The UK Open Day 3

Posted: 04.06.11 in Tournament Analysis Blog category

An amazing day and night at the darts on Twitter!

Welcome to the Darts Performance Centre Darts Blog

Thanks for the Tweets

I spent most of yesterday travelling back from the Reebok and then heading to another sporting venue, Wembley. A fantastic sporting few days for me. This did mean of course I missed most of the darting action! However, there is a prolific amount of tweeters willing to take their eye off the action for a moment to keep train bound fans like me up to date. A big thanks to the darts tweeters I follow @dartsbeersandcheers, @thecrack and @dartsmadlee to name a few! Cheers from @dartscentre

Play the Man

I did catch the interview with Paul Nicholson. His “bad boy” image goes out of the window during interviews. He is obviously intelligent and a deep thinker about his darts and reports his post match reflection most articulately.

He put his win over “The Power” and Gary Anderson down to having the mental edge when it came to the last leg shoot-out. “You have to play the man as well as the board” he suggested. Any of our regular blog readers may think this advice conflicts with our advice on day one of this tournament.

We suggested to the qualifiers “Play the board? Play the man? Why not just play darts?” The advice we dispensed was essentially for any of the qualifiers to keep it simple. There was no mileage in them trying to out-smart the Pro’s with any gamesmanship.

However, when the players have more experience and the stakes are higher and their ability is too close to call, the mental attitude and maybe how any “gamesmanship” is employed can be the difference between watching the quarter finals on the sofa at home and stepping on the oche at the Reebok today!

“I got in his head,” “The Asset” suggested referring to his game with Phil Taylor. He did, or as Vince Lombardi, the greatest American Football coach ever would have said (with a little paraphrasing):

“You never win a game unless you beat the guy in front of you. The averages don’t mean a thing. That’s for the fans. You’ve got to win the war with the man you are playing. You’ve got to get your man!”

If Lombardi had been coaching Paul Nicholson yesterday he would have been impressed with how “his plan” had been executed by “The Asset”.