Darts Discussion Thread

[heywoodu 15,124]

Meh, Gurney and his annoying act through to the final, Henderson is out  

 

[MHSN 3,613]

17 hours ago, heywoodu said:

In Iran you mean? Cool that there's a lot of tournaments there, the Dutch commentators were briefly talking about that they're working hard especially on the junior's side to get some good level there  

 

It would definitely be nice to actually see some Iranian(s) on the major tournaments now and then, even if it's 'just' at the BDO (the low level professionals and the arch enemy federation of the PDC, which is where all the good stuff is). Every time a new country pops up that gets a +1 from me  

 

no I mean in general, as you said there are more than "one world championship" in this sport.

 

I'm not sure if they are working hard, I can compare it to something like snooker, while there was no proper organization for Snooker (and now Darts) the younger generation developed the sport. even though Dart is even much easier than Snooker to play.

[heywoodu 15,124]

8 hours ago, MHSN said:

 

no I mean in general, as you said there are more than "one world championship" in this sport.

 

 

Oh yeah, well that's actually not so difficult  

 

Once upon a time, there was a big darts family, the BDO (British Darts Organization). Then there was a fight about money and stuff (what else is new), and a handful of players (including now legend Phil Taylor) broke off and formed the PDC (Professional Darts Corporation). For quite a while, the PDC was more obscure and, apart from Taylor, the BDO had the best players. This, however, changed, and more and more players switched to the PDC simply because there's a whole lot more money to be made there. 

 

Especially since 10-15 years there has been a mass exodus from the BDO to the PDC, resulting in now basically all of the world's best players playing in the PDC, their tournaments being shown on TV and the BDO being the obscure one. BDO has the Lakeside (formerly known as The Embassy) as it's world championship, the PDC has the, well, World Championship as it's world championship.

 

The level in the BDO is way lower nowadays and maybe 1-2 of their players would have a shot at being a top-20 player in the PDC. Also, whenever someone in the BDO is playing well, the rumours about him switching to the PDC start and in some cases turn out to be true. The advantage of the BDO is seeing players from more countries, the big disadvantage is that quite often these players bring a level that, for someone who is used to the PDC, is almost painful to watch (imagine watching Diamond League athletics all the time and then watching national events with 100m being run in barely under 11 seconds by the men). 

 

WDF is the darts federation that's part of SportAccord (or whatever it's current name is, GAISF?), but doesn't have their 'own players' like the BDO and PDC. Mostly it's BDO players in their tournaments because PDC players are busy with serious stuff (like the World Grand Prix of this week), but I do think PDC players are welcome as well (two Russians who played in the WDF World Cup this week are PDC players). 

 

So, in very short: 

- PDC and BDO are arch enemies

- PDC is the top level, this is where the action's at

- BDO has a way lower level, but does have some more attention to women's darts (PDC has no women's tournaments) and to youth development (PDC does have a Youth Tour, but only for the best of the best, BDO is more about 'spreading the sport')

- WDF is the body that, if darts would ever be Olympics, would probably represent them at SportAccord/GAISF/IOC etc

 

Fun fact:

Every year there is the Grand Slam of Darts. The best PDC players in their ranking + finalists and winners of majors play against 8 BDO players (finalists/winners of majors and so on), which leads to some always interesting direct PDC-BDO matchups, outside of this event rather rare/non-existent. 

[heywoodu 15,124]

Let's go Whitlock

[Federer91 2,788]

I like Gurney, think it is time for a new youngster to win a big title! 

[heywoodu 15,124]

Asswhipe Gurney has received an official warning for a push towards Whitlock (who seemed less than impressed  ). Now even the fans who have been cheering for Gurney all week don't like him anyway.

[heywoodu 15,124]

1 hour ago, Federer91 said:

I like Gurney, think it is time for a new youngster to win a big title! 

Yep, but any other youngster (not being Corey Cadby for crying out loud) than the incredibly annoying, "look at me, I'm so awesome"-type Gurney, please  

[heywoodu 15,124]

Gurney is, as far as I know, the first player about who an entire Dutch forum agrees (in this case, he's an insanely annoying prick), that's so rare it really means something  

[heywoodu 15,124]

Daryl Gurney and his over-the-top annoying act take the win, now it's time to hope this big win and the extra pressure and expectation that comes with it will be too much for him and we won't see much of him from now on. I doubt it though.

[heywoodu 15,124]

Tickets for the Premier League in Rotterdam in April went on sale today......all 10.000 tickets were sold out

 

Spoiler

in 5 minutes 

 

Even 3 minutes faster than last year's record