What major effects do the changes to the dartboard have on the game of darts?

In 1896, Brian Gamlin, a 44-year-old carpenter from Lancashire, England, divided a wooden dartboard into 20 equal parts and assigned scores to differentiate between the single, double, triple, inner, and outer bullseye of the circle, and this invention was the birthplace of modern darts.

 

The original version of the modern dartboard, the first major change.

 

The second major change to the modern dartboard is the change in the board's material: after the subdivisions were established and retained. The dartboard material itself quickly iterated from wood to flocking. However, as the level of darts improved, the durability of flocked dartboards was very poor.

 

Thus, the sisal board was born, which is still used today:

 

Simply put, sisal is a very tough hemp fiber, also known as pineapple hemp. The genus Agave from the Agavaceae family is a perennial tropical hard fiber plant, native to Mexico, and now mainly cultivated in Africa, Latin America, Asia, and other places, providing the world's largest amount of hard fibers.

 

Hemp from Kenya is generally best suited for making dartboards, Brazilian hemp is second best, and Chinese hemp is also grown in Hainan and other places. However, there are different qualities of hemp in each region, for example, a high quality of Brazilian hemp is not necessarily worse than a low quality of Kenyan hemp. This is a more complex dimension of the manufacturing field that will not be discussed here.

 

The manufacturing process of sisal targets can be simply summarized as straightening, cutting to length, reinforcing, and dyeing.

 

Its strength is its resistance to manufacturing. And it has a strong self-healing function. Unlike other targets, there is a crater after the point of impact. For beginners, a good sisal board can last for many years.

 

The third change, and a very significant one: process change

 

Let's look at a visual diagram: the PDC website, the link to the Nine Darts Club is: https://www.pdc.tv/players/pdc-nine-dart-club. If we take the number of PDC appearances in the Nine Darts Club over the years, we get a curve:

 

 

 

 

 

Did you know that the 9-dart frequency has exploded since 2008, even occurring 50 times in 2024? Is this because the overall skill level of professionals has increased since 2008?

 

Probably not.

 

Some of the nine-dart players we know are John Lowe, Paul Lim, Phil Taylor, Michael van Gerwen. They are known because they are so valuable.

 

Let's consider the dart player's skill as the software and the dartboard as the hardware. Has the overall level of software improved, and has the hardware improved?

 

Yes, of course.

 

The development of the modern dartboard processing method can generally be divided into three stages. The round wire stage, the triangular wire stage, the stage of the WINMAU Blade series, and the stage of the improved One80 knife net, which is now widely used. The round wire 20 equal dartboard, although not completely eliminated, has become almost invisible in the field of professional darts equipment. It is worth emphasizing that the Blade series from WINMAU is a subversive classic. It will be the knife series of the external rivet process, the innovation for the built-in inlay process. Take the knife series and make it a knife net.

 

By reducing the width (thickness) of the blade line to 1.5mm, the area of the triple zone has increased by 13% of its original size! This is the thickness of the generation of blade mesh. After the One80 improvements, the thickness of the blade mesh is 1mm, and the triple area now has a much larger incremental area.

 

 

We are now at a higher level of software and hardware. From the original round wire to the triangular wire targets and then to the current blade nets. Equipment innovation is a very important part of improving the level.

 

It is true that all hardware experiences are based on a certain level of technology to feel. My personal experience is that with the blade net, 99 darts hit, the average score can reach 140, while hitting the triangular line, the average score is about 120.

 

Advances in dartboard manufacturing have led to the games of top players becoming increasingly heated, confrontational, accident-prone, and more fun to watch.