무제 문서

◈ Basic concept

Darts is a sport (Darts was offically recognised as a sport by all UK sport councils on 6th June 2005), or rather a variety of related sports, in which darts are thrown at a circular target (dart board) hung on a wall. Though various different boards and games have been used in the past, the term 'darts' usually now refers to a standardized game involving a specific board design and set of rules.
The game of darts is hundreds of years old...rumour has it that the sport originally began as a contest between bored soldiers / archers during respites from battle. The soldiers threw short throwing spears into the upturned ends of wine barrels. As their competition progressed, a more critically marked target became necessary, which led to the use of a slice of a tree as a target. The natural rings of the tree proved perfect for scoring purposes, as did the radial cracks which appeared as the wood dried out. The winter forced the game indoors, and shorter darts and basic indoor rules were adopted. As the game caught on, even the nobility tried their hand: in 1530 Anne Boleyn gave Henry VIII a set of "darts of Biscayan fashion, richly ornamented."
The sport or game of darts is unique in several ways: the equipment required to play is reasonably inexpensive, a relatively small amount of space is required to play, and special clothing is not required. Age, gender, size and physical strength/endurance have almost no effect on a player's ability to do well. These factors combine to make darts the appealing and popular game it is today.
As well as being a professional competitive game, darts is a traditional pastime game, commonly played in the United Kingdom (the first to officially recognize darts as a sport), the Netherlands, the Scandinavian countries, the United States, and elsewhere.

Composition
- Dart boards are usually made of sisal fibers and each section is lined with thin metal wire. The numbers indicating the various scoring sections of the board are normally made of wire, especially on tournament-quality boards, but may be printed directly on the board instead.
Height and distance
- In the standard game, the dart board is hung so that the bullseye is 5 ft 8 in (1.73 m) from the floor, eye-level for a six foot man. The oche (pronounced 'ock-ey'), or throwing line behind which the player must stand, is 7 ft 9¼ in (2.37 m) from the face of the board, though a few British pubs set it at 8 ft (2.44 m) or 8 ft 6 in (2.59 m). For casual play, it is not uncommon to find the oche somewhat further or closer than the tournament standard, either due to rounding of the specified distance (to 7½ or 8 feet), or just due to measurement error (such as measuring from the wall, rather than using a plumb line to measure from the board face).

History

Various designs of dartboard have been used, and regional variations remain in parts of Staffordshire, Lancashire and Yorkshire. In particular, the Yorkshire and Lancashire boards differs from the standard board in that it has no treble ring and has a single, inner bull. The dartboard itself may have its origins in the cross section of a tree, although some historical records suggest that the first standard dartboards were the bottoms of wine casks, hence the game's original name of "butts". There is speculation that the game originated among soldiers throwing short arrows at the bottom of the cast or at the bottom of trunks of trees. As the wood dried, cracks would develop, creating "sections". Soon, regional standards emerged and many woodworkers supplemented bar tabs by fabricating dart boards for the local pubs.
The numbering plan known by many today has a 20 on top; however, a great many other configurations have been used throughout the years and in different geographical locations. By most accounts, the numbering layout was devised by Brian Gamlin in 1896 to penalize inaccuracy. Although this applies to most of the board, the left-hand side (near the 14 section) is preferred by beginners, for its concentration of larger numbers. Mathematically, removing the rotational symmetry by placing the "20" at the top, there are 19!, or 121,645,100,408,832,000 possible dartboards. There are many different layouts that would penalize a player more than the current setup; however, the current setup actually does the job rather efficiently.(http://www.maa.org/mathland/mathland_5_19.html)

Scoring

The standard dartboard is divided into twenty numbered sections, scoring from one to 20 points, by wires running from the small central circle to the outer circular wire. Circular wires within the outer wire divide each section into single, double and triple areas.

Various quite different games can be played (and still are played informally) using the standard dartboard. However, in the official game, any dart landing inside the outer wire scores as follows:

Hitting one of the large portions of each of the numbered sections, traditionally coloured black and yellow, scores precisely the points value of that section.
Hitting the thin outer portions of these sections, coloured red and green, scores double the points value of that section.
Hitting the thin inner portions of these sections, roughly halfway between the outer wire and the central circle and again coloured red or green, scores triple (or 3x) the points value of that section.
The central circle is divided into a green outer ring worth 25 points (known as "outer" or "outer bull") and a red inner circle (usually known as "bull", "inner bull" or "double bull"), worth 50 points. The term "bullseye" can mean either the whole central part of the board or just the inner red section.
Hitting outside the outer wire scores nothing.
Any dart that does not remain in the board after throwing (for example, a dart that hits a wire and bounces out of the board or drops out with the impact of a later throw) also scores nothing. Variations on this rule exist - some judge that a dart which obviously hits a scoring section but then subsequently drops out will count if caught before it hits the floor or if it rebounds behind the throwing line before touching the ground it may be thrown again. In professional rules, a dart's tip must be touching a scoring section for the dart to count.

The highest score possible with 3 darts is 180, obtained when all three darts land in the triple 20. In the televised game, the referee frequently announces a score of 180 in exuberant style. The commentator will often refer to this as "ton-eighty". A "ton" is the accumulation of 100 points with any amount over and including 100. The score 131 for example would be made into a compound number with "ton" as the prefix, as in "ton-thirty-one".

A game, or "leg", of darts is usually contested between two players who take turns in throwing up to three darts. Starting from a set score, usually 501 or 301, a player wins by reducing his score to zero. The last dart in the leg must hit either a double or the inner portion of the bullseye, which is the double of the outer bull, and must reduce the score to exactly zero. Successfully doing so is known as "doubling out" or "checking out" (see the Glossary of darts for more darts terminology). A throw that would reduce a player's score to one or below zero does not count, his turn ends, and his score is reset to what it was before that turn. (Sometimes in friendly games a player is allowed a dog's chance by "splitting the eleven" if he has a remaining score of 1. This required placing a final dart between the legs of the number eleven in the normally non-scoring part of the board). Since the double areas are small, doubling out is usually the most difficult and tense part of a leg. Longer matches are often divided into sets, each comprising some number of legs.
Although playing straight down from 501 is standard in darts, other variations exist, notably "doubling in", where players must hit a double to begin scoring, with all darts thrown before said double contributing nothing to his score. Other games that are commonly played differ in their scoring methods. These include "Round The Clock", "Killer" and the more complicated Cricket.
In "Round the Clock", players must hit each numbered section in turn, finishing with a bull to win. Far from being a beginner's game, Round The Clock is a good training game since it practices targeting all areas of the board, a skill which is essential when finishing a classic leg. This can be taken further by only counting the double or the treble rings. It can also be played where hitting the double advances you two numbers and the treble advances three. For example, if your first target is number 1 and you hit the treble ring, then your next target is number 4. In addition, some play that if you successfully hit three numbers with your three darts in a turn, you get to throw again. Often in some leagues, hitting a double advances you to the number which is twice the value of that thrown, plus one. For example, hitting a double 9 will take you to 19. These games often end with the first person to hit two double 20s.
An additional rule which can add some spice to playing Round The Clock with two or more players is that any dart that falls in a bed other than the one aimed for is forteited to any player(s) awaiting that number.
In Killer, a number of players "own" a number on the dartboard (often selected by throwing a dart with their non-playing arm) and compete to build up "lives" (by hitting that number) until a threshold is reached (usually 4 or 6) before attempting to "kill" other players by removing the lives they have built up (by hitting those other players' number) until a single player is left.

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