How to Play Cricket and 501

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A woman at work asked me to explain darts to her over lunch, and halfway through my sandwich I realized I needed a diagram, a chalkboard and about an hour. So here's the hour. This is steel-tip darts the way we play it on Tuesdays. The plastic-tip machines with the electronic scoring play the same games, but the machine keeps score for you, which takes half the fun out of it if you ask me.

THE BOARD

A steel-tip board is pressed sisal fiber, which they call a bristle board. The darts go in between the fibers and the holes close back up when you pull them out. Twenty numbered slices go around it. Going clockwise from the top:

20	1	18	4	13	6	10	15	2	17
3	19	7	16	8	11	14	9	12	5

(and then you're back at the 20). The 6 is at three o'clock, the 3 is straight down, and the 11 is at nine o'clock.

Notice the big numbers have small numbers for neighbors. The 20 sits between the 5 and the 1, so when you miss the 20 you miss small. That's on purpose, and you'll feel it in your average.

From the outside in, every slice has:

the double ring, the skinny ring around the outside edge. Counts twice the number.
a big single area
the treble ring, the skinny ring about halfway in. Counts three times the number.
a little single area

And in the middle, the outer bull (the green ring, 25) and the bullseye (the red dot, 50). The bullseye counts as a double 25 for finishing. The best single dart on the board is treble 20, which is 60, and that's where everybody aims when they're scoring. Hence the name of this page.

A dart that lands outside the double ring, or bounces out, or falls out before you can pull it, scores nothing.

SETTING UP A BOARD AT HOME

The center of the bullseye goes 5 feet 8 inches off the floor.
The throw line, the oche (say it like "hockey" without the h), is 7 feet 9¼ inches from the face of the board, measured along the floor. Put down a strip of tape or a board you can toe up against.
Hang the board so the 20 is at the top and the board doesn't wobble when a dart hits.
Every so often, take off the number ring, turn the board a slice or two, and put the ring back on with the 20 at the top again. The 20 and the 19 wear out first, and turning the board spreads the wear around. Ours at the Hollow Log get turned every couple of weeks.
Put something on the wall around it. My husband learned this the hard way, and so did our paneling.
Light it from the front so the darts don't throw shadows.

501

Who goes first: each player throws one dart at the bull, and the closer one goes first.

The game: everybody starts at 501. Throw three darts, add them up, and subtract from your score. The chalker writes your score and what you have left. Take turns.

Finishing: you have to hit zero exactly, and the dart that does it has to be a double (or the bullseye). That's "double out." If you have 40 left, you need double 20. If you have 50 left, you can take the bullseye.

Busting: if a dart takes you past zero, or leaves you on 1 (you can't finish 1, there's no double a half), or gets you to zero on anything but a double, you've bust. Your turn is over right there and your score goes back to what it was at the start of that turn.

Here's the chalkboard from my Week 4 game, the best 501 I've thrown in a league. Eight turns, 24 darts:

TURN	SCORED	LEFT
		501
1	60	441
2	45	396
3	100	296
4	41	255
5	81	174
6	60	114
7	82	32
8	32	0

501 points in 24 darts is 20.88 points per dart. My last turn was two darts just outside the wire and then double 16 with the third, and I'm not ashamed to say I squealed.

Thinking about your outs:

The biggest finish there is: 170, treble 20, treble 20, bullseye. I have never done it. I have never seen it done in person.
Some numbers under 170 can't be finished in three darts at all: 159, 162, 163, 165, 166, 168 and 169. If you leave yourself one of those, you're throwing two turns no matter what.
Leave yourself an even number, so a single dart in the right place finishes it. Odd numbers need a single first to get to even.
32 is everybody's favorite. Aim at double 16. Hit the single 16 instead and you've got 16 left, which is double 8. Hit the single 8 and you've got 8 left, double 4. Then 4 left, double 2. Then 2 left, double 1 (which we call "madhouse," because that's where you end up if you get that far). You can keep missing into the single and still have a double left every time.
40 is "tops," double 20. Miss into the single 20 and you're left 20 (double 10), then 10 (double 5). Then 5, which is odd, and you have to take a single 1 first. Elsie says this is why nothing good ever happens after 10.
Learn a few common outs by heart. 81 is treble 15, double 18. 96 is treble 20, double 18. 100 is treble 20, double 20. You don't want to be standing at the line doing subtraction.

301

Same idea as 501, starting at 301. We don't play it on Tuesdays, but the summer league at the Hollow Log does, and most places play it double in, double out: your score doesn't start going down until you hit a double. Darts before that count for nothing. The double that gets you in counts, and so does everything after it in that turn. It's a shorter game and it's a mean one. You can stand there for three turns trying to get in while the other side is halfway home.

CRICKET

The numbers: only the 20, 19, 18, 17, 16, 15 and the bull count. Everything else on the board is scenery.

Marks: a single is one mark, a double is two, a treble is three. The outer bull is one mark and the bullseye is two.

Closing: three marks on a number closes it for you. You can go after the numbers in any order you want.

Points: once you've closed a number, every mark you hit on it after that scores that number in points, but only until your opponent closes it too. Then it's dead for both of you. Extra hits on the bull score 25 for the outer bull and 50 for the bullseye, the same way.

Winning: close all seven and be ahead on points or tied. If you close everything and you're behind, you keep throwing at whatever your opponent hasn't closed and score until you're ahead.

Chalking it: the numbers go down the middle of the chalkboard and each player's marks go on either side. One mark is a slash ( / ). Two is an X. Three is an X with a circle around it, which I'll type as (X). Points go in a column on the outside.

Here's how it goes. Ernesto and I were practicing before league one night:

Me, turn 1: treble 20, single 20, single 1.
The treble closes my 20s. The single 20 is an extra mark on a number I've closed and Ernesto hasn't, so it's 20 points. The 1 is scenery.
Me: 20 closed. 20 points.

Ernesto, turn 1: treble 19, single 19, single 19.
Closes his 19s, and two extra 19s score 38.
Ernesto: 19 closed. 38 points.

Me, turn 2: single 20, treble 20, single 5.
Four more marks on my open 20s: 80 points.
Me: 20 closed. 100 points.

Ernesto, turn 2: treble 20, treble 19, single 19.
The treble 20 closes his 20s and shuts off my scoring there. Now the 20 is dead for both of us. Then four more marks on his 19s, which I haven't closed: 76 points.
Ernesto: 20 and 19 closed. 114 points.

Now look where I am. I'm 14 points behind, he's scoring 19s on me every turn, and my next three darts had better go into the 19 to shut him off. That's the whole game of Cricket in four turns: score when you can, close when you have to, and know which one it is before you step up to the line.

A few things I've learned:

Start at the top. The 20s are worth the most, so close them first and score on them if you can.
Don't fall too far behind on points while you close. Closing everything doesn't win if you're behind.
Don't run up a hundred points on one number if the other side is closing everything else. Points are good. Points and closed numbers are better.
Leave the bull for last unless you're good at it. Nobody's good at it.

HOW I PRACTICE

Around the clock: hit the 1, then the 2, then the 3, all the way to 20, then the bull. Count how many darts it takes. My best is 41. Zach's is 27, but Zach is a mailman and is used to going around in order.
Doubles: twenty darts at double 16, twenty at double 20, twenty at double 8. Write down how many go in. (I told you I keep track of everything.)
Same stance every time. Same foot on the line, same grip, same follow-through. Darts is mostly about doing one boring thing exactly the same way a hundred times in a row. That's also my job description.
Fifteen minutes a night beats two hours on Sunday.

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