Dart Rules, The Basics

These are the basics you should know to play the game of darts. They are mostly pretty obvious and are common to all the major darts organizations. If you need greater details just go to the respective darts organization for your country, but the BDO (British Darts Organization) is the granddaddy of them all.

No Joke, you can have 12 inch long darts if you want, the rules give 12 inches as the maximum size of a dart! Not that I've never seen any that length for sale, and the maximum weight is 50 grams. Usually, soft tip darts are in the range of 14 to 20 grams, and steel tip darts range from 18 to 26 grams, although there are heavier darts on sale.

The dreaded Bounce out rule:

The rule is that all bounce outs do not count towards your score and NO you cannot have another throw. Not only that, but if the dart falls out before the score has been taken it does not count either. I suggest you throw your darts harder if you keep suffering from this rule.

The toe line or throw line is 7 ft 9 1/4 inches from the dartboard: now where did that come from? But you can lean over as far as you like providing your feet are behind that throw line or toe line as it is sometimes called.

The dartboard height is 1.73 metres or 5 foot 8 inches to the centre of the bull

When a dart hits the board, the score is determined by the wire not the color of the segment. The dart has to land inside the segment determined by the wire surrounding the number. If you hit the green of the triple but the dart point is outside the triple wire the score is only a single.

The darts must be thrown point first one at a time at the board and in the '01 games the score is taken away from the previous score until the score is zero. You have to throw a double for your final dart. As a double is required to finish a game, so your score must 40 or less and an even number to be able to throw a winning dart.

There are other '01 type games that require you to start on a double as well, in fact there is a televised tournament that has a double to start rule as well as a double to finish rule. The World Grand Prix uses that rule.

And don't forget the Bust rule, if you get one more or one less than you need to go out, the score is voided and your score remains the same as when you started the throw. Needless to say, you are considered to be 'bust' if you get down to score of 1 as well, because there would be no double to go for .

Also note the score must be decided upon BEFORE the darts are pulled out of the board.

Some of the more interesting rules

During match play, any Players using offensive language or deemed to be "mouthing" any offensive language or seen to be making offensive gestures shall be deemed to have brought the Sport of Darts into disrepute and shall become liable to Disciplinary Proceedings being taken against them by the DRA.

And From the ADO

At the tournament director's discretion, women may be recycled in mixed doubles and triples events only. (Golly, I'm sure the women are delighted!)

These dart rules brought to you by Steve Porter, a keen darter. Despite frequent practice in many bars and pubs, never made professional status.

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