun:
1) Practise with the Virtual Coach
2) Play a game you haven’t tried yet
3) Use the monthly challenges to try to better your positions in the leaderboard
4) Premium League is a very inspiring and smart way to practise
5) Create your own playlists and create different playlists for different days or types of sessions
6) Try public playlists by other members
7) Use the MasterClass concept and finish game by game
8) Plan your training with the training log
9) Invite friends to GoDartsPro and use your own challenges to inspire you to practise
10) Play the FUN GAMES against your friends and family to enjoy your darts

Train your brain to focus better

Another thing I hear many times from the members on GoDartsPro or darts players I meet at tournaments or different events, is that they have a hard time to keep their focus during their training sessions. They say that they start out the training session really focused after a good warm-up, but only after 10 minutes or so, their focus drop and they start to think about other things in life. The school, work, next game, girlfriend/boyfriend, bills etc.

That’s very common and that’s also why many games on GoDartsPro are short but highly effective games. But that’s also something to be aware of when you’re playing longer games, to notice when the focus drops to take a short break for 5 minutes.

Are you usually having a hard time focusing? It is probably because you never trained your brain to focus.
Your daily life is also probably full of distractions. If you’re always distracted and occupied by your phone, social media and playing games, starting to meditate or use visualization for example, will make it easier for you to get into the zone with 100% focus.

Actually, a large study 2005 of 4,715 adults suggests that by spending 15 minutes a day, 5 days a week, on brain training activities will improve concentration.

By using brain training games, you can develop a better short-term memory, and problem-solving skills.
You can use games like sudoku or different word puzzles to practise problem-solving and learn how to focus on different tasks. You can also use different darts maths tools to learn the checkouts or practise pure darts maths.

We also got a great game called Marathon – try it out today!

Anders
Founder Of GoDartsPro

“Success does not lead to happiness — it’s the other way around.”

– Jeff Olson

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Many darts players (especially beginners) don’t really have an intention or plan for their training. They just go to their board, pick up their darts and start to chuck them at treble 20 until they get bored and then start a few legs of 501 against a bot. Eventually they will of course improve but most of us are here to improve as fast as possible.

First of all, a well-designed training plan is something that will bring you closer to your goals for darts. If you start to look at your training sessions more seriously and a try to adapt a few smarter ways to spend your hours at the board, you’ll get many benefits. You will be more inspired to learn and to improve, you’ll boost your self confidence and much more. Therefore you will also improve faster. We highly recommend players who’re serious about darts to develop a training schedule and periodization plan and try to stick to it.

New tools to plan your training

On the Training log page on GoDartsPro (found in the drop-down-menu when you click your profile icon top right on the website) you can now add details to your following weeks and months to plan your training days. You can also mark dates when you plan to avoid darts training and instead maybe going to the gym, spinning class etc. This will also show an honest view of how much you are able to practise darts per week. Its purpose is to give you a birds-eye view of how you’re training.

Just click on the dates in the calendar and a dialog will appear where you can enter the details you want for your day. Here you can set goals for how many darts you plan to throw, game sessions to play and you can also attach a certain playlist for the day. This way you can plan your week and have different days in the week to practise finishing, power-scoring etc. Be creative and make your training more fun! And don’t worry, a poor plan is almost always better than no plan at all.

Make sure also to vary your plan for number of thrown darts and games to play during the week and also vary the intensity during the week. Make sure to have days when you really push yourself with a few tougher (and maybe longer) games as well as days where you try out new games or play games you know you’re good at. This way you’ll adapt something called periodization training which is commonly used in many other sports.

When you have plans for the current day you will get a popup showing what you’ve planned for the day. How many darts you estimated or planned for the day and how many games. As you play during the day you will see how many darts and games you have left for your daily goal.
If you have attached a playlist you will be able to click a button to start the playlist directly. The same goes for the Virtual Coach. When you select the Virtual Coach icon in the icon-gallery, you’ll also have a button to start work with the Virtual Coach right away.

The goal of periodization training is to maximize the players performance by gradually increasing the intensity in exchange for volume-loading over time, helping the client reach their peak potential.

It is also defined as the planned manipulation of training variables (hours, darts thrown, intensity) in order to maximize training adaptations and to prevent the onset of overtraining syndrome.

There are many interesting articles about periodization training and if you’re interested to learn more about this, just Google for periodization training. For example, for archers this is commonly used to maximise their training and to plan to reach their peak performance for an important competition. The two Time Olympic Archery Medalist Jake Kaminski, wrote a book (“Training for archery”) about his way to adapt periodization training and also got a few interesting videos about it.

When looking at the stats from members on GoDartsPro, taking a day or two off from darts, for rest and recovery, seems to be the hardest part for most of us (even though the Virtual Coach suggests it every now and then).

Rest and recovery are crucial for most players to prevent overuse injuries and burnout. It’s essential to listen to the body and take rest days when needed. Darts players should plan for at least one or two rest days per week, allowing the muscles to recover and reducing the risk of injury.

Rest and recovery can also include stretching to help relieve muscle tension and prevent soreness. You can also benefit from physiotherapy or massage therapy to treat or prevent injuries. Planning for days of recovery or other training forms than darts will give you a positive injection when you’re back at the board with a fresh mind.

We all know how easy it is to have plans for any kind of training or exercises, but it is tougher to maintain them and to stick to the plan. When you go to the gym in January it can be crowded since so many want to start out a new habit for the year. But after a few weeks there are less and less people showing up, and they probably have thousands of “good” reasons why they don’t continue to go to the gym…

But if you really want to improve on a steady basis, make a plan for the following weeks, fill out the training calendar with different goals and playlists, and you’ll make it easier for yourself to stick to it. Whenever you login to GoDartsPro you will your pre set plan for the day, reminding you that you’re on a journey to become the best darts player you can be.

I hope you find this new tool to plan your training useful and that you will incorporate this to your calendar on GoDartsPro. I’m always open for suggestions, so please send me an email or direct message on social media to discuss how to improve it even more for your training.

Here are a few other articles I recommend you to read:

The Power Of Good Habits

How to make your darts training more effective

Make your darts training more challenging

Bridge the gap between practice and match

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Content may not be copied, published, or used without written permission from GoDartsPro.

Every now and then old games on GoDartsPro will be updated with a new design and with added features. This time the well known game Count-Up has been updated and now also got support for a Scolia device to auto-track the darts for you.

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To everyone who ever played darts in any competitive level, this will probably sound familiar:

You arrive to the venue well ahead of the match starts, to warm up and get into the zone. Everything feels fine, you hit big scores and hit the doubles for fun and you really feel that you’re playing your best darts. ”Today, I’ll show them” you say to yourself.
It’s time for your game and you shake your opponents hand with great confidence and maybe a little smile. When you hear ”Game On” it all changes and you can’t hit anything. Your arm feels stiff and you can’t get the feeling you had just minutes ago.

The reason for this can vary and can be very personal, but many just call it Performance anxiety.

Most dart players realises soon that playing darts at a competitive level differs a lot from the training done at home. Playing darts at a competitive level is more a matter of mind over just pure skill.
So what’s the secret sauce to avoid the stress and performance anxiety?
Unfortunately there’s not a single easy answer but comfortingly, many players feel it’s getting easier and easier with experience. That’s why it is so important to get out and play as much as you can, even though you feel you’re not as good or prepared as you want to.

Here are a few things you can focus on in the meantime to bring your practice game to the match.

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Are you one of all the many thousands who recently discovered darts and started to play? Then you probably want to learn as much as possible and improve as fast as possible. Here’s a quick guide how to kick-start your darts career.

Register an account for free on GoDartsPro to try out many of the games available and learn how to use them for your darts practice. Make sure to visit the Support area where you’ll find many training- and game-articles as well as videos teaching you how to play the different games. You can use GoDartsPro.com using a browser with your computer, tablet or phone. No need to download anything, just browse to the website and play the games.

Upgrade to premium membership

To make the most out of your training hours, upgrade to premium membership and you will unlock more than 100 training games, monthly challenges, Premium League, 1001 Battles, fun multiplayer games as well as the so popular Virtual Coach. This is all yours for less than €0.20 / day and you can practise and play as much as you want to. Make sure to update your member profile with a photo, the flag of your country and information about you as a player.

Beginners are often enthusiastic about starting to play the games, trying to hit the doubles and hit high checkouts as they do on TV. But make sure you first know the basics about darts. The stance, the grip and how to do a proper follow through. There are many great videos on Youtube when you can learn this. It might look like a simple action, but throwing a dart is a complex activity that needs to be repeated many times until perfection. Make sure you’ve done a proper warm up and that you can be fully focused for at least 20 minutes. Don’t rush your training and make sure that every dart counts.
When you’ve practised for about 20-30 minutes, make sure to take a break. It is much better to play several focused sessions of 20 minutes with breaks in between, than throwing darts for hours.

Many of the darts practice games out there are too hard to use for darts players in the beginning of their darts careers. When you play games suitable for your level you will build your confidence and have more fun. If the games are too hard it is easy to lose interest and quit. Play games like:
Section 5
Insider
21
Lockdown Challenge
Points Around The World (PAW)
A1

Set up goals

When it comes to training and improvement it is important to set up and use goals, both short-term and long-term goals. The goals must be achievable but enough challenging for your current level. Use the High-Score game for example and play the game many times during your first month. Then you will get your scoring-average for that month. Use this as a goal and play the games many times again and try to beat your previous months average. Each months average will be displayed as a bar graph in the game. This is a fun and easy way to use goals and follow them up on GoDartsPro!

The MICO-factor concept on GoDartsPro is a unique way to find your true ability in darts.
All the games MICO-factor games are very effective, totally measurable, comparable, and therefore a solid base of how good you really are. Each game needs to be played 5 times to show your MICO-factor for that game. When you’ve played 5 MICO-factor games at least 5 times each you will get your public MICO-factor. From that on try to increase your MICO-factor decimal by decimal and improve while having fun. The Virtual Coach also use your MICO-factor to compare your stats with thousands of other members stats, with similar MICO-factor as you.

When you’ve find a game you like mark it as a favourite game. On the GameOn area, click the small white square top right of the game image and it will change to a heart showing it is one of your favourite games. You can easily reach all your favourite games by clicking the icon with a red heart in top right of the website. Use the playlist feature to set up your own training session with your favourite games or try one of the many public playlists to see what other members are practising.

Check out the different monthly challenges, play the games and try to reach the leaderboards. When you’ve connected with other members or invited your friends to GoDartsPro, you will also have Friendly Challenges to compare your scores with your friends. The challenges are fun and an effective way to practise and improve.

When you’ve finished your training for the day you can play some of the fun multiplayer games with your friends and family. These will not affect your stats on GoDartsPro and should be played just for fun.

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One of the most important keys to make your darts training effective is to make your practice enough challenging. Just throwing darts at treble 20 or bull will eventually make you better but if you really want to improve as fast as possible you need to start practise deliberately with a good amount of pressure.

Try to beat your current level

Instead of only focusing on your 501 average as an indicator of your current level, check your statistics from your favourite games on GoDartsPro and find your average there. It’s better to try to beat your average scores rather than just chasing to beat your high-score for a game. This will give you small victories more often and will build up your confidence and your mind-set that you can win and that you are a winner.

The coach for the Swedish Development Team, Peter Sajwani, asked me to add the game SOLO-01 to GoDartsPro which is a game he use regularly for the players in the team. He gives them a ”homework” to find out how few darts they need to win 8 out of 10 legs in a game of 501. They then play against that fixed number of darts to try to win 8 out of 10 legs. Their number of darts to play against will be lowered as they improve. That’s a smart and effective way to put you under good amount of pressure at your current level.
Try it you too with the game SOLO-01

Use Premium League & Monthly challenges

Use the Premium League concept and the Monthly Challenges on GoDartsPro. Find a game you like on GoDartsPro that has some kind of leaderboard for it. Either as a Monthly Challenge, part of the Premium League concept or as an in-game leaderboard. Concentrate and play a session of the game and compare your score with the leaderboard. Didn’t make it to the leaderboard? No worries, continue and play the game again and try to beat your previous best score until you reach the leaderboard.
Got a position in the leaderboard? Check the score just above and try to beat it to climb the leaderboard?
Are you in the lead of the leaderboard? Have a break – you deserve it!

The Virtual Coach IS a challenge

The Virtual Coach is designed and developed to challenge the players to perform just on top of their current level or average. This inspires the players to beat their average again and again which leads to a steady improvement. If the Virtual Coach want to suggest a game for you and you haven’t yet played it, the Virtual Coach compares your MICO-factor with thousands of other members on GoDartsPro, to find a suitable level for the game to set up a challenging task for you. If you’re having problems finishing the tasks the Virtual Coach gives you, try to finish at least one before time’s up and then try the new tasks you’ll get at next visit.

Mix up your games with the playlist feature

Create a playlist with a few fun games you know you usually perform quite good at and mix them with a few tougher games. A big reason people don’t improve that much is that they mostly practising the things their already good at. I know, it is much more fun to play a drum fill you know you can do quite good, rather than practising the rudiments on a rubber practice pad you know will make you good later on… Challenge yourself and pick a few tough games where your main task is to stay focused and positive until you finish it.

Set a goal for your training session

A good habit is to set a goal for your training session and that you don’t quit until you reached it.
The goal must always be personal based on your current level and achievable. For example, to score more than 100 points with three darts, hit at least one 180, throw five throws over 85 in a row etc. Be creative and set new goals for your sessions to make them more fun. Stick to it and don’t quit until you’ve nailed it.

Most important – Enjoy your darts and make it count!

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There are several things you can do to make your darts training more effective but many beginners neglect some of the most important keys just because they are too eager to get started, throw darts and improve. Here are some areas you really should pay attention to, to boost your training sessions.

Before an intense training session, play in the league or a tournament you need a proper warm up. Not just routines to use with your darts to loosen up and get dialled in on the board. Many players neglect the importance of a proper physical warm up. To get your arm and the mechanics prepared for throwing darts. If you warm up properly and also add a bit of stretching after your darts sessions, you also minimize the risk to get shoulder/arm/neck injuries.

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To improve and become good at darts most of us need to spend many hours practising at the board. Just playing 501’s, leg after leg, or only around the board or even worse, just throwing at treble 20, can be really tiring and boring. When things are getting tiring and boring we all know what it does to the inspiration to continue and to your focus.

Therefore, it is extremely important to make your training fun and engaging so you instead are looking forward to your next training session. Here are some ideas how to make your darts training mor fun and engaging.

There are so many good training games to choose from so don’t just stick to only a few.
Vary your training with games focusing on different aspects of the game of darts. Play short games. Play long games. If you’ve tried a routine that you didn’t like, put it away for a while and find some other game. There are always variations that can be more fun and more suitable for you at your current level. Check out the playlists that other members on GoDartsPro has made public and find new favourite games to add to your toolbox.

Track your darts and game sessions

When it comes to darts practise, nothing is as fun as when you’re improving. If you don’t track your darts and game sessions, how are you going to know if you’re improving? You need to be able to see your development so by far, the most efficient way for early-stage players is to keep a record of your training. Make it a habit to regularly go to the Training Log and follow up your training and check the in-game-statistics when you’ve played a game.

Compare your scores with other players

When we managed to get a great score for a game session, it can be really fun to compare the score with other players, to see how good it was. It can also be a great trigger for setting your next goal to work for. For example, if you compare your score with other members scores in a leaderboard/challenge on GoDartsPro, and find out that there is someone with a slightly better score, use that score as your next goal to beat. This will give you the feeling of – ”just one more time” – and your training and development continues…

Set short term goals – and treat yourself when you achieve them

No matter what sport you play, coaches will always tell you to set goals to work towards.
For darts, setting goals is extremely important. Goals can both be scores and averages for a game session or a period of time, but can also be the number of darts you throw or how many hours you practise during a week/month. Set reasonable but challenging goals and when you achieve your goal, it is also important to celebrate or treat yourself to mark/highlight in your memory that you managed to reach your goal. It can be goals for a certain score in a game, to reach a certain MICO-factor, hit your first 180 or a number of tons in a row. Goals are personal and should reflect your current level and what you want to achieve.
When you’ve reached an important goal, get that nice darts shirt you always wanted or buy a new set of darts. Wearing that nice darts shirt when you play the next time will give you an extra boost of confidence since you know you got it from reaching your goal.

Tidy up your training area

If you set up a nice area in your home where you really feel inspired to practice it will probably lead to more quality training hours. If you instead, always need to move some furnitures, set up your dartboard on a tripod, or walk/drive 45 minutes to practice, you’ll probably lose interest soon or at least practise fewer hours.
Make your darts corner a nice place to be at and you’ll spend more quality time there. When you get your first trophies, make sure to put them up in your darts corner to remind you that you’re a winner!

Enjoy your darts and make it count!

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When you hear athletes talking about their performance or how they’ll win an important tournament or a game, you can often hear them talk about ”getting into the zone” and the need for extreme focus. So how do you get ”into the zone” and what is it?

Flow described on Wikipedia:
”In positive psychology, a flow state, also known as being in the zone, is the mental state in which a person performing some activity is fully immersed in a feeling of energized focus, full involvement, and enjoyment in the process of the activity.”

The concept ”Flow” was named by the psychologist Mihály Csíkszentmihályi and shares many characteristics with hyperfocus (hyperfocus is an intense form of mental concentration or visualization that focuses consciousness on a task).

The flow state or being in the zone, is the experience of being so absorbed by an engaging, enjoyable task that has got your complete attention. You’re not thinking of anything else and you lose sense of time and self-consciousness (as you probably do with most of the games on GoDartsPro… ;)).

So how can you achieve flow and getting into the zone?

You can set up your training plan and a training environment to make it as flow-promoting as possible. Here’s a short guide how to get into flow more often.

1 – Make it easy to focus

When you’re about to practise, turn of phone (if you use it with GoDartsPro, just turn off your signal) and make sure you can practise without distractions. If you can, practise early in the day when your mind is fresh and you’re well rested.

2 – Prepare for flow

You can make it easier to get into the zone by creating a ritual.
It could be to pour up a glass/bottle of water to have next to you during practise, and turn on your favourite focus playlist. Create or use a playlist with games on GoDartsPro that makes you feel you’re in the zone. Find a way of letting your brain know that you’re about to practise hard.

3 – Set goals for your training

An important part of getting into a flow state is working on a specific task with a clear goal.
Games like Dedication, High-Score, Dead centre are good games to get the flow you’re after. Easy to use games with one clear task and goal. Focus, throw and make it count!
You’ll find it a whole lot easier to achieve a flow when you know exactly what you’re working on and why. Knowing what you’re about to accomplish also gives you a sense of control.

4 – Challenge yourself

Practising darts with the right amount of challenge are more engaging.
Flow is dependent on finding that sweet spot between your current skills and the challenge at hand.
One way to achieve this is to engage in something called ”Deliberate practice”.
”Deliberate practice” is where every training session has a specific goal that can be measured, analyzed, and optimized to increase your overall performance. You need to push your skills to their limit (that’s what we got the Virtual Coach for). Deliberate practice, if applied correctly, can turn your potential into reality!

Conclusions

Most of the games on GoDartsPro are developed with “deliberate practise” in mind and to facilitate getting “into the zone”.
The games are easy to understand and use, right amount of challenge, they’ve got measurable statistics, works well with short-term and long-term goals and you’ll get instant feedback during the game session. This is also why it is extremely valuable to use the games and statistics for your training to deliberately practise towards your goals.

With a Scolia kit to track the darts for you it is even easier to get “into the zone” since all you have to do is to focus on the next throw during the whole game session.

Finding ways to maximize the amount of time you spend “in the zone” will make you more engaged, satisfied, and creative. You will feel better when you’re in flow and you’ll feel more satisfied after your training session.
Many successful people use the flow to get where they want.
So why shouldn’t you?

Get into the zone and make it count!

Play the “Flow” playlist now!

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Practising finishing in darts helps you manage pressure effectively and take advantage of opportunities when they arise. The Polish player and GoDartsPro ambassador Łukasz Wacławski contacted me about this game idea he had to combine parts from different finishing games to create a new fun and challenging game – The Checkout Randomizer!

“Keeping concentrated and motivated mindset during each training session, is the key to progress. It should never be about just “going through routines”. A player needs a certain attitude and commitment to MAKE IT COUNT for him! When I plan darts training, I like to think about analogy to video games – what makes people motivated to spend so much time mastering any game? How they are able to sit in front of the monitor for hours and hours, pressing buttons with flushed faces and eyes wide open with astonishment and anticipation?

Łukasz Wacławski and Gerwyn Price at PDC Superbet Poland Darts Masters Warsaw 2023 (photo PAP)

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More and more clubs and tournaments are using digital tools to mark the scores in games of 501, and auto-tracking devices like Scolia are more common. That makes it even more important to know how to calculate the scores fast to not lose focus and rhythm during the throws. We also know that online technical solutions can have technical problems with downtime as a result. Then it is good to know how to mark (chalk) a game of 501 with pen and paper.

During a training camp last weekend I noticed that we were quite a few players that wasn’t that confident marking the games. With fast throwing players it is important to be confident and know how to calculate fast to get the chalking right. That’s why I checked old requests about darts maths and how to chalk a game, and started to create a game for it. The more you practise the easier it will be. You will both remember combinations and learn how to calculate faster. Since chalking darts games only involves subtraction, the maths isn’t that hard once you know how to think.
Give it a few tries and you will see.

The idea is to sit down with a piece of paper and mark the scores as they are presented in the game, but you can of course practise doing the calculations and verify that you got it right. You can download the GoDartsPro -01 score sheet here and print it:

Click to download

Set the different delays for the game to suit your speed to calculate or press any key to pause/play (or click the pause/play button top right).

Here are some well known help how to do the subtraction calculation easier.
Always start with the numbers in the end and subtract them one by one as in the examples below.

If the score is close to 100, it can often be easier to first calculate using 100. Let’s say the score is 437 and the player score 95, and we normally have this calculation:
437
-95
An easier way is to first calculate 437 – 100 = 337 and then we know that 100-95 = 5 to add, which gives you 337+5 = 342.

Many of us are also having extra difficulties when it comes to calculations requiring changing hundreds.
In cases like 284 – 87, it is often easier to think in two steps like this: 284 – 84 = 200 and then – 3 = 197 (minus 3 for the rest after taking 84 from 87). Or 142 – 49 in steps like 142 – 42 = 100 – 7 = 93 (minus 7 for the rest after taking 42 from 49).

Not all scores will be that easy to mark, so we need to figure out a way to calculate other scores as well.

More complicated calculations need to be handled in a slightly different way.
If the number on the 2nd row (subtrahend)is bigger than the number above (minuend) we need think different.

Here’s another example:

If the above didn’t make it any easier for you, there’s another way to think and calculate.
Start with the numbers in the end but do the opposite and take the number on the 2nd row (subtrahend)and do – with the number on the top row (minuend).
That gives as a number that we need to subtract from 10. We then need to add the 1 to the next number we calculate.

Don’t get scared by all the calculations. If you practise calculating and counting like this for 10-20 minutes per day it will soon be a lot easier. But if you still can’t figure out how to calculate you’re left with hitting only 100’s down to a finish and make it easier for yourself and the chalker… 😉

Click here and try Chalk Master today!

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The PowerSwitch game has been around on GoDartsPro for quite some time and it is a popular darts training game for many players to sharpen their switching and scoring skills. I played it many times recently and felt a new option to the game would be a great feature to add some extra pressure to the game.

In PowerSwitch your targets are treble 20, treble 19 and treble 18! If you hit a treble, you stay on that target with your next dart. If you miss a treble use your next dart for the next target. 3 points for trebles and 1 point for singles.
You only score on the target numbers 20,19 and 18.

Examples:
First dart hits T20 = 3 points (stay on T20)
2nd dart hits S20 = 1 point (next target is T19)
Last dart hits T19 = 3 points

First dart hits S5 = 0 points (next target is T19)
2nd dart hits T7 = 0 points (next target is T18)
Last dart hits T18 = 3 points

The PowerSwitch bundle option borrows the game logic from Exponential Bundle which adds a new dimension of pressure to the game which is always good training. First throw is the same as above, try to hit treble 20 with your first dart. If you hit it you continue on treble 20 otherwise your next dart goes for t19 and so on.

With the new bundle option every 2nd throw you need to score as much as possible (any field on the board counts).
When a switching throw and a scoring throw are done, these two are multiplied to get your first points in the game.

So if you for example got 7 points with your first 3 darts (as mentioned above) and you score 85 on your next throw, your total score for the first round would be 7 X 85 = 595.
With this new logic you add a lot of pressure to the scoring throw when you had a really good first switching throw. You really want to hit a big score with the 2nd throw and that throw needs your full focus.

With PowerSwitch bundle you throw 10 switching throws and 10 scoring throws in total.
Use this game option to simulate the pressure you will feel and the focus you will need in a real game.

Play the game today!

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With the new Playlists-feature on GoDartsPro you’ll be able to practise more structured and less random. You can follow other members’ playlists for inspiration and take your training to a new level.

Creating custom workouts has been a frequently suggested feature since the launch of the workouts feature with the Virtual Coach. Many members has asked for a way to group their favourite games into a sequenced playlist for better flow during their training. Instead of picking random games to practise, you can now create different playlists for different needs.

At the playlists page you’ll see your own playlists, featured playlists and public playlists. Just click a playlist to expand and see the games added to it. On each playlist you’ll have a small HEART symbol and by clicking it you will toggle follow/unfollow. For each playlist you’ll also see a small PLAY symbol that will start the first game in the playlist for you.

When the first game is finished a small popup will show a countdown timer before the next game in the playlist automatically will load.
Next to the title “PUBLIC PLAYLISTS” you’ll also see a filter symbol that will let you filter the public playlists shown.

When you’ve clicked a playlist it will expand and show the details for you. Top right you can copy the link and share with your friends. Just click the play icon to start the playlist or back to minimize the playlist again.

When you’re creating your own playlist you have different options to add the games to the playlist. If you are using a computer, the easiest option is to just DRAG-AND-DROP the games in the list where you want them. You can also easily change the order of the playlist by dragging the games and place them in the right order. For some games, there will also be different OPTIONS available. If you select any options these will be preselected for the game and can not be altered. Under the list of games you will also see a select option “– Find game to add”. Here you can search for the game you’re looking for and add it to the end of your playlist.
Just click the name to change it or click the icon next to the playlist type to give your playlist some other category.

You can also create a playlist or add games to an existing playlist from within the games available. Just click the HEART icon in top menu to expand the quick links dropdown.

To the playlists >

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Many players are having consistency issues and can not group the darts in a solid way. To get more consistent you need of course to look at your stance and throw and see if there are anything that can be adjusted. There are plenty of videos on YouTube explaining and showing how to stand, balance and throw in a proper way.
But you should also practise more grouping games to build up a strong consistent throw.

With the BIG SINGLES game you need to hit the big single of the numbers 1-20 and the level you choose at start decides how many hits you need to continue to the next number. Your aim is to finish the game with as few darts/throws as possible. Several members have requested a game based on big singles around the board where the rule adds pressure to the training. I gathered all the ideas, tested it on my own a few times and created the BIG SINGLES game on GoDartsPro with the following levels:

ADVANCED LEVEL 3 hits = move to next number 2 hits = stay on current number 1 hit = go back one number 0 hits = go back two numbers INTERMEDIATE LEVEL 2/3 hits = move to next number 1 hit = stay on current number 0 hit = go back one number BEGINNER LEVEL 1-3 hits = move to next number 0 hit = stay on current number 6 missed darts in a row = go back one number

(Big singles are the fields highlighted in the dartboard above.)

So for the ADVANCED level you need to hit all three darts in the big single to move on to the next number.
If you hit 2 darts in the big single you’re staying at the same number. If you only manage to hit one big single you need to get back one number and if you miss all three darts you need to get back two numbers on the board.

By adding the punishment when you don’t manage to get the number of hits required to move on, we build up the necessary pressure to the game. This pressure force you to focus and make sure that every dart counts. If you miss the first dart, try to recompose and focus to hit the big single with the next dart.

This game can therefore be tougher than you think even if we’re only throwing at the big singles.

Many players like to use different “around-the-board” routines as the ending part of their warming-up routine.
Use this BIG SINGLES game and track your darts to see how you improve.

Play the game today!

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Many darts players suffer from a weak throw. Luckily there are many ways to improve this area. A weak throw is quite a common problem. Here we go through a few things you can do to strengthen your throw.

Many top professional players were before their career pro IE carpenters, bricklayers, painters, plasterers and similar – so they have used their hands quite a lot. Even though this is a very personal matter, we would like to encourage you to do so as well.
No, we don’t mean body-builders nor gym bunnies, but something using your hands and getting them stronger.
The basic move you would like to get stronger would be the opposite move of your normal throw, which would be the biceps. You don’t need to build a beefcake style of a lump, but it’s always helpful if the opposing muscle group is strong.
So we recommend that you get a couple of hand weights and do the series of biceps say 8 – 7 – 5 repeats (break of 30 seconds after each), thrice a week, without needing to grind like mad, but still “feeling the force”. For someone, this could mean 4-5 kilos weights, with somebody stronger 12 kilos or even more.

We went through one game of six darts practice last week. If you did it, you’ll certainly know what I am talking about. It will make your hand a bit more powerful.
We recommend you doing this on Mondays and Tuesdays just to get your throw back to normal before any important competitions, which are mainly held on weekends.

Whenever things get severely bad, you can always start playing around with your throw, if it’s damaged and gone totally unbalanced. Change the set for the heavier, for the lighter, just play around. This could be called “rebooting”. You can use anything up to 5-6 sets at a time and just start throwing with them almost aimlessly – for example aiming inside of the treble ring. Wear your arm totally off by tossing the darts as long as you can, say maximum 15-20 minutes.
Do this two days on the trot and then have at least 3 days off the board. Whenever you come back, you’re up for a surprise…

This is one of the best ways to get rid of the most general weakness of the throw. Just stand back from the oche at least a meter (or yard) and try throwing as close to the bull or treble 20. The thing with this is that you need to give it some time. So don’t give up easily! The more you try the better is the all-round effect! Still don’t do this at a time more than half an hour.

Naturally, you can combine these practices any way you wish.

Enjoy your practice!

Mikko Laiho (RIP)

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There isn’t anything in the world as satisfactory as hitting 180. Except for hitting them a few times in short intervals! So should one practice only hit 180’s or perfect scores? The short answer to this one is an absolute NO.
If you don’t happen to be MvG or Phil Taylor…

Instead, you should aim for the two-hits-per-throw area. That’s much easier and still as effective – the frustration factor doesn’t occur anywhere near as often if only going for the maximums. Also hitting the maximum score can be next to impossible for the majority of players.

The Palace of champions is full of one kind of players: Those who can get to a finish and then finish it. Simple as that. So scoring as heavily as you can is essential. Imagine that you’re hitting continually say 140, 125, 140, 137, 140, which would beat 180, 180, 100, 100, 100!
Of course, this is for the more advanced players, but anyone who wants to improve should at least try to get these 2/3 hits and even ground the whole practice on these.
So for example you could go the doubles around the board 2/3 or the trebles 2/3. It is a doable and very effective practice.
But how to get there? How to be able to hit two tiny targets with your three darts only? To be honest that’s not easy.

This is a delicate issue, but please don’t jump on me yet. Cheating is absolutely allowed to give a little bit of handicap to the players who aren’t at the level of best. And it’s good for your mind. Even though we are true believers in pressure as a tool when practicing, cheating gives a little trim to your game, and it kind of balances and adjusts your practicing. After all, we all have our bad days in the office, right?

You can use four or even five or six darts – am hoping that every one of contemporary players has got two exactly similar sets nowadays – when trying to get through this weeks practice game. Of course if you have been playing a while you shouldn’t need to use any extra darts.

This is a nice little game for all level of players, who have read the above. So please, if you think this is too hard to achieve with three darts only, don’t hesitate to use some extra darts. Even novices can make progress to their power scoring with this Hit & Run –game. No marking is required.
Your aim is to hit two different trebles in the same go, to advance further. So for example treble 1 and treble 2 in the same throw. When you get it, your next task is to hit trebles 3 and 4, in the same go etc. Your goal is to get through all the way from treble 1 to treble 20.
And you can use the “Burn Dart” –rule: If you hit your target with your last dart and the next throw’s FIRST DART also hits, you’re done with this target. Or you can use more darts than three if you feel to do so…

Enjoy your practice!

Text: Mikko Laiho (RIP)

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Due to the fact that development in darts is a slow process – all of the top players have been playing for over 10 years before reaching their top game – patience is a very important virtue of a darts player. So you need to know what are you practicing and why, so learn the game before tossing it to the bin!

Probably the most famous top players practice game in the world would be this simple and effective game. You need to hit two double 1’s with your three darts, then two double 2’s and so on. We call it “Dual Double”. It will take – naturally depending on a player’s normal throwing rhythm – say 30-45 minutes county-level player to get done.
Advanced players does it in 20-30 minutes. Top pro will use at least 15 minutes for this game. But it is absolutely natural that you get stuck in one particular double. All that grinding! You could end up banging the same double for 15 minutes or so!

And same pro player who goes this through today in 20 minutes flying colours can’t get it done tomorrow in 50!
These daily variations in form and accuracy are normal, and you should always consider yourself well-trained if you manage to do any practice routine at a normal time – today.

Learning any practice game is essential. You need to know which level you’re achieving easily, which is your standard, and how long time it normally takes to get through the wanted goal.
The best way to learn a new practice game is just playing it, that’s obvious. Play it ten times and see what’s your best score, or what’s the best time you can without rushing do it. Then repeat that next practice day and see if you could break the records you made yesterday.

Then leave it be for a few sessions, and try again. You’re now learning your level in this game, you’ve done your self-assessment, which is vital to your road to pro.

This is a very effective but hard practice game for gaining accuracy with the doubles. This is a “Hit & Run” game so no marking up needed. You need to have two doubles in one bed before you can progress – in one throw. You’re using only the even doubles. Starting with double 2, then double 4, finishing on double 20.

Burn-Dart rule: This is to avoid “burned darts”. If you have missed first two darts, aim still well with the third, because if you hit with it AND also next throws first dart, it is counted “two in the bed” and you can move on!

More advanced players can use all the doubles from 1-20 + Bulls’eye.

Top Pro–candidates can play this game without the Burn-dart rule and Future World Champions can play this without any hits on the singles in a successful two-doubles round!

Text: Mikko Laiho (RIP)

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Learn the best way practicing to finish like a PRO!

A big finish in darts is much cooler and more important than hitting a maximum, yet so many darts players mainly practice throwing at treble 20. So what are the most important things we need to practise to improve our finishing skills?

Know the finishing combinations in darts

Knowing the out-shot combinations is something that every darts player should work really hard to master. And still, we see players on TV fail every now and lose the leg since they ended up on a bogey number – 169, 168, 166, 165, 163, 162 and 159 (write these down on a piece of paper and put on your desk, computer, back of your phone etc so you’ll never forget them).

Even if you’re not good enough yet to finish the highest possible out – 170, always try to reach it with as few darts as possible from 501. This way you learn how to think and act like a pro.

If you’re playing a lot of 501’s online or with an app, it’s easy to rely on the out-shot suggestions shown.
Here are some ideas for you how to practise and improve your darts maths:
* Always try to do the math before you look at the suggested finish and validate that you got it right.
* Use the tools on GoDartsPro to practise the darts maths (Darts Mathlete, Flip-Out, Swipe-Out).
* Always carry the Winmau out-shots card by Richard Ashdown in your pocket to read while on the bus, flight or waiting for a friend.
* Read good darts books to learn from the experts to understand why certain combinations are better to learn than other.
* Write down the score on a piece of paper and do the maths while watching the darts on TV.

Another way is to try to learn one out-shot per day, using the current number of the day of the year. Start on the 2nd of January and try to remember how to finish 2 😉 and then continue every day to learn the current daily out-shot. When you got the correct out-shot, write it down on a piece of paper, or on your hand so you can see it many times during the day. Later on in April and May things are getting really tricky…

Commit yourself to learning the darts maths, and put in the required effort to do it!

There are better ways than playing 501’s…

For players averaging under 60, playing only 501’s is mostly about scoring and in the end a struggle to hit a double to finish the leg. So not really the best way to practice finishing. Instead, play the games designed and developed to improve a players finishing skills instead of only playing 501’s.

Vary your training with the games below and spice it up every now and then with some dedicated doubles games as well!

Great finishing games to improve your darts

201 Challenge In this game you have 12 darts to finish the current score, starting with 201. If you manage to finish the score in 12 darts (on a double, as in 501-style), your next starting score will increased by 10 = 211. If you fail to finish the score in 12 darts, your next starting score will be reduced by one. To keep focus and to get the most out from your training, divide it into 20-30 minutes sessions with a short pause between. That’s why the default option in this game is to play for 20 minutes. Play 201 Challenge »

Checkout Challenge The same logic as above, but in this game you start at 21 and need to finish the score with 3 darts. Play the game for 20 minutes to be able to stay focused during the whole session, and see how high checkout you can nail. Play Checkout Challenge »

Five Checkouts You’ve got five random checkouts to unlock and finish within three darts each. There are 4 different levels to choose from. Start from the easiest and see how many you can finish. This is a great darts training game to improve your finishes and good fun to try to unlock them all. Can you unlock all the 5 checkouts? Try it today! Play Five Checkouts »

Catch 40 Try to take the outs 61-100 in 2 to 6 darts. You score by taking the out in 2-6 darts. If you miss out in 6 darts, press MISS button and go for next out. Exception! Hit the 99 out in 3 darts = score 3. This is also a great game to practise the most outs you’ll face the most. Play this game regularly and you will play better darts! Play Catch 40 »

To finish it up!

Knowing exactly the best and fastest way to finish the score you’re on is a great feeling and will boost your confidence at the oche. If you need to stop, think and calculate between every dart you will reveal your lack of skill, lose your focus and your confidence. The earlier in life your learn the out-charts, the easier it will be and the better it will stay there.

So make it a good habit to practise learning the outs as often as you can!

Break a leg!

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One of the most asked questions from darts player must be “How do I deal with my nerves?” If I could give a straight answer which would help everyone, I’d be a rich man. But there are ways to stay focused even under tremendous pressure, and they can be learned.

a) Make yourself think all the way through, that you will win this game and stick with the thought no matter what
b) Visualize yourself hitting the winning double instantly when you get the chance – repeat this many times during the match
c) Winning or losing isn’t the matter of life and death, so be happy if you ever get a chance to win it – and then go back to part b!
d) After poor throw try to forget that immediately and get prepared for the next, better throw.

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Darts is all about the right mindset. Naturally you need a proper practice and hopefully your throwing action is easy, strong, steady and economical as well, but that’s more or less debatable, as top pros like Mensur Suljovic and John Henderson have proved.
So what would be the best way to improve the space between your ears?

That’s not that difficult, you need to practise such games and routines that you enjoy. They need to be suitably challenging, their difficulty level must be right for you and you need to like to do them. So you need to gain some WINS under your belt. Might they be just a little wins. A win might be just a proper score or getting through your favorite routine swiftly. That’s how you learn to win because your biggest opponent and nemesis has always been and will be forever yourself.

So you need to win yourself before winning anybody else!

If you like to play against your mates that’s totally fine as well, as long as you remember that nothing in this world beats solo practice! Try always to play against the same level of player or just a tad better than you.
In solo practise it’s preferable to play two kinds of games per day, not many more. I suggest that you plan your routines beforehand and think ahead rather a week than a single day.

Grouping, doubles, and finishes are the basic main groups we all know, but there are also many different kind of things that counts as darts practice as well. We could talk about ‘best–of–games’ against a single target, say you missed your last league match 6 darts to Tops so you want to beat it in your next session. Play against double 20 say best of 11 (first to 6 wins/legs). If you consider yourself a pub player you get a point every time you finish 40 points (D20) by normal 01-game style so if you hit single you have 20 (D10) left and so on.
You get it, it’s 1-0 to you. If you don’t the imaginary opponent gets a point. If you can finish it twice in the same throw, you get 2 points, and so on. If you’re a superleague or county player, you can make the rule of missing that the opponent gets 2 points. ‘Best of –games’ can also be played against 201 for example. If you’re a normal player, play against 12 darts. If you play superleague, use only 9 darts. If you’re a county-level player, what prevents you play against 221 or 241 as well?! Use your imagination and be fair to your true level because the more you win, the more enjoyable all is and the good old cranium resonates positively from inside!

These are essential practice routines to get your personal rhythm to a state of FLOW or ZONE. You need these games every day you practise. Mikko’s MegaTrain is a good example of a brilliant top-level Hit & Run -game, but if you aren’t on that level yet, I’d strongly suggest you to do some more humane games from our ‘Starter-Pack’ {{LINK}} section. If those feel too easy for you, don’t worry, you belong to our exact target group and you better just adjust StarterPack games a little bit more difficult.

We very strongly suggest that every day you practise, you should have at least one grouping game in your program. Treble 20-hammering is 75 % of the game so you want to be very good in that. You can get better in scoring doing grouping games like all the different bundles-games on GoDartsPro, Mikko’s MegaTrain and A1 to mention only a few.

Straightforward double routines belong to every self-respecting darts player’s selection. There are many of them, pick the best one for you for today, because you can always change it for another one for another day!

We’ve got these naturally, and we got quite a few to choose from and vary your training with.
GrindOut, Catch 40, 121, Checkout Challenge, Five Checkouts, and 201 Challenge to name a few.

So our suggestion is to pick games from two categories per day and don’t forget to have a day or two off per week!
Remember, it’s up to you!

Text: Mikko Laiho (RIP)

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Actually, darts is the perfect sport for any age!

Playing darts is a perfect low-intensity sport for anyone. For younger players to sharpen their reflexes, and older ones to prevent natural deterioration of hand-eye coordination over the years. Playing darts requires you to maintain higher levels of focus and concentration and have meditational effects. As darts is a numbers game everyone who plays darts will improve their numeracy skills.

Learning through play

Educational applications of games can be really powerful for any age. Using games is also really useful when it comes to learning and transferring factual knowledge. If learning becomes fun and easy, people are actually quicker to engage and benefit.

Maths and counting can be difficult for people, even if it is only the subtraction part of maths that is required. No matter how much they try, they still think it is like reading in some language they don’t understand.

Read more about how to learn darts maths

How to practice darts on GoDartsPro

On GoDartsPro.com there are more than 80 different darts games to play and improve with. Games suitable from everyone. From complete beginners to professional players seen on TV. Games only intended to be played for fun as well as dedicated training games to improve certain aspects of the game of darts.

As with any children’s game or sport, children will gain motivation when their achievements are recognized. Playing games on GoDartsPro will unlock badges and you can compare your scores with different leaderboards and monthly challenges.

Click here to browse through the games on GoDartsPro

Play darts for fun on GoDartsPro

On GoDartsPro you will not only find +100 training games. There are also a section with FUN GAMES to be played with family and friends when the real focused darts training is finished for the day. The games can be played by 2 to 8 players and there are many fun games to choose from. More games are added regularly as well.
Some of the games also have handicap option so you can set up a tight game even if you’re at different levels.
The FUN GAMES are also included in the Premium Membership on GoDartsPro!

JDC (Junior Darts Corporation)

JDC offer parents, mentors and juniors a fun start in darts for players of all levels from the ages of 8 to 18. The JDC structure allows people passionate about darts to get involved at grassroots helping juniors enjoy the game. The JDC is built on good sportsmanship, having fun and playing in a non pressured environment.

GoDartsPro have sponsored JDC with online tools for their academies, coaches and players since 2018.

Click here to visit the JDC website

PDC Bullseye Maths

The great initiative by PDC ‘Bullseye Maths’ has been launched to help Key Stage 2 students and anyone interested in maths with numeracy in a fun and inclusive way using the Mathlete game below and downloadable worksheets. GoDartsPro has been involved and provided initially the Mathlete game for the project.
Visit the PDC Bullseye Maths website and follow Room 180 Academy on Twitter.

Read more about different games to play

Article with good games for beginners
Games to be played for fun
Games that will boost your game play

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Small Changes will make a big difference

Many people overestimate the importance of one defining moment behind success. Like it will happen overnight. The same thing for underestimating the value of making small improvements on a daily basis. For darts, it’s been common to think that we all need to practice 6-8 hours per day to reach success.

Success comes from daily habits and not over-the-night transformations. Don’t focus too much worrying about your current 501-average and performance. What really matters is setting up habits that put you on the right track towards your success.
If you set up good habits for your darts training, your will improve and your 501-average will increase.

In the early and middle stages of your darts career, there is often a lot of frustration and disappointment. You expect to improve fast, almost in a linear fashion but while playing you doesn’t feel like you are going anywhere.

Change your identity

The more we repeat a behavior, the more we reinforce the identity associated with that behavior. If we always say to ourselves: ”I’m lousy at darts” we’re identifying being a person who always misses the targets and will never get better. Therefore, no matter what level you’re playing at, every time you step up to the oche, you need to change your identity and say to yourself:
”I’m a darts player – I’m improving every day”

The point of a good habit is not that it needs to be done perfectly every day.
The point is to choose the identity that you want so that the rest of your progress will be smoother.
Missing a planned darts practice one day is not a big deal. But there’s something to what James Clear (the author of ‘Atomic Habits’) said:
“Missing once is an accident. Missing twice is the start of a new habit.”

Motivation encourages people to never miss twice, and to go back the next day after you missed and maybe practice even harder or more focused. But remember that missing twice is not the end of your habit. The end of your habit is when you decide you cannot or won’t do it anymore.

Making it easier and more fun to practice darts at home will make you throw more darts.
Getting a new set of darts, a new dartboard or maybe a Scolia device to autotrack your darts will give your inspiration to practice a boost.

Remember that there’s also some kind of ripple effect with habits. Starting a new habit can easily create a chain of new habits in other areas. If you start a habit to exercise regularly, you probably will try to start to eat healthier as well…

Motivation is not everything! The environment can often matter more!

Setting up a nice area in your home where you really feel inspired to practice will probably lead to more practice. If you have a tiny space where you for example often need to rearrange furnitures or make a change to be able to practice darts, can be the reason why you practice less and less and probably will quit playing darts. Environment matters so make sure you make the best out of it. Google ”darts set up home” and you’ll see photos that can inspire you to set up your practice area at home.

My own practice area at home. I spend hours there every day, practicing or playing darts for fun and trying out new game ideas, so I wanted a nice place where I enjoy staying for hours. Guess if I do…

Conclusion: “We are what we repeatedly do” (Aristotle)

It is estimated that more than 40% of our daily actions are conducted by habits, but we may not be aware of it but habits control a big part of our lives.

Good habits are very essential for making progress in darts. If you have good habits for your darts practice and follow them every day, you’re on the right track for success. By being aware of your good habits will also give your confidence and your energy level a much-needed boost.

If you really want to improve in darts, make it a habit to use the Virtual Coach on a daily basis!

If you’re interested to know more about habits, I recommend you to read the book “Atomic Habits” by James Clear.

“Failure comes from small errors repeated every day,
success comes from small disciplines practiced every day.”
– Jim Rohn

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Spending many hours of deliberately practicing finishes will improve your skills in many ways. Depending on which routines you use you will be practicing power scoring, hitting doubles, darts maths, etc. As a result, you will also improve your accuracy, concentration, and stamina. Practice finishes 100% focused and don’t always aim to better your high score and your confidence will improve as well. You should therefore add a good amount of your training time to various finishing routines.

121 Finish the checkout within 9 darts. For each finished checkout, the next checkout will be increased. If you finish the checkout within 3 darts, that checkout is also locked and is your new base checkout. If you don’t finish a checkout within 9 darts you are back to your base checkout. Play as long as you want or if you reach 170! Play 121 »

Grindout Grindout is a really tough game but also a very good one. Six darts in use and you’ll try to take the out from 81 in 2 to 6 darts. You need to finish your target number with six darts, starting from 81. Depending on your level, aim either to go until you’ve done 90 (Novice-level), 120 (Rookie-level), 140 (League player) or 170 (Advanced level). If you get the finish what you aim for in six darts, you move ahead to the next number. If you don’t get it, you drop one point backward. If you get any finish at three darts or less, that number becomes locked and you can’t drop below that anymore. Play Grindout »

Frustration Frustration is also a very tough game used by many professional darts players on a regular basis. Hit the minimum score at the current level (ex 80) with the first 2 darts. Then hit the current double to finish from double 20 down to the ending number. Choose minimum score, ending number, number of scores to finish a number, and if you want continuous/loop order. Play Frustration »

Shooting Gallery A great MICO-factor game similar to 121 but with a twist. Use max 9 darts to finish 01-game style on the double. Start from 121 then 122 and so on until 130. Play Shooting Gallery »

Checkout Challenge Start with the checkout 21 and need to finish it (501-style) in 3 darts. If you manage to finish the checkout in 3 darts, next checkout will increased by 10 = 31. If you fail to checkout within 3 darts, next checkout will be reduced by one if you’re on a bigger checkout than you started with. The last checkout you finished when the game is ended will be your score. Play Checkout Challenge »

Catch 40 Try to take the out (61-100) in 2 to 6 darts. Score for taking the out in 2-6 darts. If you miss out in 6 darts, press MISS button and go for next out. Play Catch 40 »

Switching Doubles Your targets are the important doubles to master. Throw one dart on each double and track your hits. If you manage to hit all three doubles you get one extra turn. Doubles are: 16-8-4 20-10-5 12-6-3 8-4-2 Play Switching Doubles »

Also, check out Winmau Practice Zone for more games to play!

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Many of the darts practice games out there are too hard to use for darts players in the beginning of their darts careers.
If the games are too hard it is easy to lose interest and quit. It is also very important for all players to play training games suitable for their level.
Also, an intermediate or advanced player having a slump can gain confidence by playing slightly easier games for a few days.
So, here’s a list with a few games beginners can enjoy and improve with when they want to take their darts training a bit more seriously. Use these games on a regular basis to play better darts!
Playing training games designed to challenge and improve the player is the best way to kickstart the darts career.

Section 5 In this game, you need to close all the 5 sections with at least 5 points on each. Section 1 to 4 all have three number fields. You get 3 points if you hit the center field and 1 point if you hit either of the adjacent fields.The first section, for example, have the fields 5 – 20 – 1. You get 3 points for hitting the 20 and 1 point for hitting number 5 or 1.The last section you aim for bulls-eye. 3 points for the bull (double or single) and 1 point for darts inside the treble ring (not treble). Finish the game with as few darts as possible. Play Section 5 »

Insider You need to hit three throws (nine darts) inside of the treble ring to get to the next level.If any of them hits the treble or gets further away from the middle, you lose one life and need to restart the level. Try to finish all 3 levels with your 3 lives. At level 2 you also need to hit one bull (double or single) and for level 3 you need to hit two bulls (doubles or singles) within 9 darts. Play Insider »

21 21 is a fun darts practice game for beginners to get training all over the board. In the game 21, you use three darts to get to the number 21. Your randomly suggested combination shows in red on the two first cards. Hit the first suggest number gives you 1 extra point. Get 21 with 2 darts gives you 5 points and a bonus throw. During the bonus throw, you need to hit inside the treble ring and gives you 3 extra points. Get the score 21 with 3 darts gives you 3 points. If you get more than 21 you’re busted and no score for this round. Trebles and doubles count as singles in this game. 10 throws! Play 21 »

Lockdown Challenge The virus attacks the red numbers of the board (20, 18, 13, etc) and you need to fight it by hitting the attacked fields. The number on each target shows how bad the grade is of the attack. If any virus attack exceeds grade 5 it is game over. For each dart you hit the attack is reduced. Hit singles, doubles and trebles. After every throw, the attack increases depending on your game level. In Challenge Mode you try to keep playing as many throws as possible and try to reach the leaderboard. Play The Lockdown Challenge »

Points Around The World (PAW) Throw 3 darts on each number and track your hits.1 point per single hit, 2 for double and 3 for treble. Maximum 9 points per number. End with bull where 25 gives you 1 point and bulls eye 2. Play The PAW Game »

Also, check out Winmau Practice Zone for more games to play!

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Improve with GoDartsPro Premium League

While playing your favourite training games you’re also competing in the Premium League. Your 10 best scores the latest 30 days will make up your total score for the leaderboards. These scores are your peak performance of the game for the month.
Therefore, you need to continuously try to beat your previous scores to climb the leaderboard. In addition as a bonus, you will improve while having fun.

Premium League is universal

Members from all over the world are competing in the Premium League which means you have thousands of opponents to try to beat. As a result, seeing your name and flag on the leaderboard will boost your confidence. However, we all know what confidence will do for your game…
Make it a personal challenge to get your name and flag on all Premium League leaderboards.

Multiple games to choose from

Some of the most effective games have been added to make Premium League your new tool to improve faster.
8 of the games so far are also MICO-Factor games, so as a bonus you might also raise your MICO-factor while trying to climb the Premium League leaderboards.

Continuously running league to keep you on your toes

The Premium League leaderboards are made up of your top 10 scores last 30 days to force you to consistently practice the games to keep your ranking.
Knowing that some of your best scores soon will drop out from the 30 days limit adds pressure to the game and will again force you to try to perform on your peak performance.

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If you stick with a one-dimensional approach for your darts practice you will lose focus quickly and your training sessions will be boring. Just throwing darts at double 20 hour after hour would lead to losing interest and forget about exactly why you started to play darts.
When many players start to practice doubles they go for Bob’s 27. Nothing wrong with good old Bob’s 27 but luckily there are more games to use to really improve the doubles. Therefore we’ve got many different games where you need to focus on hitting doubles.

What is the best way to practice doubles?

This must be natural to you already, but never underestimate the power of repetition. The business end of the match is always doubles. If you want to improve hitting your doubles you need to deliberately practice trying to hit the doubles for a good amount of time. All those hours are important to learn which muscles are needed to hit each double and tune them in to be able to hit them consistently. You need to get that “feel” when the throw is right or not as soon as the dart leaves the hand.

Doubles can be practised in many different ways and the best way to keep your focus high and to stay inspired is to vary your practice. Try each of the following games and find your favourites to throw into your training sessions from now on to spice up your practice.

Doubles Boomerang

Tony David (BDO World Championship winner) invented and used this game to sharpen his doubles skills. So why shouldn’t you use it to improve your doubles?! Hit each double clockwise on board starting with 1. One dart on each so first throw will be double 1, 18 and 4. If you hit the double it is locked and you move on. If you miss a double you need to return to it on the next throw. Use as few darts as possible. Play Doubles Boomerang »

Switching Doubles

In this game, your targets are the important doubles to master. Throw one dart on each double and track your hits. If you manage to hit all three doubles you get one extra turn. The doubles are: 16-8-4 20-10-5 12-6-3 8-4-2 Play Switching Doubles »

Doubles Lock

Setting up a list of great doubles games without “Doubles Lock” would be incomplete. This is a really effective and fun doubles darts practice game with a twist that makes it challenging and puts you under heavy pressure. This game will improve your doubles fast! You throw 3 darts on each double from 20 to 1. You need to hit at least 1 dart on the double to move on to next double. If you hit 2 or 3 darts on the double the double is locked and the next double is now your new starting double. If you fail to hit the double with your 3 darts you need to start over on your starting double. Play Doubles Lock »

The Three Stooges

This is not a doubles-only game, but a fun all-over-the-board game, which strengthens your focus. If you manage to hit the doubles you will get a good score in this game. This game should be played daily right after a proper warmup. Play The Three Stooges »

420 darts practice routine

You start with the score 420 and your goal is to bring it down to or below zero. Your targets are the doubles from 1-20 + bull’s eye. If you, for example, hit two double 1 – your score will be reduced by 4 (two double 1 is 4 points) and you move on to number 2. The pressure increases by the target numbers and if you hit 3 bull’s eye your score will be reduced by 150! Can you go below zero?! Play the 420 game »

Doubles Down

Short and simple doubles training game. In 501’s you want to end up on an even double to get another double shot if you miss and hit a single on the first try. So in this game, you only practice the even doubles. Throw 3 darts on each of the even doubles from 20 to 2 and track your hits. Play Doubles Down »

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Numerous studies tell that any kind of accuracy practice should be done with 100% concentration, and darts isn’t an exception. So how would be the best way to keep your focus?

Timing is everything in darts, but also in practice. An average match lasts approximately 25-35 minutes, and if you transfer that to solo-training that would be somewhere of region of 20 minutes.

So practise fully focused for about 20 mins. After that have a break of 5-10 minutes and you’re good to go again. After two short sessions you are best to have a proper break, say 30-45 minutes before throwing again.
Then you get the rest your body and mainly mind requires.

I’d say there’s absolutely no need to go ever over three hours per day in solo practice – but if you’ve just begun to play or you’re very young you might exceed even that time to time.

The older you get the more attention you should be giving to your 100% fully focused training.

Your body and your mind needs rest

After 3-4 days of intense practice, you also need to stay away from darts completely for a whole day.
The day away from darts can do magic for your inspiration and hunger to practice fully focused again.
That can be really tough since we’re all passionate about darts and eager to improve.

Use the games on GoDartsPro to keep your focus!

Enjoy your darts!

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Now you can challenge yourself, your friends and all other members in different challenges on GoDartsPro.

We start with the game ‘100 darts @ 20’ and the challenge runs through August. Attend as many times as you want and your highest score will be your contribution to the challenge.

The scores are saved for each throw so if you abort and leave the game before finishing it, your challenge score will be the score when you left the game. Next time you start the game from the challenge your current session will be resumed and you can continue from where you left.

There will be more challenges with different games and rules soon so this is just a small summer start.
Each challenge will have its own rules and settings. Some will be restricted to one try per challenge and others will accept as many tries as you want.

GoDartsPro reserves the right to remove/hide scores that are most likely entered to cheat and the member will be contacted.

Here’s the Challenge page!

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Content may not be copied, published, or used without written permission from GoDartsPro.

There are a lot of aspects that makes any darts training drill a great game.
It needs to be:
* Challenging
* Inspiring
* Fun
* Simulating pressure
* Right level for the player

Our new doubles practice game, Doubles Lock, has it all.

You can compete with yourself on many levels in this game:
1) Finish the game – it’s quite a task itself
2) As quick as possible – play the clock
3) Score as much as possible
4) Least amount of darts used

Throw three darts at the same double and your first target double 20.
Each target needs at least one hit to move on to next target double 19. As a result if you miss the 19’s – you are back on hitting the 20’s.

When you hit the target double twice or thrice you lock that number for further play – you don’t need to go back any further.

Every time you manage to hit more than one target double, you get points. 2 hits means 50 points, three hits 100 points.

EXAMPLE:
You hit Double 20 twice, now you get 50 points and it becomes locked and your new starting-base is Double 19.
When you then continue and hit Doubles 19, 18 and 17 once each the pressure becomes massive on Double 16.
If you miss Double 16 with all three darts you’re back at your base which now is Double 19 because you locked Double 20.
But, if you instead hit Double 16 with all 3 darts you score 100 points and 16 is now your new base!

Play the game until Double 1 is done and dusted.
Depending on your player level this game will normally take 20-60 minutes to finish and it doesn’t suit for beginners.

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Content may not be copied, published, or used without written permission from GoDartsPro.

Practice them doubles!

This must be natural to you already, but never underestimate the power of repetition. The business end of the match is always doubles.

The game of the week

Double Tussle

Your aim is to hit three double ones before moving on to double two. Depending on your level, you can choose to use either six, nine or twelve darts achieving this.

So if you’re an advanced player, you can use six darts only.

If you’re an average player – like 85% of us – please use nine darts for each number.

If you’ve begun your darts career not so long ago, please don’t hesitate to use twelve darts to do this.
Remember that you can only move on hitting each double three times.
The game should be doable in approx. 45-60 minutes at each level.
It is a simple and very straight forward game and it can make wonders to your doubling skills.

Enjoy your practice!

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Only for personal use for premium members.
Content may not be copied, published, or used without written permission from GoDartsPro.