Tournament info:

• When: 8/20/2016
• Place: Ferdies
• Double Elminination – Quads
• Outcome: I think we finished 7th

I had an opportunity to play in what’s called “Match Madness”.  A monthly tournament, where each location put’s together a team of 4, to battle it out for the trophy (and some money).  The winning team takes home the trophy and get’s their location name engraved on it.

This is the 2nd opportunity I’ve had to play this tournament.  The first time was about 7 months ago, we traveled to the hosting bar which was across thew water.  I was very nervous, shaky hand darts, and overwhelmed by the entire experience.  This time around leading up the the tournament I was feeling good, I have progressed in darts, played more tournaments, and it was being hosted in my local location.   Then it was time to shoot, and it all came back, nerves, shaky hands, overthinking, which lead to some of the worst darts I’ve thrown in months.  There were stretches especially in the beginning where I couldn’t find the bull in 01.  It took me 2 entire matches to start feeling comfortable and to start throwing my darts.  I dropped a good half a point in my rating after this event.

Outside of not finding the bulls early, my lowlight was not being able to close out a 34 with 3 darts.   Ugghhh makes my stomach turn thinking about it.  In 01 our score is at 152, my teammate Nelson throws a bull, triple 17, almost closed it out but hits a single 17 to leave me a 34.  I step to the line, and this was the first time all night I had a chance to close, which got the nerves going again.  As I approach, our veteran leader says “two fat pie 17’s” and I think that’s where things go wrong.  I’m usually confident in my abilities to close out a 34, and personally I would go directly for the double, but when i’m told to go 2 fat pie 17’s by our #1 shooter who’s played darts a lot longer than I, I’ll tend to follow orders out of respect.  Throw the first dart…..3, and now i’m even feeling more nervous with a 31 and disgusted with my first dart, so now i’m not thinking straight and go for another 17 to leave me a 14…and I don’t know why I want to be left with a 14??  Second dart flies….bam….another 3, not looking good so now I’m left with a 28 and 1 dart in hand.  I don’t even remember my third dart, but I know I didn’t win that game, and our opponents did.

Each experience is an opportunity to learn so here are my takeaways:

• Quad’s is a different beast rhythm wise, you get around 9 darts a game.  Way different from doubles.  How can I get better at this?
• I need to do these tournaments more to get comfortable.  Being around different and great dart players can be intimidating.
• Be confident in my abilities, and throw “my darts”.  I need to just throw “my darts” the way I do at home, approach closing the numbers the way I feel confident, approach the cricket strategy the way I naturally do and think.  In short, less thinking, and like nike says Just Do It!