Week 3
This week marks the beginning of players’ performance tracking on Darts Atlas. Using the free web-based application players can practice alone or with a friend to see where you rank in the Junior Darts Corporation ranking system.
Watch
MvG takes on defending champion “The Asp” Nathan Aspinall at the UK Open in Minehead, UK. As you’ll see, this one-of-a-kind event offers fans the opportunity to watch their favorite players up-close on one of the floor boards around the venue. Though the World Championships at the Ally Pally is the traditional “bucket-list” tournament for darts fans, some of the most passionate fans will tell you the UK Open at Red’s is the superior event.
Learn
How do pros become pros? Read on to learn more about the path to becoming a professional darts player.
Earning a Tour Card
The first, last, and only step in becoming a PDC professional is earning a tour card. This is most commonly done at Qualifying School (aka QSchool), a 4-day series of tournaments in which players compete to earn one of a limited number of available 2-year tour cards. Anyone may enter QSchool so long as they pay the admission fee, which provides them access to all 4 tournaments. Each tournament’s finalist receives a tour card, for 8 auto-awarded tour cards in total. The remaining available tour cards are offered to players based on their position on the QSchool Order of Merit.
Amateur Darts
The PDC offers two amateur alternatives to the Pro Tour: The Challenge Tour (for rising professionals who did not earn tour cards), and the Development Tour (for 16- to 23-year-old aspiring professionals). Both tours are hosted exclusively in the UK.
After the split in darts, the BDO became widely regarded as the worldwide amateur alternative to the PDC, though the BDO always insisted that they were a professional body on similar footing as the PDC. In recent months the future of the BDO has been brought into questions due to financial mismanagement and a loss of reputation among its top players. It’s a very interesting time in world darts!
Local Darts
Local darts are traditionally played amongst opposing teams, typically representing a county or other geographic region. The classic regional league format is called Super League, and consists of matches amongst opposing teams where opposing members compete in singles 501 matches, earning points for their team for a win or draw. Other local formats may include doubles, triples, or quads matches, the addition of cricket and x01 variants, and other scoring nuances based on the regional preferences and customs.
Let us know if you’d like to set up a local league in your community!