All About Darts

There are many variations of the game of darts. The one that you're more likely to see the professional's playing however, is 501. Each game of 501 is called a 'leg.'

First of all, the board should be set up so that the bullseye is 5 feet 8" from the ground and you should throw from 7 feet 9.25"

Each player starts on a score of 501, on each visit, you throw 3 darts at the board. The object of the game is to be the first one to get down to zero. In order to win the leg though, you have to throw a double(or the bullseye) with your last dart to: 'check out.'
For example, if you had got down to a score of 57, you can't just go: 20,20,17 and end the leg. You would have to go: 17, double 20. Or any other way as long as the final dart is a doube and is equal to your remaining score.

The Dart board is numbered 1-20(although not in order.)
The round section in the centre of the board is called the 'bullseye' and is worth 50 points, the outer ring of the bullseye is worth 25 points.
All the other sections of the board are worth the number it says on the outside of the bored. Unless you hit the smaller sections that are a different colour to the main segment. The different coloured section in the centre of the segments is the treble area, whereas the ssections that run round the outside of the board are the doubles.

I'm not going to go in to too much detail on this matter as it has been done to death elsewhere on the web!

The basics are: The top players in the game weren't happy as there was only 2 televised events a year. So they started their own tournaments. All the top 16 and all the past champions joined the 'WDC' (now PDC)

Since 1994, there has actually been 2 seperate tournaments, one held by the PDC and one by the BDO (established in 1973), both calling themselves the Professional World Darts championship!

To confuse matters even further, they are both held at roughly the same time.
The PDC championships is now widely thought to be the higher standard of the two as in recent times, due to the much higher prize money available in the PDC, the best BDO players have tended to move over after having some success in the BDO system.
This has just recently happened again, as the number 1 and 2 ranked players in the BDO (Gary Anderson and Mark Webster) have left for the PDC as of february 2009.

Find more info on the split on Wikipedia by following this link: Split in Darts

The Origins of Darts:

The origins of the game of darts in England can never be firmy established but it's believed to date back to at least the Middle Ages.
It seems that bored soldiers took to hurling arrows at the upturned covers of wine barrels, perhaps seeing who could come closest to the cork bung.

As the pastime grew in popularity, some bright soul decided that a cross-section of a tree would offer a better target. The natural growth rings of the tree provided a built-in means of determining who was closest to the centre, and as the tree dried out, the cracks provided radial divisions within the target (the current system of numbers was standardized around 1900).

When winter came and the soldiers spent more time inside, they couldn't hurl full-sized arrows about, so shortened versions of the arrows were used.

So popular did the new game become during the medieval period that it was taken up by nobility; in 1530 Anne Boleyn presented Henry VIII with a set of ornamented darts.

Phil Taylor, known as 'The Power' is simply the greatest darts player of all time. There's not many people who watch the game that would disagree.
He is the current PDC World champion, beating Raymond Van Barneveld in the final to become world champion for an amazing 14th time!
He has won 2 BDO titles before the split and an amazing 12 PDC titles.

The PDC Championships has only been played for the last 15 years, with Phil winning it 12 times and only once has there been a final without Taylor in it.
That was in 2008, when Canadian, John Part took the title, beating shock finalist Kirk Shepard.

Phil Taylor is the biggest winner in the sports history.
It's not just the World Championship. He's won the lot! It's a shock when he even loses a match.
I read recently on the Planet Darts Website, that Phil had won 207 out of his last 217 matches, drawing 3(in the premier league, where draws are a possibilty) and lost just 7.

I couldn't possibly list all the titles this man has won. I suggest looking at his Wikipedia Page if you want to see a full list of achievements.

Phil Taylor was the first man to become a millionaire from playing darts.
In fact he is almost certainly a millionaire several times over due to his sheer dominance of the big events plus his sponsorship deals.

He's also had the most televised 'perfect legs.' Also known as 9 darters or 9-dart finishes.
He currently has 6 of them.
A perfect leg is where you go from 501 to checking out with a double in just 9 darts. The lowest amount possible.
They usually start with two 180's, then a 141 checkout. See the video below to see one of The Power's 9 dart finishes.