Problems With Points.

There is not much you can do about bounce outs on a dart board and we all seem to be plagued by spells of them at whatever level that we play. Players blame the wires on the boards with some saying that the traditional round wires are the worst and others say that the newer “Diamond Wire,” boards, that were supposed to be better, are in fact worse. (See Previous Article.) Even the big B.D.O. competitions seem to have their problems. Last year it was the wires and bounce outs, but this year in the opening rounds of the 2014 B.D.O. Championship at Lakeside, the equally ranked Englishman Paul Jennings, who played the young Dutchman, Wesley Harms, still had more than his fair share of problems. In the first rounds it was the best of 5 sets that were each the best of 5 legs. Wesley was hot on his finishing and Paul kept dropping in the big scores, or at least he would have done if his darts hadn’t kept falling out. Paul only actually scored 3 x 180’s, but would have scored 5 if he hadn’t had 6 treble twenty drop outs. In one instance two treble twenties dropped out from his 180 score in one throw! His darts were landing in the treble twenties with the camera giving a clear shot of his score until the darts were just falling out.

No one could blame the wires for Paul’s darts coming out and the boards are always brand new for the big competitions. An old, dried up, hard matchboard can cause drop outs, but it just doesn’t happen with new boards, so it could only be down to his darts and the points. Ordinary League players who don’t look after their darts often develop this problem of drop outs after years of playing with the same darts. What happens is that the points tend to get blunt and shorter with constant use so that the darts don’t penetrate the board resulting in the need to replace the points. Not only do short points need replacing for the players benefit, but short, or blunt points will damage the board as the bristles get flattened instead of being separated by a long, sharp point. If the darts are thrown hard enough to stick in, very short points can even result in the barrel of the dart hitting the board which really does do some damage.

New points for darts are very cheap to buy, but not easy to fit properly. Not only is it difficult to remove the old ones, but it is also difficult to get the new ones to stay in after fitting. Many is the player who has changed his points and then thrown at the board before pulling his darts out and leaving the points firmly in the board!

Occasionally you will come across a player who has developed the knack of fitting them properly, but for those that want it there is a Website that specialises in point replacement. After you have had new points fitted it is a good idea to rough them up a little bit with a stone as otherwise, darts with new points can simply slide out of the board if they are not thrown hard enough. This can actually happen with brand new darts as well. However, don’t rough the points up too much as you won’t be able to pull the darts out of the board at all!