Yes, We Lost

I said I wasn’t going to post anything about that playoff match if we lost, but I’m getting tired of people assuming that because we lost and I didn’t talk about it, that we lost badly.

We did lose badly, but you didn’t know that.

We lost in the worst possible way—walking into the lion’s den and taking a 6-4 lead before losing the last three games.  I’m embarrassed by the result, but not by the team’s performance.  We rose to the occasion and just couldn’t pull off the upset.

Casey’s RBs went on to win the championship, so congratulations are due them.

Final score: a 7-6 loss.

Playoffs Round #1 – Casey’s RBs

We’re playing Casey’s RBs tonight in the first round.  They’re a very good team, but I’m not counting us out.  We haven’t beaten them this year, but in our first match (also at Casey’s) we were tied 6-6 going into the final game, so I think we’re in with a chance.

The key will be if we can hang with them early.  If we let them take an early lead we’ll be finished.  We’ve got to at least hang tough with them through the first seven or eight games to put the pressure on them.

If we win, I’ll definitely be posting a recap.  I might if we lose, but if you don’t see anything in this space for the next couple of months, you’ll know what happened!

Week #10 – Good Strokes

After the disappointment of the last match, we needed to bounce back strongly against this team.  We’d beaten them 7-6 at our place, and we had to do that again to have a chance at ending up in second place and getting a home game for the first week of the playoffs.

Didn’t happen.  We were flat and listless.  I don’t know if this had anything to do with it (I mean our performance, not the result) but Tracks, Good Strokes’ home bar, has become a terrible place to play darts.  They used to have an area between the bar and the restaurant area with a couple of boards, but now it looks more like the darts equivalent of a bowling alley.  Six machines lined up along a wall.  Eight players per board plus assorted hangers-on, waitresses and other patrons makes for a very crowded, uncomfortable experience.

Anyway, what’s done is done.  We went from second place (with a shot at first) to fourth place in two weeks.  Not the best way to go into the playoffs.

Final score: an 8-5 loss.

Week #9 – Casey’s RBs

I’ve discovered that the only thing worse than getting your hat handed to you is to have to recap the loss.  I’d be a terrible NFL coach: “What do you want me to say, ‘we stunk?’  Okay, we stunk!  Any other questions?!”

Actually, we didn’t stink at all.  This team is very, very good, and all the more so because the two players we targeted as weak links last time have definitely improved over the season.

Not much else to say.

Any questions?!

Final score: a 10-3 loss.

Week #8 – Bye

No match this week, but some good news anyway!  Looking at the standings from last week and comparing them to this week’s, I notice that T E R D beat Casey’s RBs by an 8-5 score.  That puts us two games back of first place, and we get our crack at Casey’s at our place on Tuesday.  They beat us in the first match, but only 7-6 and they had the home field advantage.  This is our chance to make a move.

Week #7 – T E R D

Sorry I’m behind on these updates—this will catch us up, because we had a bye this past Tuesday.

It was a different line-up this time around against T E R D, and by a coincidence I knew one of the players from years ago (Maggie’s brother Matt, for anyone who cares to know), so it was a very friendly match.  Contributing to that atmosphere was the fact that there were a couple of Red Sox fans on the other team, so I had someone to talk baseball to while watching the Yankees play the Angels in the ALCS.  (My guys are Yankee-lovers.)

Just like last match against them, it was a close one.  We won this one though, most likely simply due to the home-field advantage.

Final result: a 7-6 win.

Stats updated above, click to view.

Week #6 – Team Versus

Even though the results showed only a one-game improvement over our last match, Team Versus was miles better.  For one thing, they had four players—all of whom finished the match.  But seriously, every game was much tighter than the first time we played them.  They were hitting their numbers much more consistently.  I think somebody’s been practicing…

Even better, their strategy had improved a bit.  They still don’t immediately recognize when they have an out in 501, and they tend to follow a little too much in cricket, but those kinds of things will come to them more and more naturally as they gain experience.

And best of all is their attitude.  They’re there to have fun, and don’t sulk about losing a lot of games.  Everyone loses a lot of games their first couple of times playing in the league, and they get that.  Hope they stick around a while.

Final score: an 11-2 win.

Stats updated above, click to view them.

Week #5 – Good Strokes

Our first home match of the season!  I wish we had made more of it, but we did finally win the last game of the match, so there’s that.

For a team that had three—count ‘em!—members sporting Yankee caps, they weren’t obnoxious at all.  They had one guy who was incredible at cricket, but fortunately we were able to snag the two games he didn’t play.  We were evenly matched on 501 as well, as the final score showed.

Not much else to report, except that Red’s new girlfriend came to the match about halfway through and he started playing much better after that.  She’s not allowed to be late in the future.

Final score: a 7-6 win.

Stats updated above, click to see them.  Also, an important update to the schedule.  Next week’s open tournament is being held on the upper level at Bradford’s, not at Tiernan’s.

No match next week, so an update will come in a fortnight.

Week #4 – Casey’s RBs

A very good team, this one.  Two of their players are excellent, so when they were matched up together they were very difficult to beat—-although we did, once.  One average player and one slightly below average.  We’ll have to do a better job of winning what games we can against those two.

Things got oddly out of hand over a dispute over game rules.  In all my years of playing darts I’ve never been involved in this heated an argument, which seemed to come out of nowhere.  We smoothed things over in the end and I don’t think there are any hard feelings (at least on our part).

In the end, we lost 7-6.  (Losing the final game again!)  It’ll be good to finally get home to Tiernan’s next week.

Stats updated above.  Click to see them.

Week #3 – Bye

No update last week, because the team we were scheduled to play, the June Bugs, dropped out of the league.  Would have been nice if anybody had told us, but we were able to practice for a while so the night wasn’t a complete waste.

Of course, this also means that we won’t have our first home match until a month into the season.  On the bright side, we’ll be at home every week after that until the final match.