Grand Slam Night 6

Posted: 18.11.11 in Tournament Analysis Blog category

Who do you think we will feature today? Yes The Count of course! We do have airline pilots, gamesmanship, tactics and a 170 checkout update too!

The Count

It was another fascinating night of darts last night and the highlight in terms of incident, drama and issues worth discussing was of course the Ted Hankey V Michael Van Gerwen game. Setting aside the hilarious pantomime act of Hankey and the fine riposte to this of aggressive but controlled darts play by the young Dutch star there were other areas of interest too.

Gamesmanship

Ted was going to slow Michael down according to “The Power”. He`s wrong retorted Ted, “I think I may try and speed Michael up, that will confuse him” was the response from Hankey, albeit with a wry scowl on his face.

The speeding up and slowing down of an opponent can spark furious debate in the darts world. There are the anti-gamesmanship group who despise it and there is also the contingent who feel it is all part of the game. Darts is renowned for its sportsmanship, just watch the Walsh/Winstanley match for an example to underpin that argument. This is probably the key issue with the anti- gamesmanship group. They see the deliberate attempt to sabotage the skills of another player as a force of evil against the unwritten moral code that all dart players are aware of.  Even if they don’t all stick to the “rules”.

However, in the actual laws or rules of darts there is no time limit for how long a player has to throw, so why shouldn’t a player take as long as they like to throw or retrieve their darts? Moreover, what other sport would players be actively encouraged to assist the opposition by applying tactics or a style of play that suits or assists “the enemy”? Surely a player should be free to select at what pace he fulfils his throwing obligations and until the rules change dish out a “Hankeyesque” salute and scowl to anyone saying any different.

Deal With It

Van Gerwen was ready for these tactics, however. He had been explaining how he was going to cope with Ted slowing things down over a game of pool with Sky commentator Wayne Mardle during the afternoon before the game. Michael set his stall out to wait for Hankey to retrieve his darts and start off back to his mark before stepping up to the oche to throw. He did admit to Wayne that he wasn’t sure if it would work for him but he was going to stick to it.

Just one thought. Instead of whiling away a few hours on the pool table shouldn’t he have asked Wayne to play the part of Ted Hankey and been on the practice board whilst Wayne mimicked Hankey`s expected tactics? I take my hat off to Van Gerwen for having a plan but like practising hitting the double and the treble tactics can be part of a practice schedule too.

Remember the Rules

The worst case scenario of this feeling of goodwill to all dart players is something I have encountered a few times now. Players admit they do not feel 100% ready to throw but feel pressurised by the unwritten rules of conduct on the oche and chuck anyway.

Getting prepared to throw is a big part of the foundations of building a repeatable technique that we promote on our website. We use the example of a captain preparing for take-off to demonstrate all the check points a dart player needs to ensure are all 100% right before releasing the dart. You wouldn’t want to be on a plane that takes off with only one engine running would you?

170 Checkouts

We started a debate yesterday on whether sabotaging the opportunity to add 60 to your score but risking landing on a bogey number (168) is better than landing on a 170 finish. You can vote here.

I did promise the second stage of this debate today but Ted has put pay to that and I have run out of space. In the meantime everyone that has voted can you pop back and let me know how long you have been playing for and how many 170 checkouts you have hit?

Watch this space for section 2 of the checkout debate! 

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