Just Darts Since 2009
Well, another dart season’s gone…
Remember on 12/26 when I said we had a match the next day? I don’t know how I could have misread the schedule–I probably didn’t even look at it–but of course, we had a bye the week between Christmas and New Year’s.
So, Red and I showed up for the match and played for a few hours since we were there anyway. If you check the stats above, you’ll notice that he played quite a bit better the last two weeks. Just sayin’.
Oh, and the league office wasn’t being lazy by not sending out the stats reports. I always forget that he doesn’t issue them the last couple of weeks of the season to prevent teams tanking to one another to manipulate the standings and get into the playoffs in a less than honest fashion. Kinda lousy to even imagine some people doing that, but they do. The stats have been updated now that the playoff teams are set.
So, not a bad couple of weeks. We lost to The Cards 7-6, but only after going down 5-0 to them to start the match. It came down to the final game in the end, and while it would have been sweet to walk away with the win, I couldn’t be too upset about how we finished the match.
Then it was Brickhouse I last Tuesday, and we played better than we have in a long, long time. What impressed me most was how well the other team handled what happened. They were pretty sure that we were knocking them out of the playoffs and they reacted with genuine good humor. As it turned out, of course, we only knocked them back from 3rd to 4th place, and so they’re still in.
We didn’t make the playoffs, but we didn’t miss by much. And we didn’t hit .500, but we missed that by only a hair. We could have all done better this season, but it’s a tough division and we didn’t embarrass ourselves.
All in all, a good time.
Final record: 90-92
I’ll let you know if anything interesting happens at the banquet. Otherwise, I’ll see you when the next season starts.
I really started getting confused with the stats reports, because we played during the bye week, then skipped a week when everybody else was playing, and then played two matches in one week. I couldn’t keep straight which week on the stats reports corresponded to our week, and so I sort of threw my hands up.
I think I’ve got a handle on it, but we haven’t gotten our results from last week yet and since we’re playing tomorrow I figured I’d just post what I have.
Quick recaps:
Office Cafe – Typical loss for us. We went down 4-0, then battled back to tie it 5-5, then lost the last three games for an 8-5 loss. Frustrating.
Muggs Away – Our sister team, and it’s always fun playing against them. It’s even better beating them (8-5) especially since they’re in first place, but that’s a little less impressive when you find out that one of their key players was missing.
Dart Fellas – Fun group of guys. This match was almost the reverse of the one against the Office Cafe team. We went up 4-0, they battled back, and then we put them away 9-4. I wonder if the Office team was as nervous when we did it to them as we were last week?
Two matches left–against The Cards and Brickhouse. We were nine games out of the playoffs before last week, and unless that number went down quite a bit it doesn’t look like we’ll make the playoffs this time.
Sometimes playing darts is more fun when there’s nothing at stake.
Sorry about the delay: between Thanksgiving and house-sitting I haven’t been home in a while, and now I need to eat before tonight’s match against The Office Cafe.
So, long story short, we did what we’ve done all year: terrible start, mini-comeback, fall short.
Final score: an 8-5 loss.
Whoops!
I was waiting for the stats to be sent to us before posting, and since this wouldn’t have been the first time they’d been this late I didn’t think too much about it. But the league didn’t officially have any matches this week (Casey’s couldn’t make our December match, so we rescheduled to the off week) so the stats won’t be coming.
The schedule above has been updated, but not the standings or stats, which will get two week’s worth of changes next week.
So, what happened?
Easy enough to describe: we played horribly in the first set of 501, and went down 4-0 before we had time to catch our breaths. And while we did a good job of coming back and tying it up 5-5, it was just too much of a headstart to give a team as strong as Casey’s.
Special thanks to the Rook for winning the 701 game–our first one in a while!–to end the match on a high note.
Final score: a 7-6 loss.
Next up, 40 and Over for John. What’ll happen? Hell if I know! Well, I know one thing. I’ll be getting there a little earlier than usual. Rook’s girlfriend pointed out that we’ve been starting out dismally our last few matches. Maybe if I start “practicing” earlier we won’t start in such a hole.
What a match!
We came into it tied with The Cards, and as we were going into the final game tied 6-6, we all smiled at each other, shaking our heads. I don’t think either team won two games in a row all night.
Back and forth, back and forth. It was tense, but exhilarating. Like two heavyweight prizefighters who can’t land the knockout blow. Okay, given the standings I guess it was more like to middleweight fighters. (Pound-for-pound the best punchers!)
Anyway, The Cards won the first game of the night, and we alternated wins the whole match, so you can do the math.
All right, lazybones: a 7-6 loss.
So, we’ve dug a hole for ourselves, but it’s not a particularly deep hole: three games out of the playoffs at the moment. I admit it’ll be a challenge for us to break .500 in this division, but I’m having fun just being in the hunt.
Next week we have Brickhouse I. We’ve played them in the past, but not for a couple of years so I’m not sure how we’ll do. Looking at the standings, I’d guess not so good. Let’s shoot for a 7-6 upset.
It’s hard to shake the feeling that we let an opportunity slip away last Tuesday. We had some pretty awful shooting this time out, and we had two games in our hands that we just couldn’t nail down.
And yet, we did have some awful shooting. It’s not like that was an accident, or it was just a fluke. It’s not something that happened to us, it’s something we did. And, to be honest, there were two games that we should have lost but managed to snatch away from our opponents.
So all in all, things worked out the way they should have.
As always, Fiddler’s Green is the best bar in Stamford to play darts–there’s a reason it and Tiernan’s are the only two places I’ve linked to at the top right. Plenty of room for players and spectators to get comfortable, and in a closed-off area, too.
Good bunch of guys, as well. One of them spent almost ten minutes before the match trying to help me repair a broken dart before we gave up and I shot with the bar darts. I think I’ll just stick with bar darts, at least until the break, since I’ve gotten used to throwing with them.
For once, we won the 701 game! Although it was one of the close ones: three of the four scores were at ‘5’ when we finally got out.
Final score: a 7-6 win. And it was probably better than we deserved.
Next week it’s The Cards at Tiernan’s. We’ve never played them before, so I have no idea what to expect.
I wasn’t able to play in the third match of the year, as I had to pick up my parents at the airport. The next morning, I heard the message Meister left for me:
“Mike–We’re going to get killed without you. We’ll all chip in $20 and get your parents a limo!”
Well, they did get killed without me. But the stats say they played well. We probably would have won a couple more games if I’d been there, but nothing too dramatic.
Final score: a 10-3 loss.
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We made up our missed match against Casey’s RBs the following night. Some very good players on this team, and there was no fighting at all, which was great. Lousy place to throw though, with oblivious people ramming into you all the time.
Final score: an 8-5 loss.
See? I make about a two-game difference. No more whining if I can’t play!
Sorry for the brevity–just got the stats and standings this afternoon and this was my first chance to post. The figures do not include Wednesday’s match, so when they come out later this week, they’ll be for two matches.
Tomorrow’s match is against the Dart Fellas. They’re the one team in this division that we played against last year, and we did pretty well against them when we were at full strength. I’d like to get back to .500, but that probably won’t be possible to do in one match. Let’s shoot for a 8-5 win.
Okay, I’ve updated the schedule above. Last week’s match will be made up on Wednesday.
I’ll be able to make it to that one, but unfortunately I’ve got to pick up my parents at the airport on Tuesday night, so I’ll be missing Tuesday’s match. I hope someone will fill me in as to how it went.
Sorry this is a little late: my “time for thinking about darts” allotment has been spent trying to reschedule next week’s match. The other team can’t make it Tuesday, and it can be really difficult finding a new date for eight people without getting them all together on a conference call. Right now the only thing I know is that it won’t be on Tuesday. I’ll update when I know more.
As for last Tuesday, I’ll just say this: we started out like gangbusters and then fizzled. That was disappointing. We began 4-0 in our first round of 501, and then only won three out of the last nine games. I’d say it was overconfidence, but that’s probably giving Office Cafe too little credit. They stepped up their game, and we didn’t. One thing I hope didn’t contribute was our opposition’s style of play in cricket.
“Point-whoring,” as it’s called, is a difficult thing to define, but you know it when you see it. Almost every cricket game involves some scoring of points, but sometimes a team with a nice lead doesn’t go for the win when they have the chance, but instead tries to run up the score. This can be because they don’t have the confidence that they’ll be able to hit bullseyes, or it could be an attempt to humiliate and demoralize the opposition. I have no idea which reason the Office Cafe had, but it was definitely irksome. I just continued to play my game and not try to “get even” with them (except for winning games, of course). I hope it didn’t throw off my teammates, though. Angry darts aren’t good darts, usually.
Anyway, despite their style of play I spoke with a couple of the guys on the other team and they seemed to be decent enough gents. If I had to guess at their motivation, it’d be that we were leading 4-0 (and I’m pretty sure we won the first cricket game so make that 5-0) and were desperate to ensure that they won a few games. Running up the score in that situation is not unforgivable.
This week’s ridiculous glitch: the rules for the 701 game were changed without notice. The way bullseyes were scored differed both from all previous 701 games, and from the 501 games in the same match. In an email the next day, the league office promised this would be fixed for next time. I wonder what bug will emerge to replace it? Two darts per turn?
Final score, a 7-6 win.
Our next scheduled match is against Casey’s RBs, but we don’t know when that will happen yet. They’re one of the best teams in this division, and we haven’t had a lot of success against them in the past. We did have a fracas at their place last time we were in their division, which is still the most bizarre evening I’ve ever had playing darts. It was a real dust-up with everyone screaming in each others’ faces. We’ve interacted several times since then and everything seems fine. I mention it not to stoke up my troops (angry darts aren’t good darts!) but more in the “Remember that night? That was something, huh?” vein.
Against them, if we walk away with another 7-6 win, I’m happy.
I’m glad we got this match over with right away, because Brennan’s is the place I dread playing in most. Nothing to do with the team, the staff, or the clientele, but with the space. It’s such a tiny restaurant that there really is no place for everybody to stand. The poor waitress is saying “excuse me” every ten seconds and we’re all shuffling around trying to make room. Also, when you’re throwing, there’s a big television screen right at eye level about three feet in front of you and slightly to the right, and that can be distracting, too.
They have two very good players, John and Zbiegnew (call him ZB!) and they made the match very interesting, in the swearing sense. Nice bunch of guys, though.
The big news for this match was the change in format. In the however many years we’ve been playing, the games have been set up 4-4-4-1 (four 501, four cricket, four 501, and a 701 game). Now, with no notice aside from an email sent the afternoon of the match it’s been changed. Now it’s 6-6-1. Two things about this: first, cricket games take longer to play, so now our matches will last longer. It’s a late night already. Second, whenever we’ve practiced this summer, we’ve spent twice as long on our 501 games because they’re twice as important. Third (I’m adding a third) team captains weren’t consulted about this. When you’re making a fundamental change to the way matches are conducted, why not get everyone to buy into it? My vote would have been against this, but if that’s what everyone else wanted, I’d try to be gracious about it. This way, there’s just resentment–and our team isn’t alone in this. Our opponents on Tuesday were none too happy, either.
Now, get a load of this: Since we now play six games of cricket in a match, each player plays three games. So you’d think that I would play one game with Vulture, one game with Meister, and one game with Rook, right? I played all three games with Vulture. I can’t even fathom that. Look at the stats for cricket, and guess how we did in our cricket games when Meister and Rook played all three games together. (No offense to either of them, but they were lousy in cricket. And I firmly believe they were that bad because they kept getting matched up with each other, and each of them felt the extra pressure of having to be great to pick their teammate up.) There’s a reason why the partners should be switched up, and it’s so no one player is continually dragged down when his partner is having a rough night. I have to hope this is a glitch in the new system and won’t be repeated, but I’ll be emailing the head of our league to make sure.
Okay, enough of my whining.
Final score, a 7-6 win.
Next week we play the Office Cafe for the first time, so who knows what to expect. This is a much harder bunch of teams we’re playing against than last year, so the fact that they’re 5-8 means exactly nothing.
Falling Awake 