Grand Slam Night 3

Posted: 15.11.11 in Tournament Analysis Blog category

What are the odds on that? We look at playing smart and tell you about what we desire in a dart player!

Paul Nicholson – He Is A Bad Boy

Paul Nicholson got told off last night. Rodders and his co-commentator chastised “Nico” for not taking on the bullseye to close out a leg in his game against Newton. Nicholson instead assessed the state of play. Wes Newton was on 134 so Nicholson decided to play safe or as I would prefer to look at it, play smart. Playing the percentages is another way of looking at it. Paul left himself on 16, three clear darts at double 8 as opposed to two darts if he had gone for the bull and missed.

This was too much for the commentary box. Rodders heaped anxiety on all “Nico” fans by discussing the risk in this strategy. He started reminiscing about a similar scenario when Eric Bristow left a 138 finish for Keith Deller who hit it to become World Champion. Mind you this was 28 years ago! History was on the side of Nicholson.  Rodders' co-commentator was equally as baffled but should they both have been?  Rodders was on the right track, probability of events happening can be calculated using a touch of historical research.

Before Nicholson and Newton had clambered onto the stage there had already been 41 legs of darts, highest checkout 120. The previous day there were 120 legs and Anderson did take out a 138 finish. So in total just once in 161 legs was the feat of a 134 + achieved. The night before there were nearly 60 legs with only Wade breaking the 134 barrier.

My final piece of university work focused on the areas of performance that can have an impact on winning or losing darts matches. In the near 70 matches I analysed from the World Championships there were only around 15 instances of the 134 barrier being breached during the whole of the tournament. The most surprising aspect for me linked to finishing is that in general sub 80 is by far the most common outshot. The big outshots stick in our mind, partly because they are not as common as we think they are!

Decision making has a big impact on success in sport. Paul Nicholson demonstrated last night that he can weigh up a situation, calculate the odds accordingly and act. Ironically he missed the double 8 and The Warrior pinched the leg. The Sky team did concede that Nicholson does likes to do things his own way.

His ability to compute under pressure may turn out to be one of Nicholson’s greatest assets!

A Dart Player Named Desire

I enjoy watching the darts these days with one eye on Twitter. It can be distracting but the #dartsfamily are an eclectic mix of darts fans and for me it adds to the enjoyment of following the action.

One of my tweeting pals @thecritcher remarked on the state of mind of Barney and The Bull (before his renaissance against Dave Chisnall). What part of the winning formula was missing from these two great players was in essence the answer Michelle was seeking.

One option I gave her was desire! We haven’t had any Vince Lombardi for a while. Here is what the greatest “football” coach of all time thought of the need for desire in creating a winning team or a winning mind:

“I would rather have a player with 50% ability and 100% desire because you know he is going to play every day. The guy with 100% ability and 50% desire can screw up your plan, one day he will be out there just waltzing around”.

My favourite, which I have tweaked a little perhaps best sums up the point I was trying to make. Read Vince’s quote and see who springs to mind?

“Desire is something inside a man that makes him determined that every one of the spectators will leave the tournament or switch off their televisions convinced they have seen the best dart player ever in action”.

Did “Barney” or “The Bull” leap to mind?

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