Iv'e heard it many times. " Damn I'm throwing bad tonight" I ask when do you practice may be we could practice together. answer "Oh just here in warm up is all " what excuses have you heard?

My only excuse is my darts are faulty!

and ya brain lol

me what?

never heard of that? I am meant to have one of those too?

Thats the 1 thing that bugs me most about some players Larry. They get pissed when they are shooting bad but when I ask them the same thing "how much do you practice" it's always I just play on league nights??????? My answer is always the same then don't get mad for playing bad you're never gonna get better if you dont play. They need to take a look at why they are playing.. If it's just for a fun night out(which I have not one single problem with that) then just be glad your out having fun a couples beers with friends and who cares how you play. If you want to get better then you have to practice!!! It's as simple as that.

Hatrick

Hatrick wrote:

Thats the 1 thing that bugs me most about some players Larry. They get pissed when they are shooting bad but when I ask them the same thing "how much do you practice" it's always I just play on league nights??????? My answer is always the same then don't get mad for playing bad you're never gonna get better if you dont play. They need to take a look at why they are playing.. If it's just for a fun night out(which I have not one single problem with that) then just be glad your out having fun a couples beers with friends and who cares how you play. If you want to get better then you have to practice!!! It's as simple as that.

Hatrick

I have bad nights and good nights. I practice but no where near as much as I should. I do enjoy going out and having fun and throwing and I will acknowledge when I'm having a worse night than a better night. I wouldn't say I get mad about it or don't acknowledge that I'm out having fun, which is my intended purpose short of wanting to win.

Everybody wants to win lefty thats the whole purpose of playing the game.. It's how people handle it when they lose that makes them more enjoyable to play against or even with.. I've played doubles with people before that were so worried that they were going to let me down that the whole time we played all I kept hearing was I'm sorry I'm usually better than this and making excuses all the time we were playin.. I always tell them I know how you play and if I didn't want to play with you I wouldn't have asked. I will not ever play with the ones that do nothing but make excuses all the time it's just not any fun. I would rather get our asses spanked and have fun than to win with someone who is a pain in the ass.

Hatrick

I have a bad habit of apologizing because I feel like I'm letting my partner/team down... oh man, I'm that guy... Lefty

My statement was not directed at you personally lefty and I dont believe you are that guy.. lol The apologizing is fine it's the excuses I cant stand.
Cheers,
Hatrick

I think Andy had it on his signature : The more I practice the luckier I get. hmmmm I like that.

I think whats most frustrating is when you've been playing well in practice and suddenly as soon as the match comes around it all goes to pot. I try not to get too worked up over darts matches, immediately after a loss I can be a bit annoyed but its 5 minutes of self pity and then I support the team and forget about it. I also try think of what caused the poor performance and try work on that. At the beginning of the year it was doubles letting me down but I worked on it and went on to win the most matches for our (admittedly poor) team. This worked well for a long time but then I got too comfortable and stopped practicing doubles but luckily I was able to outscore most players during the league to sneak wins but my matches were a lot closer than they should have been, scraping matches 3-2 because you couldn't hit a double is no fun.

In all teams there are one or two who go down the "Throwing bad tonight", one particular player on my team could comfortably outscore me in practice matches but couldn't hit a double, then in matches when he missed doubles he'd wonder why but then never practiced them despite me and our captain telling him on countless occasions. I'd argue that practicing doubles is the most important part of a lower standard players game because 90% of the time thats what decides the matches, particularly in the short format. You either want to put the effort in or you don't, if you don't there's no point complaining when things don't go your way.

/tldr practice makes perfect

Hatrick wrote:

My statement was not directed at you personally lefty and I dont believe you are that guy.. lol The apologizing is fine it's the excuses I cant stand.
Cheers,
Hatrick

LOL It's quite alright Hat. I did not think you were directing the comment towards me. I more or less learned something about myself and have now decided that a new approach is in order.

Lets see Practice, practice, hmm more practice. Phil Taylor practices 6-8 hrs a day, now thats his job mind you but he practices to be the best he can be! And he is the best because of dedication, hard work and practice. We are no Taylor but the great man gives us the key and what we do with it depends on us. Thats my take.

I completely agree Saber. Now where did I leave that dartboard.....?

I usually go for the draft excuse or the noisy plank

And when I play against girls I always go for the "She's too attractive I can't play"

Venigoor wrote:

I usually go for the draft excuse or the noisy plank

And when I play against girls I always go for the "She's too attractive I can't play"

Sounds like a great excuse to me!

The most common excuse I hear is "I'm tired."

It's funny, I think I'm one of only two players on my team who bothers to make excuses. The others just don't care much if they have a bad night. I'd really like to cultivate that a little more.

Last night is a perfect example. We've made it to the playoffs and had a little informal team tournament since this is a week off before the playoffs.

My first match I lost 2-0 to our alternate. He's a good dart player, but only picks them up once a month or so and I should have DESTROYED him on the form he was throwing. But I just couldn't put a dart anywhere near the target because I wanted to win so badly.

The next game in the "losers bracket" I just really didn't care whether I won or not and I took out a 17 dart 301 DIDO. I was actually on an out with my 12th dart and wired every one of my next 4 before putting it in the heart of D4.

My excuse for the first one: "my mind just isn't in the right place."

It's true. I have some serious personal stuff I'm dealing with but it's still just an excuse and my question is.

Why is it that when I don't care I win and when I care I lose???

Ah, darts, how I love/hate thee.

I don't mind the "I'm having a bad night," excuse except when I hear it with the handshake after I beat them. A lot of the time it sounds like they're saying that's the only reason I beat them. I always want to respond with, "I didn't play very well either. Good think you were worse." I try to never diminish someone's win over me by saying that. Even when that's the only reason they beat me!