How to Play Darts - Game Etiquette

Darren Parzow: Hi, I am Darren Parzow, Hall of Fame dart player, we are teaching you how to play darts. Now I am going to discuss some basic etiquettes for the game play. The most important is when you walk up and throw your darts, you want to score your dart first before you pull it out of the board. That way there is never any argument over what was actually scored so your opponent can agree. When you pull the darts and you walk back to the line, your opponent is waiting behind the line for you to clear the line. So you are out of their line of sight, they can then approach the line, not to effect their concentration. You should keep quiet with no sudden movements, not stay too close to them. In the middle of their turn you never want to lean forward to see what they hit, there will be a plenty of time after the turn is over. Another point of etiquette has to be with scoring. If you are going to be scoring a game for two players, you are going to want to stand near the dart board, off to the side so they can still see the score board. You are going to stand still. You don't want to move your head above and watch them shoot you want to focus on the dart board until their turn is over. So if they throw a dart and you can't see what it hit, wait until that third dart is thrown and then move your head in to see. You do want to do that in the middle of their throw and distract them. One of the most important points of been a scorekeeper is you want to write clearly and legibly. So if they are playing 501 and they open with a 100 points, you want to go ahead and you want to write the 100 with the 401 remaining nice and clear because they are going to depend on you when they see their score. You don't want to offer up any information as a scorekeeper. You don't talk to the players unless they ask you a question and there is only certain things you can answer. So if a player says, "Is that a triple?" You can say yes or no.

"Do I have 40 left?" If they are playing 501 and they think they have 40 remaining you can say, "Yes," if they do have 40 left. But if they don't have 40 left you can just say no because they didn't ask you how much they had left, they asked do they have 40. so if they happened to have 42 left, they say, "Do I have 40 left?" You say, "No, you don't." "Well, how much do I have left?" You can then say, "42." You cannot tell them an out. So you cannot tell them, "Well, you have 42 which is ten double 16." You can't do that, you are leading them. It is one against one and that would make you give them an advantage, so that is pretty much some of the basics when you are keeping score. Write legibly and clearly, keep still and it will really help you learn the game a little better because you are really seeing it up close. So those are some of the basic tips and etiquettes for the game of darts. Next I am going to be talking about scoring in darts.