How to Chalk at Darts

Picture the scene:

It’s your first darts tournament. You have been playing at home, and using that electronic scorer on your phone or tablet, and you know some ‘out’’.  You have arrived, paid your fee, ordered a beer and you’re preparing to join a practice board. Al is well, and then you hear your name over the microphone “xxxx to chalk board xxxx”. Suddenly it hits you like a thunderbolt ‘they don’t use electronic scorers’, its manual chalking.  ‘Hang on a minute’ you think to yourself, ‘this isn’t how they do it on TV’. No its not, this is the ‘real’ way. Your stomach turns and all of a sudden you don’t fancy that pint anymore, you look around as suddenly it all starts to slowdown like you’re in the Matrix. The pulse increases rapidly and suddenly despite it being the coldest month of December on record you start to sweat profusely! No your drink has not been spiked, this is reality. You’re going to have to score a game!

At this point you have a number of choices:

1. Run out of the venue

2. Fein a heart attack

3. Go and hide in the toilet

or

4.  Go through with it

If you are brave enough and choose number 4, then unless you are a mathematical genius it will go something like this:

·         

•       Your mind will go blank and you will drop to infant school maths ability
• 
  
• ·     You will make mistakes

You will get some derision, moans, and maybe accused of ruining someone’s match (usually the loser).  I know this because that’s exactly what I did in January 2014 and it was a horrible experience.

The problem was that in my dart league it was all ‘electronic’ scorers and so there was no practice required. It left me hideously unprepared for ‘proper’ tournaments.

I have found that if you explain the situation to the players, then 99% of them are fine, and will even help you (as they were there once themselves). Hell I chalked twice for PDC pro  Arron Monk twice and he was fantastic about it, and would have had room to be annoyed with me (as made a mistake a few times which could have cost him).

Chalking is a key part of darts if you want to progress, and most people can do basic math, however doing it front of a crowd in a pressured environment can suddenly make 401- 80 a difficult task (its 321 by the way).

Here are some tips:

1. Know the board trebles and doubles and what the add up to.

2. If the score is near 100, round up to 100 and then subtract the difference. For example, if a player has 336 points and hits 93, just subtract 100 and then add 7 (100 minus 7 is 93). 336 minus 100 is 236. 236 plus 7 is 243. Simple.

3. Round up or down to the nearest "10" and either add or subtract points as need be. 53 points is the same as 50 plus 3 or 60 minus 7, right? If a player has 162 points and hits 53, subtract 50 and then another 3. 162 minus 50 is 112 and 112 minus 3 is 109.

The key is to practice, practice, and practice!  Get a chalk or whiteboard and mark your practice matches. Throw away the scorer and mark the scores manually. Yes it takes longer and therefore the scorer looks like the better option however you’ll be all the better for it and what’s more it will ingrain where you are in your own matches so that you don’t even need to look at the board.

Good luck

Luke