darts, one throw per page
Twenty-four lessons on what darts is: the round board and its twenty numbers from the tree trunk and the butt, the double ring and the triple ring and their beds, the outer bull at 25 and the inner bull at 50, the oche at 2.37 m under a bull hung 1.73 m high, the dart's four parts from point to flight, brass and tungsten barrels, the stance and the grip, the turn of three darts, darts arithmetic, 501 and the double-out checkout, 301 and 701 and doubling in, the bust and the mad house, cricket and its three marks, around the clock, Shanghai, chalking a game, averages and three-dart totals, the 180 and the nine-darter, Alexandra Palace and the world title, the pub game cousins, the one honest hour, and teaching a friend in one sitting.
One throw, one honest page. That's a lesson.
darts, one throw per page
Twenty-four lessons on what darts is: the round board and its twenty numbers from the tree trunk and the butt, the double ring and the triple ring and their beds, the outer bull at 25 and the inner bull at 50, the oche at 2.37 m under a bull hung 1.73 m high, the dart's four parts from point to flight, brass and tungsten barrels, the stance and the grip, the turn of three darts, darts arithmetic, 501 and the double-out checkout, 301 and 701 and doubling in, the bust and the mad house, cricket and its three marks, around the clock, Shanghai, chalking a game, averages and three-dart totals, the 180 and the nine-darter, Alexandra Palace and the world title, the pub game cousins, the one honest hour, and teaching a friend in one sitting.
Set in Space Grotesk, Inter and JetBrains Mono (SIL Open Font License).
Every fact in this book is as the primary source states it, fetched and read during this build: the Wikipedia articles Darts, Glossary of darts, Cricket (darts), PDC World Darts Championship, Pub, and Pub game (the last reached by honestly following the Pub games redirect), all cached at build time and cited in each lesson's source line. Honest misses: the fetches for Darts world championships, Bullseye (darts), Cricket (darts game), World Darts Championship (disambiguation), 501 up and Darts games returned nothing, so nothing in this book comes from any of them.
No cached article gives a practice schedule or drill set, and none teaches a stance, so the practice rituals (the drills, the one honest hour, the one-sitting teaching order, the stance routine, the lesson order, the practice asks, the drawing convention) are this book's plan. General information, not advice. An honest no-demo book: no throw was filmed and no photograph was staged by this machine. No product recommendations. Not affiliated with or endorsed by Wikipedia. No facts from Reddit, forums, vendor blogs or search engines.
Your purchase is for personal use only. You do not have redistribution rights: please do not share, resell, or republish this book or its pages.
© 2026 Steve Hodgkiss. All rights reserved. Personal use only; no redistribution rights.
Edition 1.0 · stevehodgkiss.net
Contents
Per the Wikipedia article Darts, darts is a competitive sport in which two or more players bare-handedly throw small sharp-pointed projectiles known as darts at a round dartboard; points are scored by hitting specific marked areas of the board which, unlike in archery, are distributed all across the board and do not follow a principle of points increasing toward the bullseye; darts is both a professional throwing sport and a traditional pub game, commonly played in the British Isles and recreationally loved around the world, with the nickname arrows.
What darts is
Darts is a competitive sport of throwing: two or more players, bare-handed, small sharp-pointed projectiles at a round board.
Unlike archery, the scoring areas sit all across the board; points do not simply rise toward the middle.
It is both a professional throwing sport and a traditional pub game, at home in the British Isles and loved worldwide. Its nickname: arrows.
Say out loud what darts is this week, at any board you pass: a throwing sport and a pub game, two or more players, three darts a turn.
Per the Wikipedia article Darts, barrels are usually constructed from brass, nickel-silver, or a tungsten alloy; brass is cheap but light, so brass barrels tend to be very bulky, while tungsten is twice as dense as brass, so a tungsten barrel of equivalent weight could be thirty percent smaller in diameter than a brass one; pure tungsten is very brittle, so an alloy of between 80 and 95 percent tungsten with nickel, iron or copper is commonly used; barrels come in three basic shapes, cylindrical, ton, or torpedo.
Brass to tungsten
Barrels come in brass, nickel-silver, or tungsten alloy. Brass is cheap but light, so it bulges.
Tungsten is twice as dense: the same weight, thirty percent slimmer. Pure tungsten is brittle, so alloys run 80 to 95 percent.
Three shapes on the rack: cylindrical, ton, torpedo. Slim barrels group tight; that is the whole point.
Borrow a brass dart and a tungsten dart this week, hold both, and feel the same weight in one fatter cylinder.
Per the Wikipedia article Darts, each player begins with the same initial score, commonly 301 or 501, and the first player to reduce their score to exactly zero, called checking out, with the final dart landing in either the bullseye or a double segment, is the winner; as the winning dart in a game must be a double or bullseye, the highest possible finish with three darts is 170, triple 20, triple 20, inner bull, commonly known as the Big Fish; a player on 138 could hit T20, T18, D12, and most numbers can be checked out with more than one combination; a darts match is played over a fixed number of games, known as legs, and may be divided into sets.
501, out on a double
501 down to exactly zero, and the last dart must be a double or the bull. That is the whole game.
The biggest possible finish is 170: triple 20, triple 20, bull, the Big Fish. On 138? T20, T18, D12.
Matches are counted in legs, sometimes packed into sets. One leg is one honest story.
Play one full leg of 501 this week, chalking every turn, and finish it on a double no matter how long it takes.
Per the Wikipedia article Darts, Shanghai is played with at least two players, the standard version in seven rounds: round one aims at the 1 section, round two the 2, and so on to round 7, with standard scoring and only hits on the wedge for that round counted; the winner is the player with the most points at the end, or whoever scores a Shanghai, throws that hit a triple, a double and a single, in any order, of the number in play, which wins instantly; per the Wikipedia article Glossary of darts, Shanghai can also be played for 20 rounds to use all numbers.
Shanghai
Shanghai runs seven rounds: the 1, then the 2, up to the 7. Only that round's wedge counts.
Most points wins, unless someone lands a single, a double and a triple of the number in play: instant win.
The patient version stretches to all twenty numbers. The quick one fits one honest hour.
Play one game of Shanghai this week with a friend, and call the instant win out loud if either of you hits it.
Per the Wikipedia article Darts, the highest score possible with three darts is 180, commonly known as a ton 80, with 100 points called a ton, obtained when all three darts land in the triple 20, and in the televised game the referee frequently announces a score of 180 in exuberant style; the minimum number of thrown darts required to complete a leg of 501 is nine, the most common nine-dart finish consisting of two 180 maximums followed by a 141 checkout, T20, T19, D12; per the Wikipedia article Glossary of darts, the referee call is rendered as ONE HUNDRED AND EIGHTY; per the Wikipedia article PDC World Darts Championship, sixteen nine-dart finishes have been thrown at the World Championship, the first in 2009, and two in world finals, by Adrian Lewis in 2011 and Michael Smith in 2023.
The 180 and the nine
Three darts in the triple 20: 180, the ton 80, a ton being 100. The referee's call is its own ceremony.
Perfection is nine darts for 501: two 180s, then 141, T20, T19, D12.
At the Worlds, sixteen nine-darters have landed, two in finals: Lewis 2011, Smith 2023.
Throw at the triple 20 this week until three darts land in the wedge, then chalk the score honestly, big or small.
This book's plan for teaching a friend in one sitting, resting on sourced parts: per the Wikipedia article Cricket (darts), to start a game each player throws one dart, known as the diddle, the closest to the center going first; per the Wikipedia article Glossary of darts, diddle for the middle is a throw of a single dart to determine who throws first by being closer to the bullseye, and mugs away means the loser of the previous game goes first in the next game; the one-sitting teaching order on this page is this book's plan, built from the sourced board numbers, rings, oche and turn of three darts.
Teaching a friend
This book's plan, one sitting, four sentences: the line, the grip, the fat 20, the turn of three.
Then one sourced rite: the diddle, one dart each, closest to the bull throws first.
And the sport's own mercy: mugs away, the loser leads the next game. Teach one friend; everything else can wait.
Take one friend from curious to first honest leg this week, in a single sitting, starting with a diddle.