National Cricket and 501 Championship VI-2 local and Regional Qualifiers

There are two Steel Tip regional dart tournaments coming up to qualify for the ADO national cricket and 501 championship,  coming up in November on 17th and 18th dates respective. The nationals are in Las Vegas on January 17th and 18th. The format will be a round robin, that means you play every player 3 legs and the player with the most legs won wins. 1 of every 8 players qualify for nationals It's a long competitive day of darts. Want to up your game? This is where you want to be.

I suspect the Central Missouri Dart league is hosting this event. If not its a good link to have.

http://www.cmdadarts.org/index.html

Each event costs $110 to enter. So for each $880 collected a player advances to nationals. However this year there is a twist since both nationals are on the same weekend. Each national qualifier also gets $150 expense money. If you qualify on Saturday, you can forfeit/use the $150 to enter the national on Sunday, so you don't have to qualify for each event.

Venue: Eagles
Address: 2513 N. Stadium Blvd
City: Columbia
State: MO
Registration: 10.00am
Starts: 11.00am
Contact 1: Mat Stoner
Email: mstoner00@gmail.com

$110 or $220 a lot of money you say? Well we are having local qualifiers for the regionals at Sharks in Shawnee, KS the next 4 Thursdays starting 10/25 (Yes I'm a day Late). It's $10 a night (7:30pm) and we need at least 6 people to show up each night. Its a round robin format and you get a point for each win. The person with the most points wins their entry to the regional in Columbia. The greater participation, the more people will get their entry paid. Even if you don't win your entry, it's a good competitive night of darts unlike you get at league or a tournament. Even if you don't think you can win, but want to raise your game, I encourage you to go out and play. I like said, you can just show up in Columbia with $220, like most likely I'm going to have to do because I still have 1 week left in the Midtown league, leaving me 2 of the 4 weeks to play.

Sharks
Address: 10320 Shawnee Mission Pkwy, Shawnee, KS 66203
Phone: (913) 268-4006
sharkskc.com






20 years ago, back when I had hair, I qualified for the National 501 Championships, and again in 2000.

Back then the regional qualifiers were divided West (Red Shirt) of the Mississippi river, and East of the Mississippi (Blue Shirts). 

The West players played the East players in a round robin divided into 4 groups Clubs, Diamonds, Hearts, and Spades. The top 16 then go into a knockout bracket and play off for the championship. I don't remember how I did in 1998, but in 2000 I missed going to top 16 by 2 legs. 

Save One Life’s Halloween Benefit Dart Tournament

Save One Life’s Halloween Benefit tournament
Hosted by Save One life (Mike & Mindy Horton) and Squirrley's Bar

The tournament (2 Events: Mixed Triple and Doubles) is to benefit NAMI-GKC (National Alliance for Mental Illness-Greater Kansas City) In Honor of Adam Custin (Age 24) who took his life on Christmas 2015.

Mixed Triples ...and the winners are Ric Smith, Caeleigh Morton & James Hancock.

Men's Doubles First/Second: Casey L Molthan, James Hancock, Steven Schultz & Dennis Sprague.

Since this tournament is in October, So the benefit's subject matter works its way naturally into a condition known as SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder).

Just like the diminishing sunlight, so is the diminishing joy/feedback you get from doing things. Imagine you start out with a colorful imaginative plan, but as the days pass the rich colors of your imagination fade to grey. What was once animated and full of movement, becomes stagnate and cold. The things that stirred emotion have become no more than inanimate objects as well as you. So you lay in bed, what's the point of getting up? Even if you do get up, it's a real task to be the puppet master over the marionette that you became.

You might have had this condition your whole life. You go through the highs and lows of the seasons, but as you age the amplitudes get higher and lower. When the contrasts between highs and lows become great enough, ...some people ...can recognize the pattern, so you can prepare for the winter months. So what do you do? While I'm not an expert, but just my opinion, look for short term goals. You have to look no further than Facebook for one such mechanism. When you see the notification red bell you receive a shot of dopamine that triggers the reward and motivation response in the brain (Google: "Facebook notifications dopamine", and you will find all kinds of studies) In my opinion darts works the same way. I don't have any scientific proof, but I don't see how when you hit that bulls-eye, triple, or winning double, it doesn't trigger the reward motivation response. Plus as anybody will tell you about the darts community, it's really a darts family. Well it wouldn't surprise me, if someone with depression said, "Darts saved my life", they might be very well right.

If you or you, or know someone that doesn't recognize the pattern. The tournament sponsors can help.
Tournament Sponsor Hyperlinks:
Save 1 Life
Nami-GKC
Motley Cakes
Rockin Rents
Tri County Mental Health Services
Swope Health Services
Thrivent Financial

Spinning Flights vs. Locked Flights

Spinning flights vs. locked flights has always been a theory, well it still is. You hear about the theory that spinning flights, spin out of the way. I've never seen any data, and without data to me it's a theory. Some people regard them as a gimmick, but without data it's someone's opinion. So I decided to see for myself. Challenge accepted.

Same darts (24g Eagles fixed point, Cosmo shafts locked no.4, Cosmo shafts spinning no.4, Cosmo standard flights.

I figured a good test would be to throw 100 darts at the bull with spinning, and 100 locked. To not throw off the data with the warm up factor I'd throw 33 alternating shaft and flight systems. Then I would do the same with Triple 20.

In case you are wondering what the difference is between the spinning shaft and locked shaft I snapped this picture. The locked shaft is the same as the spinning shaft only it's square at the top and a wee bit thicker.

Ok to the data. I noticed the number were getting better the more darts I threw. So I decided to throw another round of 100 darts each at bull instead of triple 20 and this time start with spinning instead of locked. So there you go. BF is supposed to stand for Bull Fixed (Fixed=Locked ...yeah yea), and of course BS stands for Bull Spinning. The first set I threw 64 bulls of 100 Spinning, and 53 of 100 Locked. Then the next set 73 bulls of 100 Spinning, and 64 bulls of 100 Locked. (Note I counted the double as double). Maybe I should not have, maybe I should not have since this was a test of grouping .vs accuracy. None-The-Less...there you go.

What does it all mean? First set I threw 11 more with spinning, and 9 more with spinning. the you have to figure I already threw with the spinning flight system so I was more comfortable with that. Like I said in the post before. I throw spinning flights because I like the way it effects the trajectory of the dart because when the dart spins, the flight does not spin. Some say the flight spins the incoming in and out, and I will say sometimes they do cause deflections that border on the paranormal.

The wear on the Cosmo flights are pretty impressive. Normally I go through a set of standard poly flights a night. This is a picture of the flights after probably 250 throws.

In conclusion, take from it what you will. Darts is about replicating the same action. I had a lot of throws when I missed all 3 at bull, that's not the darts fault, that's mine. Try them out and do the same and see what works best for you...just my observation.

Tonight I also updated the blog with a list of bars the have Steel tip Boards.

My Darts

I use Laserdarts, Eagles with Cosmo flights and shafts. I like them so much I have 5 sets. 2 set of 24 gram, 2 sets of 21 gram, and a set of 20 gram soft-tip. I believe in having a set of backup barrels in case something should happen. I also rotate them so they both get worn. So if I have to switch, the switch goes unnoticed.You don't want to be on the line and have the thought of, "Oh this is what a new set feels like" or whatever distract you from the task at hand. The nice thing about this line of darts is that they all have the same balance point, so if you switch from 24 gram to 21 gram; or from steel tip to soft tip it doesn't take long to get comfortable.

Ok, right to the point. In my experience the Laserdart point is the best point you can get. It has a nice taper and a black oxide coating that grips the board. 

Recently I've been throwing spinning flights. Not because of the flights spinning out of the way of the incoming dart theory, but because when I release my dart, it spins. This way the flight doesn't spin and affect the trajectory of my dart. Because I throw on a steel tip board, this effect is more observable because the darts stay in the board the way they entered. 

After many years of experimentation, I also use a standard flight because they make the dart fly straight and they enter the board at a good angle for me. This is not the same for everybody.  This is why they make so many different shapes and sizes of shaft and flights.

Now to the barrels. I like the Eagle because they have a distinctive knurl and groove pattern. It's really easy to grip this dart in the same place consistently. They measure 49mm x 6.7mm. They are not super skinny, but for the way I hold the dart, the thicker dart gives me more control. There are better player than me that use a thicker dart.

This is a blog about all things darts from my perspective. Reviews of darts, components, accessories and player interviews. It's also growing a resource of information. For example on the right you will find a list of the weekly blind draw tournaments. Not only do I provide a link, but also the telephone number in case you are running late and need to call in. I'm also planning to demystify how some of the leagues and tournaments work in regards to how you qualify for their regional and national championships.