What is a ton 80?

Three triple 20s. 100 points is called a ton. A ton 80 (180 points) is three triple 20s.

If you win the Diddle, what do you get?

Throw first. Both players throw one dart at the bull’s-eye; the closest to the middle gets to throw first.

What is the total number of darts thrown in a perfect Cricket game?

Eight. A perfect game is as follows: dart one (triple 20), dart two (triple 19), third (triple 18), fourth (triple 17), fifth (triple 16), sixth (triple 15), seventh (single bull’s-eye) and eighth (double bull’s-eye).

What is the lowest possible “out” if the player can use all three darts and double out?

Four. Two single 1s followed by a double 1: 1, 1, 2×1.

What is the lowest possible score to constitute a “high ton”?

151. A “high ton” is any score over 150 points.

What constitutes a “hat trick”?

Three bull’s-eyes.

In steel tip darts, what is the term for a player hitting three triples in a round of cricket where all the marks count?

White Horse. Also known as Riding the White Pony in some circles.

In a game of 301 double-in, double-out, what is the fewest number of darts a player can throw to win?

Six. For example: 2×20 to start, then 3×20, 3×20, 3×20, 3×19 and 2×12 to finish.

What is the metal framework on the face of the board called?

A spider. On most good boards, the spider is removable. Because the numbers are attached to the spider, this allows the board to be rotated so that the board’s life can be extended.

What is the maximum allowable length for a dart?

Twelve inches. Most darts are around 5 to 6 inches long. A 12-inch dart sounds rather cumbersome.

What is the minimum number of throws required to achieve a perfect game of 501?

Nine. Englishman John Lowe was the first to achieve this feat on television, at the 1984 World Matchplay Championships. He threw 180 (three triple 20s), 180 (another three triple 20s) and then triple 17, triple 18 and double 18.

What is the maximum score possible with 3 darts on a standard World Dart’s Federation board?

180. All darts have to hit the triple 20.

What special name is given to a score of 26, comprised of a 20,5 and 1?

Bed and Breakfast. Supposedly based on the typical price of lodgings in an old English hostelry: two shillings and six pence. A Shanghai is a triple, double and single of the same number. Three in a Bed is all three darts in the same number, and Madhouse refers to that most frustrating of finishes, the double one.

In tournament (standard) play, what must a player hit to end a game?

A double. Doubles are scored by hitting one of the numbers in the outer ring of the board. The inner bull’s-eye is considered a double (double 25), but is much harder to hit.

Source: funtrivia.com

They don’t know it yet. But the players of the Central Maine Dart League are embroiled in debate. No matter how many of them you ask, it’s hard to find agreement on what it is that makes a good dart thrower. Is it the light-speed communication between the eye and hand? Or something more metaphysical, a state of mental clarity that allows for aim so precise, it’s almost spooky?

“It’s all in the arm,” says Bev Walker, who owns Andy’s Baked Beans in Auburn along with her husband, Leroy. “The arm and the elbow.”

“It’s mental,” says Jeff Plourde, as he gently unfolds a case with new Hammer Head darts inside. “You put your eye on what you want to hit. You’ve got to focus.”

Diane Hemingway, who has been shooting in the league for 21 years now, says it’s mechanics. Definitely mechanics. What’s in your head isn’t so important if you can get your wrist, elbow and shoulder working in sweet concert.

Earl Osborne disagrees somewhat.

“I focus on the number,” Osborne says. “I don’t concentrate on my arm at all.”

“I think it’s both,” Roger Belanger says, after a gorgeous grouping of darts around the bull’s-eye. “It has a lot to do with how you feel when you start playing. Of course, you need a good arm and shoulder, too.”

Who to believe?

Believe all of them. The men and women who shoot in the Central Maine Dart League – there are more than 300 of them on nearly 60 teams – know their sport. They compete year-round. They keep careful records of their standings. They wear T-shirts and jackets announcing their team affiliation and any awards they might have won. These are people for whom at least once a week, the whole world is condensed into an area five-feet-eight-inches high (the height of the center of the dart board from the floor) and seven-feet-nine-and-one-quarter inches long (distance between the throwing line and the board).

Hooked? You might say so.

“It gets addicting,” says Osborne, who was shooting well in the early cricket rounds at Andy’s Baked Beans. “We’ll hang out on weekends and we’ll practice. We have other friends who will hang out with us. They’ll play and then suddenly, they want to get into it, too.”

There are six teams in the Auburn club on this recent Monday night. The majority of them are men, although there are a few women competing. Most of them are pushing middle age. They have wives and kids and jobs. The lifestyle doesn’t leave a lot of time for fooling around in bars, but every Monday night, here they are.

For many, darts is a good compromise. It’s a game and it’s competition. But it’s not a sport that requires gobs of money from the get-go. Plourde’s new dart set, for instance, set him back $90. Not chump change, by any means. It’s a splurge. But compare that to the cost of a new set of golf clubs, pair of skates or skis? No comparison.

Most of the shooters at Andy’s say they start by just throwing darts casually. It was something to do while out at the bars on weekends. Then something about the game spoke to them. Maybe it was the thrill of a game that can be played any time of year and just about anywhere. Maybe it was that it’s a low-impact sport that won’t wreak havoc in the knees, won’t leave a person with broken bones or a concussion.

“It’s about the camaraderie,” says Osborne. He’s still shooting well in a game of 301. “It does get competitive. You might hear words exchanged here or there, but it’s rare. All in all, though, everybody’s friendly.”

By nature, darts is a social pastime, most commonly associated with beer-swilling revelers in the pubs of England. As it turns out, the atmosphere at Andy’s has that kind of vibe. There’s a lot of chatter between throws. Almost everyone has a beer or a drink going. Unlike a lot of other sports, alcohol won’t completely wreck your game. Like horseshoes, some people actually throw darts better if they’ve had a few. The machinery of the eye-hand team, perhaps, works best when properly lubricated.

“It all depends,” says Bev Walker, who has seen dart players on both ends of the sobriety scale, “on how MUCH you’ve had to drink. Some get better, some . . . not so much.”

Darts are flung at boards in pubs all over the world. But some historians believe the game probably has roots on the battlefields. The very first dart boards were probably the trunks of trees. In between fighting, soldiers may have competed by throwing spears at those trees or at the bottom of empty wine barrels.

Leroy Walker got hooked by watching a master of the game at the Eagles Club on Sabattus Street. The man was like Mr. Miyagi to Walker’s Daniel-san.

“He started teaching me all the different ways to shoot,” Walker says. “Eventually, we got deeper and deeper into strategy. Because there ARE strategies.”

Walker launched the league in 1991, a short time after buying Andy’s. Back then, there were just 12 teams and 48 shooters. They played at clubs like the Wash & Slosh, The Kangaroo and, of course, The Cage in Lewiston, which has always been a part of the local dart culture.

These days, the teams are all over the place. Part of the thrill is the variety of the venues they play in.

“We go from club to club to club,” says Plourde.

Good for the shooters, good for the clubs. Darts brings people out to the bars and those people will spend money on drinks and food. Fast Breaks in Lewiston used to have a room exclusively for darts, with eight boards being played four or five nights a week.

These days, it’s hard to find a local bar that’s NOT part of the league.

Weekly games and tournaments are played at, to name a few, Fast Breaks, Buddy-T’s, the Acme, the Eagles Club, The Cage and the Dawg House in Lewiston, Rack M Up, the New Auburn Social Club and Club Texas in Auburn, The Railroad Pub, Left Hand Club and Slovak Club in Lisbon and Big Daddy’s in Mechanic Falls.

It’s a bar game. And because of that, there is a notable lack of snootiness about darts.

Try taking a wildly unorthodox golf swing at the country club. Or a granny-style free throw in pickup basketball. Deliver the bowling ball with two hands or swing a baseball bat with one. Your friends will laugh you out of town. They may beat you for a while. And you probably had it coming.

In darts, no two delivery styles are the same.

Osborne steps up to the throw line (it’s called the “oche,” though I didn’t hear the word once down at Andy’s) with the dart way up in front of his forehead, the tip of the dart pointed at the floor. He dances around a little. He shoots.

Plourde holds his dart in front of his face at a slight slant.

Belanger leans slightly to the right as he takes aim. He holds his dart somewhat like a cigarette up near his temple.

“Everybody,” says Osborne, “has a different technique.”

It seems to be a given. The players at Andy’s seem kind of baffled to be asked about the matter at all.

“I don’t really talk about it,” says Belanger. “I just shoot darts.”

The league is broken up into several divisions, according to skill level. Most of the players at Andy’s on this night are in the BBB division. Here, you find teams like the Fastbreaks Eliminators, 20M Trailer Kings, La Cage Critical Mass.

“It’s a good division,” says Hemingway, who shoots for Andy’s Patriots. “It’s one step down from A. A is as high as you can go. Those are the big dogs.”

Darts is not a complicated game, although if you’ve only played casually and it’s been many years, it can seem complex at first glance. The goal is not as simple as just hit the bull’s-eye every time  — although bull’s-eyes are almost always impressive. (If you can group three darts around the bull’s-eye, the whole bar erupts in “oooh” or some variety thereof. However, three darts in the small rectangle that represents the triple 20 is worth 180 points and is called a ton 80. It’s the highest score possible with three darts. Ooooooh!)

At Andy’s, the teams are playing a lot of 301. That’s the score you start with, and the aim (so to speak) is to reduce your score to zero. You have to get exactly to zero. And you have to do it by doubling out – hitting a double segment of the exact number you need. If your score is at 18, for example, you need to hit the double section of nine to go out.

Conceivably, a player could finish the game with just six darts. As far as I know, it didn’t happen the night I mingled at Andy’s Baked Beans.

They were also playing cricket, which is also reasonably simple. In cricket, the object is for a player to hit particular numbers and the bull’s-eye three times. Doubles count as two hits and triples as three.

You definitely don’t need to play in a league to enjoy darts. It’s impossible to estimate how many play every day in bars, basements, dens and garages. Some play to keep coordination sharp, others make a drinking game out of it.

“I went around the world playing darts,” says 45-year-old Gil Rivera, who was not at Andy’s Baked Beans. “Actually shooting and blowing things up, but darts on the side. Won a team championship in Haifa, Israel, against a mixed Israeli/British team. Played extreme distance darts at Texas Jack’s in Palma (Spain) – not a real sport, one we made up with the help of alcohol.”

Some like the darts more than the game itself, like men who own race cars but never drive them.

“I own several dart sets. Custom selected for weight and with various fin assemblies,” says 50-something John Snyder. “Steel, brass, aluminum and titanium, depending on the throwing conditions and my ‘strength of the day.’ I loaned a couple of sets to my younger brother. That was about 10 years ago and I have yet to get them back from the brat. I have found it far more fun to select, build and collect darts than it is to actually play the game. I will gladly play in any pub with a beer or two as the bet.”

Then, of course, there are the professionals. There’s the British Darts Organization and the Professional Darts Corporation, which together organize a World Professional Championship at the end of each year.

The Central Maine Dart League is somewhere in between. Members play by the rules and they take it seriously, yes. But the point of it is fun. And in darts, nothing is more important than the point.

“Pick up a set of darts, throw ’em and I think you’ll get hooked,” says Leroy Walker, who has already lured dozens, if not hundreds, to the game. “All you need to do is shoot them a couple times and play a few games. You’ll want to play in the league with the rest of us.”