How far back does your oche need to be from your board?  This is a common question I’ve googled many times after moving my board around the house.  Even after knowing how far the throw-line should be, it would sometimes be difficult to measure because of obstructions, and second guessing myself like “should I account for the 2 inches the board protrudes from the wall?”.

Purchase an Oche Viper Dart Throw/Toe Line Floor Marker: The Bull Starts Here (Steel/Soft Tip Darts)

An $8 USD purchase enabled me to be confident in the accuracy of my throw-line.  I invested in “The Oche-Tape” made by Target Darts.  It will work for both soft-tip and steel-tip setups.  My throw line ain’t pretty, it’s just a piece of masking tape on the floor, but most importantly it’s the correct distance.

So how does it work?  If you all remember high-school geometry there’s something called the Pythagorean theorem.  Think of a right triangle, where the wall is the A side of the triangle, the floor is B side of the triangle, and your oche-tape will be the hypotenuse.

The image below is courtesy of dartbrokers.com (I borrowed without asking, is that considered stealing?)

1. You stick the dart or tip in a hole on the oche-tape
2. Pin it into your center bull
3. Measure diagonally to the floor, and that’s where you throw-line aka oche should be

Make sure the height of your board is correct since your throw line will be based off of that.

The product is straight forward and a no brains solution to making sure you’re consistent with your throw distance.  I’ve entertained the idea of bringing it with me to the bar to double check their lines.