Maths is simple but important!

There are two schools in this one. The "Old School” doesn’t mind what you’ve got left, "Just go for another 1980” and the other one, "New School”, calculates exactly the best route. Which group you want to belong? It’s not as hard that it might appear to count.

We are talking about highly dividing matter. But what if you knew the BEST way and only after that you decide?

Phil Taylor is the best example of the player who doesn’t care if he left a finish or not, so who are we to correct his style? So if you’re on the level of him, do whatever you wish, you’re so good that we don’t want to take any part of your counting. But if you’re not as good as him, we might be able to help you.

LEARN TO COUNT SO YOU DON’T NEED TO THINK ON THE OCHE

There are several cases when we see the top players leave something like 163 or 165, even though just with a little bit of thinking they might have left a nice but hard finish.

Let’s take a simple example of 266. You can go on and try to hit 180 naturally, that’s by far your best option. But what if first dart hits a single 20? Then you need to switch to 19, cause 76 with your two darts remaining leaves a finish of 170.

A bit tougher example would be 265. Then your best option would probably be 171, due to fact that even 5 x 19 = 95 leaves you a finish, when starting with 20’s you might end up with troubles if you miss your first dart.

Think these things through, but also you must be able to assess if this kind of Higher Math is required: if you’re playing in your super league in your pub and your opponent is standing 150 points behind you, you don’t need to think about these. But if Simon Whitlock is having a 121 left against you in the deciding leg in the World Champs, you might have a different approach for this!

MAKE THE MATH SIMPLE

With two darts check-outs this gets much simpler. But the pressure can make even top players to do blunders. There is this basic rule which should help you.

If your opponent has got an easy finish left, you have got even number left, say 86 left, two darts in hand, just go for the treble 20 if that route is clear. There is no need to do anything fancy whenever "needs must”. Naturally 54 leaves much nicer double (32), but if it’s unlikely that you ever come to oche again there is absolutely no need to get dandy.

But if you have three darts left then you’d probably do yourself a favour going 54 route, because if you now hit a treble and miss the double inside, you’re next to lost if you went for treble 20’s.

When you have a problem with counting remember this basic rule: If you can’t get to a nice double with treble 20, you can leave an even double with treble 18! And the same goes with odd numbers. If treble 19 doesn’t leave you an even double, treble 17 will!

Game of the Week

Enjoy your practice!

Mikko Laiho, DartsGym

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Keep an eye out for next week’s article "Practice them doubles!”