American Darts Blog

Have Fun, Relax, Play Darts . . . who do they think they were kidding?

Nationals Prequalifier Results - Online High Score

last week there was a prequalifying event for Nationals held in Emmaus. Games were shot in both the “B” division (which has a 3-man cap of 110 pts) and the “C” division (which has a cap of 90pts per 3-man team).

Winners emerging from the “B” division include 2 teams from Dorko’s Cafe:
1st - Dorko’s II (Dennis Conti, Young Joe Zavarik, Nate Dobek)
2nd - Emmaus Fire Co. #1
3rd - BVFHA
4th - Dorko’s I (Corey Hepler, Doug Troutman, Damien Zigler)

in the “C” division, the following teams are moving on to seeded position in Nationals:
1st - Pine Grove VFW
2nd - Fountain Hill Hose Company
3rd - Emaus Fire Company #3
4th - Coopersburg Fire Company

there are several other pre-qualifiers for Nationals coming up, including Saturday February 2nd in Northhampton PA.

ONLINE DARTS GAME

i received a screenshot from Clyde Myers who tied the best score ever by shooting a 78!!! Congratulations go out to Clyde!


New High Scores - Functional Scoresheets

Those are the two new additions to American Style Darts.com. If you visit the Score Sheets page, you’ll notice two new Excel files added towards the bottom. Those are “automated” scoresheets where scorekeepers only have to enter the value of the last dart shooter’s inning score. All of the addition will be taken care of by the computer.

While taking a laptop into a smokey barroom is a less practical way to keep score than say, the trusty old pencil and paper routine, this is a project that just begged for some attention. And so, it’s now available thanks to Frank Petruskevich. Who knows, building on something like this, twenty years from now our kids could be inputting dart scores on their cell phones and have up-to-the-minute data for their dart league or tournament! We could even have real-time internet reporting from events like States and Nationals someday :)

Also, Christian Warren sent in a score for our online game that currently ranks as the second best game ever scored with a 74. Anyone scoring a 65 or better qualifies for posting amoung the high scorers, so keep those screenshots coming in!


Rotating a Stubborn Dartboard

We have a board at the bar that needed to be rotated.  Unfortunately, this particular board wins the “most stubborn dartboard of the year” award, and despite our best efforts, it didn’t budge.

So, I got out the trusty hammer, and did a little operating.  Basically, I banged out the inner section of the board, rotated it, and popped it back into place.  So, if you’ve never rotated a dartboard and wonder what I mean by that when I mention it, I ran the camcorder while I operated.  The video is available here, and on YouTube (it might be the first video on there dealing with American Darts)

I think the first thing you’ll notice is that the board is in pretty bad shape. But, once the video was done I checked the other side, and it’s in much better condition. In fact, I expect it will last the better part (if not all of) the Spring season.

The board being rotated is a Widdy Tournament board. If you have a cheaper wooden board, like say, one of the boards with a 20-inning scoring section on one side, and a “baseball scene” on the other, you won’t be able to rotate it.

Oh, and in case you’re wondering, I did manage to get it all done without waking up the wife. :)


Belgian Darts - Vogelpiks - Wooden Darts

I’ve surfed the net looking at various dart sites long enough that when I come across something totally new, it makes my day.  And, that happened just the other night. 

I’m aware of several different variations of the wooden dart/wood board dart game pairing.  For instance, there’s DartBall and the previously mentioned Troy darts. 

I recently found a new one (new to me that is), and it seems like the European version of American darts.

It’s called “Vogelpiks”, and it’s a dart game from Belgium.

Vogelpik “Darts”:
The darts are very similar to american darts in that they are hand-crafted from wood, use feather flights, have a steel tip and a lead weight. They use several woods: cherry, walnut, and birch. The flights come in different styles as well. They can be rounded or snipped like a darto/apex dart.

Vogelpik Board:
The board is made from . . . you guessed it . . . the endgrain pieces of basswood. It the same material as our American style wooden tournament boards. The layout on the board is insanely simple. There is a “bullseye”, or what we’d call the cork in the center of the board. It’s surrounded by 6 circlular bands or red/white/black. Here’s a pict:

The board comes in two sizes, 9 inch and 7 inch. They both have the same amount of rings, so it just looks as though the 7″ board is harder to score on.

Rules and Gameplay:
First, the distances for hanging the board, and the throw line:
Hang the Board with the cork 62 inches above the floor. That’s a mere 1 inch shorter than an American board, compared to a pub board that is mounted 68 inches above the floor.

The Throw Line should be 72 inches from the front of the board. That’s awefully short compared to other dart games. It comes in at 6 ft, compared to over 7 feet for both American and English darts.

Now, on to the gameplay.

  • Players throw four darts per turn at the center of the dartboard.
  • Each player gets five turns per game.
  • Toe the line, stepping over the line results in a loss of score for that dart.
  • Players wait until the score is called to remove darts. If they fail to do so, there is no recourse for an incorrectly called score.
  • If the game ends in a tie, players shoot extra rounds of four darts each to break the tie.

Scoring:
The scoring is simple. Each ring has an associated point value.

  • The cork/bullseye is worth 50 pts.
  • The red ring that surrounds it is worth 25 pts.
  • The white ring surrounding that is worth 20 pts.
  • The black ring scores 15 pts.
  • The outer white ring scores 10 pts.
  • The outermost red ring scores 5 pts.

History of Vogelpiks:
“It was very popular in Flanders around the time of 1792, and seems to have originated from the archery skills of the Middle Ages. “VOGELPIK” is the early version of the modern game of Belgian darts. It consisted of a stuffed bird hung by a wire from the ceiling, and in its bill a needle in the horizontal position was attached. The player would balance the wire and try to spear a wooden board that was hung on the wall.”

I read that and re-read that, and I still can’t envision it all. I do think that it adds some background to why there’d be a picture of a Vogelpik board hanging inside a bird cage on the internet though.

For a family background and some history on how the game of Vogelpiks landed on the shores of the U.S., visit Belgian Dart History. Apparently, Arthur & James VanHoutteghem are the only makers of Vogelpiks in the United States today. So really, each dart made is a hand-crafted art work that carries three generations of tradition with it.

I think it’s great to find wooden darts making their way to the States in another form.

Resources:
Standard Target and Dart Co.
Vogelpiks.com


New High Scores

just a heads up that two new players joined the High Score Honor Roll for our web-based American Darts game.

Bob Marinelli managed to hit a 66, and 13 year-old Chris Becker broke the 70 mark.

Congrats guys!


Hear Ye, Hear Ye !!! We Now Have a Blog !!

Welcome, this is the first post on the new blog section of our American Darts website. I wanted to have a page where I could post up news, answer emails and letters, and make use of ‘rss’ to announce tournaments and perhaps some tournament recaps.

If you don’t know what Rss is, don’t fret. Go to Google Reader and they’ll let you know how easy it can be to find out about changes and news here at American Style Darts.


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