Press Release - Las Vegas Open

Let's really get behind this and give it all of our support!

For Immediate Release


Downey, CA
November 28, 2006



New Venue for 2006 Las Vegas Open


The 28th annual Las Vegas Open Darts Tournament WILL be staged January 27 - 29, 2006, in the Stations Sports Complex, on the grounds of the Palace Station Hotel & Casino, 2411 West Sahara Avenue, Las Vegas, NV 89102.


A limited block of newly renovated rooms has been reserved, January 26 thru January 29. Rates will range from $59 to $85 / night, plus tax and hotel service fee. Beginning on Thursday, December 1st, players may call 1-800-634-3101. Ask for "Special Darters' Rates" or use the Reservation ID: PCIDART. These rates will also apply to those wishing to extend their stay, provided there are rooms available, and you request the special rate.

This WDF Ranked, ADO Sanctioned event will be presented by DMI Darts, under the direction of Triple Crown Productions. All matches will be played on the popular 'BANDIT' boards, being supplied by PUMA Darts. The US$20,010 Prize Structure and Event Schedule will remain unchanged from prior years.


A brochure, with complete tournament information, is currently being designed. When completed, it will be distributed through e-mail, darts related websites, tournaments and dart shops. In addition, a mass mailing will go to past participants.


Plan now to come to Las Vegas, January 27 - 29, 2006. Lots of great food, fun and excitement await you, at the Palace Station --- the new home of the Las Vegas Open. See you there!!



Della A. Fleetwood, Owner / Director
TRIPLE CROWN PRODUCTIONS
10710 Richeon Avenue
Phone: 562-927-8995
Fax: 562-927-6558
E-Mail: dellafleetwood@yahoo.com

DartPro Software update

DartPro Home (free download):
"DartPro is a program that will help you improve your game of darts. If you practice at home, DartPro can help you to keep track of your scores by saving them in a database. How is that going to improve your game? Because every time you play a game, you'll see your grand average of played games right in front of you, and you'll want to do better than yesterday, or last week, so you're trying harder. In a way, you're throwing against yourself. Believe me: it works! You will see how you improve your game over a period of time with absolute certainty instead of guessing. You can visualize your data in charts to see what part of your game needs improvement. Charts are always a big help in making data more readable.

.....


25-11-2005 - DartPro 2.7.1.0 is released

New in this release is a much requested improved support for sounds. After my request to you about a new set of (quality) sounds I've received a couple of sets, but I didn't get one that totally fit the bill. So I decided I could just as easily build support for sounds into the program and let you import the sounds you want to use yourselves. What is improved is that now all scores from 1 to 180 are supported instead of just the most common scores like 3, 26, 30, 41 etc. So what you can do now is copy your favorite set of sounds to the Media folder in the installation folder, and you're good to go. You can also import them through the File|Import Sounds menu in DartPro. You are then presented with a dialog to browse to a folder that holds your new set and DartPro will import them for you. The supported file type is .wav. There's no support for .mp3 (yet). The naming convention is as follows: for scores use 001.wav, 002.wav, 003.wav ... 180.wav. If you have files named 1.wav, 2.wav, 3.wav etc. DartPro will rename them for you.
There are 2 Game calls: gameshot.wav and gameon.wav. Make sure yours are named the same way or DartPro won't recognize them.

There's one Fix in this release: you can no longer enter bogus values like 159, 162, 163, 166 etc.

Have fun enjoying your new sounds! "

Drug Testing in Darts

: "Darts Regulation Authority

An important announcement to all players who participate in competitions conducted under DRA Sanction

The DRA are pleased to announce that, after lengthy negotiation with UK Sport, the terms of drug resting regulations (called the “Anti-Doping Rules”) have now been agreed.

Drug testing will take place at tournament venues on an entirely random basis and will be conducted by authorised officers from UK Sport.
...

Alcohol, although included on the WADA banned substances list for certain sports is not prohibited in the sport of darts and testing will not take place for this substance. "

Las Vegas Open every year is now gone! Maybe not!

I recently posted "What will become of the Las Vegas Open"
But not so fast! It looks like a new venue is in the works as we speak....


Yes, the Westward Ho has closed. While they NEVER sponsored the event, we will miss all that the hotel did to make darters comfortable during the Las Vegas Open. Since receiving word of the hotel sale, in late Sept., I have been searching for a suitable, affordable venue in Las Vegas.........with ballroom space available on January 27 - 29, 2006.

I hope to sign a contract, by the end of this week, with the Palace Station Hotel & Casino.......to stage the 2006 event in their new Sports Complex. As soon as the contract is signed, I will do an immediate Press Release, which will appear on the ADO and WDF websites. In addition, I will go to press with tournament flyers, which will be mailed to past participants, for whom we have a current address.

Please do NOT start calling the Palace Station for hotel rooms, yet. Once the contract is signed, a Darters' Rate Reservation Code will be made available and will be included in all tournament publicity.

I am sorry that players may have assumed this would be the end of the Las Vegas Open. It has been VERY difficult to find a new location, with only 3-4 months notice. Affordable ballroom space is at a premium, these days, in Las Vegas!!!

As one of the few large steel-tip events remaining, in the Western U.S., I feel an obligation to keep the event running, at least for the next few years. I will need as much player support, as possible, to "break even", this year --- but, if it goes well, I hope to be able to negotiate a better deal for 2007.

Thank you for spreading the word that the Las Vegas Open will still be played, January 27 - 28- 29, 2006. If you wish further tournament information, via e-mail, please contact me at: dellafleetwood@yahoo.com

Sincerely,
Della A. Fleetwood, Owner/Director
TRIPLE CROWN PRODUCTIONS

Let's all do our best to support The Las Vegas Open!

World Series of Darts gets more news coverage - The Waterloo Cedar-Falls Courier Online!

Full article link: "Michael Davies, a producer who brought “Who Wants to Be Millionaire” to America.

...has signed on with ESPN to broadcast a darts championship as a World Series of Darts next summer. He says the game fits in with national pop culture, sports and regular lives."

Santa Cruz County Darts Association - Don Wilson

Link to the full response...

I'm wondering if the word "reality" is getting in the way here. As I see it the the tourney's would be no different than any other sport that is showcased for TV such as bowling and the World Poker Tour.


Darts & Reality Television

We at the S.C.C.D.A. have received a few e-mails concerning Don Wilson’s (a member of our organization) editorial comments concerning ESPN’s decision to create a reality show based on the game of darts. We have been asked to respond to the article published in the Santa Cruz Sentinel on Sunday, November 13th.
As a member of the human race, a citizen of the United States, a member of the S.C.C.D.A. and a free person, Mr. Wilson has the right to his own viewpoint and to have it heard. We of the S.C.C.D.A. do not consider it our right or our duty to hinder the free thinking spirit of our members or anyone else.
We have been asked to distance ourselves from Don Wilson and his ‘one-sided’ comments. Mr. Wilson is a League member and also a friend, so we will not ‘leave him out in the cold’, so to speak.

courant.com: Go For The Bull's-Eye - editorial

November 20 2005

If people will watch fishing, auto racing, bowling and poker on television, they are sure to watch darts, and this presents an opportunity for Connecticut.
...

Now's the time for the state's crack economic development team to swing into action to be sure the "World Series of Darts" lands at either Foxwoods or Mohegan Sun. Once the tournament has been secured, let's have some fun and celebrate the Connecticut darts scene. "

Link to the full article

Dartoids World - on the World Series of Darts

"The World Series of Darts -- DETAILS!
# 201 11/11/2005



When we last left our discussion of the World Series of Darts the line between rumor and fact was about the width of the wire separating the little bitty triple twenty from the big fat triple one. Which reminds me: WHY exactly IS the triple one bigger than the triple twenty? This is wrong and should be changed!



But now, the wire is as thick as New Jersey’s Howie Dirk’s belly was before he got married and started doing crunches to become the slimmed down Adonis of a man he is today. He’d look wonderful on bar television screens across America, if only he could throw a dart.



Here are the FACTS as they stand on November 11, 2005.



This is a Professional Darts Corporation (PDC) event. "

Follow this link for the full article:

World Series of Darts - Don Wilson throws down....

First off let me say that I could not dissagree more strongly with his opinion!

November 13, 2005

Dart games on reality TV miss the mark, by a longshot

I would like to offer an argument against a dart tournament as Reality TV to succeed the World Series of Poker.

Joe Rhodes of the New York Times had an article in the Sentinel Page B2, Sunday, Oct. 23 in which he said that ESPN is going to hold a World Series of Darts sometime next spring and broadcast a series of eight hour-long episodes, probably in July.

This is a bad idea.

Before I go ahead and prove that it's a bad idea, maybe I should establish my bona fides. I am a dart player. I am a perpetual member of the Santa Cruz County Darts Association. I also have played for the local soft-tip dart league. I might be considered a dart fanatic. I play darts every week. Used to play darts every day, but a bum hip has cramped my style and I don't do it that often any more. I have written a handbook for dart players Don "Tiger" Wilson's Handy Handbook of Hot Tips for Playing Darts.

I once worked as scorekeeper for the American Darts Organization U.S. national championships.

I am not the greatest dart player on the local scene. I am mediocre enough that other dart players have been known to applaud when I enter a pub — in anticipation of finally having somebody they can beat.

But I know good dart entertainment when I see it, and international-champion-level darts is not it.

The American Dart Organization plays only one type of dart game. The proposed World Series of Darts would play only that same one game. It's called "501." In this game, a player starts out with 501 points. He or she then throws darts at a dart board, three darts per turn, to make points.

The dart board is divided into 20 numbered divisions, like a pie, with a bull's eye in the middle. The bull's eye is divided into a little round circle with another circle around it; the little round circle counts 50 points; the bigger circle counts 25 points. All the 20 pie-shaped pieces are divided so that there's a "double" ring around the outside edge and a "triple" ring somewhere around the middle. If a dart hits one of the two major parts of one of the divisions say, the 20 the player gets that number of points in this case, 20. If the dart hits the double ring, the player gets 40 points; the triple ring, 60 points. So it's possible to get 180 points by hitting the triple ring of the 20 division with all three darts. It's also possible to get only 3 points if you really goof it up and hit the single 1 three times.

These points are subtracted from the original 501 points. This continues until the player has exactly zero points.

Whoever gets there first wins the game.

What makes it difficult is that the dart that brings the total to zero has to hit a double of some number.

When people of my skill level play 501, it can be really thrilling, because I darn near never hit the number that I'm throwing at. This results in a constantly changing game strategy. The game stays exciting until somebody finally hits that crucial double number.

With championship-level dart players, it's different. While guys at my level rarely hit what they're throwing at with all three darts, guys at the championship level almost never miss.

You can't imagine how dull it can be to watch a couple of guys alternate in throwing three triple 20s all evening. And if they happen to miss the triple 20, they just throw a bull's eye to even things out and go on from there, throwing triple 20s again.

The one thing that might save the proposed world Series of Darts from utter boredom is a factor mentioned by Mr. Rhodes in his Times article.

It's watching the raucous, funny-looking, beer-drinking, loud-talking nature of the people who will be watching the dart tournaments. This might really be fun as a diversion from actually watching the guys throwing darts.

But I don't know how much of that any of us could take.
Source link
Don Wilson is a retired newspaper journalist who lives in Soquel.

If USA darts broadcast were tripple it would not be enough!

Podcasts - Will there be one about darts?

I had hoped that someday soon somebody would do a darts Podcast. There is a lot of information out there about how to do podcast, and some examples of how they are done. Here is information from a couple of guys that do Podcast that I listen to regularly:


Leo Laporte of The tech guy on KFI and Call for Help
Q:How do I make a podcast

A:You need three things:

1. A way to record
2. A site to host it
3. A way to publicize it.
Recording is simple. Any PC with a microphone can do it. I recommend a free program Audacity for Mac, windows, or Linux, for recording, editing, and mixing your show. Any headset mic will do - I recommend the USB headsets from Logitech and Plantronics. If you want more than one person on the show you’ll need a mixer.

Free podcast hosting is available from many sites including www.audioblog.com, www.typepad.com, www.libsyn.com, and www.blogger.com. These sites can usually automatically generate the appropriate RSS feed you’ll need for people to subscribe to your podcast, or use Feedburner to automatically generate an itunes compatible feed.

Finally, you need to promote it. I’d use the very effective technique used by the hosts of Skepticality - instead of promoting it on Podcast direcotries like www.podcastalley.com and www.podnova.com go to your natural audience. They posted messages on astronomy message boards.

Michael added:

Check out the Podcast About The Podcast. I posted this once before when people were looking for podcast equipment and recording guidance. Dennis made a comment about wanting more than just a basic setup - hopefully this will be helpful.

Scott added:
check out the Podsafe Music Network for music to use in your podcast Podsafemusicnetwork.

(vist the site to read the article as there are several links that lead to more information). Article source link.



The other guy I listen to is:
Adam Curry How to podcast links.

iPodder - A brief History

My name is Adam Curry, an always outdated bio is available here.

After leaving the US in 1999 for some rest and relaxation in Europe, I met with Dave Winer in New York just as the dotcom bubble was ready to burst. Neither of us had much faith in the utopian promises of endless bandwidth to the home that companies like Worldcomm were making.

I certainly saw several user experience problems with the available bandwidth speeds and using these to 'broadcast'.

My solution came in the form of what I coined The Last Yard. The theory was that it made more sense to treat these broadband connections to the home as an 'always on' situation. Meaning you leave your PC on and connected, so content that takes up large amounts of data and traffic, can be 'dripped in' and made available when ready. Notification to the user once the file is already completely loaded on the computer gives the user a true sense of broadband when you click and don't wait, but immediatley see the result in front of you.

Dave Winer left our meeting and created the enclosure element to the RSS distribution format he had developed earlier, allowing a file to be 'attached' to an rss entry by means of a url pointing to the file.

For the next 4 years we spent plenty of time evangelizing the enclosure element and it's promised power, but never really found the spark to get a movement going.

In september 2003 I was asked to do a one year stint hosting a morning radio talk/music show on Veronica Radio in the netherlands. It was good to be back in radio and extremely fun, but as I was winding down the show in august of 2004 I realized that I still wanted to continue doing some form of radio and that I would need something fun to do while I caught up on sleep and life post living life on the other side of my biological clock.

Earlier in the year when I attended BloggerCon, Dave was maintaining an RSS feed of enclosures containing mp3's of interviews Chris Lydon was recording. I had asked several developers if they would help me create a standalone application that would download these mp3 files and automatically store them on my iPod.

Little did I know then that asking a developer to make your software porgram is almost like asking someone to do your homework for them...

So I wound up learning how to program Applescript, Apple's built in scripting language for the mac operating system.

After about a month (and some extra time due to a motorcycle accident) my iPodder was ready. But it also really sucked, because I'm not a developer. Observing open source projects led me to believe that releasing my code would attract other developers who might consider fixing and/or contributing to my work.

To ensure maximum joy for anyone working on iPodder, I felt it was important to have a daily file that would be posted in a non-lab environment that developers could use to test their ipodder work with, that's how the Daily Source Code came to be. The name was ofcourse carefully chosen to attract developers...

This 'pied piper' approach worked better than I ever could have imagined! Not only did people start to improve my code, they started building ipodders of their own, which were also contributed to the public domain, all of which were vast improvements on the original program.

Once people started to figure out that it's fun to host and record your own radio show, a community was born.

The reason for this overnight success is attributable to the millions of portable mp3 players currently being used, with gigabytes of emprty storage space and the mp3 format itself, which is ubiquitous on all these portable players.

This article in the Inquirer also really helped in getting the word out.

As consumers, we've been trained to think the only way you can fill your mp3 player is by either ripping your cd collection to it, or by purchasing Music tracks from a few vendors. In reality you can fill up your mp3 players withaudio files that contain anything you can record. A show, lecture, weather report, love letter... just like weblogs there's no limit to your own creativity. And now, thanks to the iPodder developers, you too can enjoy broadcasting podcasting your audio to a potential audience of millions.

This is a community where Users and Developers party together, lets have fun!

Adam Curry Article source link



Podcasting is a blanket term used to describe a collection of technologies for automatically distributing audio and video programs over the internet via a publish and subscribe model. Podcasting enables independent producers to create self-published, syndicated "radio shows," and gives broadcast radio or television programs a new distribution method.

In the podcasting model, the publisher publishes a list of programs in a special format, known as a "feed", on the web. A user who wants to see or hear the podcast subscribes to the feed in special "podcatching" software (a type of aggregator), which periodically checks the feed and automatically downloads new programs as they become available. Typically, the podcatching software also transfers the program to a desktop or portable media player.Full article link

Visit the above sites to learn more about podcasting and find interesting podcast links.

This is more about podcasting than you might have wanted to know.

There are many topics and events related to darts that are worth podcasting! I hope one day there will be one done jointly from both sides of the "Pond" and worldwide.

What will become of the Las Vegas Open?

Westward Ho will Close it's doors Nov. 17, 2005

An email I just read:

Hey everyone,



I have sad news to report. Our beloved Westward Ho, host to the Las Vegas Open every year is now gone! Today they began ripping it down!!!



So at this point there is no word on whether there will even be a Vegas Open next year. They have been trying to get a new venue but so far, no hotels are interested in sponsoring it. Regardless, it just won’t be the same not being at the Ho.



Long live the Megadog!!!



Phil

John Part - Interview link.....

For all the John Part fans out there:

Full interview click here!: "John ' Darth Maple ' Part"

When did you start playing darts? 1987

Why did you start playing darts? At Christmas 1987 John was given a dart board and a set of darts by his parents and soon he was practicing every day.

What is the least amount of darts you have used to finish 501? 9

Who is your favorite player? Bob Anderson

Taylor - Again!

Planet Darts | News | Taylor Unstoppable In Holland: "Taylor Unstoppable In Holland

PHIL TAYLOR won an incredible fifth PDPA Players Championship of 2005 with a 3-0 whitewash of Steve Maish in Holland."

November Darts on TV Dates

Next broadcast dates for darts I'm able to find are:
• Darts - 'World Championships of Darts: UK Open'
FSW, Wed Nov 16 03:00pm PST
• Darts - 'World Championships of Darts: Las Vegas Desert Classic'
FSW, Wed Nov 23 03:00pm PST

Check your local listings as broadcast dates may vary!
I use: http://tv.yahoo.com/

Get more darts on TV!
http://www.petitiononline.com/darts/
http://www.petitiononline.com/foxdarts/
http://msn.foxsports.com/feedback"

Some fun Dart facts

Along with the link to National Darts Hall of Fame (more on the NDHoF in a future post) I've gotten some good information and fun links that point to darts accomplishments and records. I hope that at some point these items get much more recognition. Granted that some items where not accomplished during sanctioned matches or tourneys, but it must be said that it's fun to see some of the ways that darts have been showcased!

Some fun Dart facts (from the dart dog site):
WORLD RECORDS
Most titles
Eric Bristow (born 25th April 1957)
World Professional Championship 5 times
News of the World
World Masters 5 times
World Cup singles 4 times
John lowe is the only other person to have won all four world titles
3 World titles, 2 World Masters, 2 World Cup singles, News of the World

World Cup
England hold the record of seven world titles
John Lowe and Eric Bristow played on all seven occasions

Record Prize
John Lowe won £102,000 for the first televised nine dart game on 13th October 1984 inSlough, England.

Speed Records
The fastest time for three legs of 301, finishing on doubles is 1min 38 sec by Ritchie Gardner on 12th Sept 1989

Scoring Records
24 Hour
Men (8 players) 1,722,249
Women (8 players) 744,439
Individual 566,175 Russell Locke
Bulls &25s (8 players) 526,750
10 Hour
Most Trebles 3056 Paul Taylor
Most Doubles 3265 Paul Taylor
Highest Score 465,919 Jon Archer
Bulls (individual) 1320 by John Lowe at the Unicorn Tavern, Chesterfield Derbys.
6 Hour
Men 210,172 Russel Locke
Women 99,725 Karen Knightly
Million and One Up
Men (8 players) 36,583 darts
Women (8 players) 70,019 darts "

More fun darts facts.....

One of the response that I got to the post about World records:
paul williams - darts world records: "Re: darts world records
Quote:
an interesting passage i came across

Subject: Darts World Records
From: sven@sdd.dart.se (Sven Silow)
Date: Thu, 24 Apr 1997 15:26:34 GMT
Message-Id: <5jnu1h$ivj@epimetheus.algonet.se>
Newsgroups: alt.sport.darts

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
'Jeff Ash'
wrote:

>Does anyone know of a record/time for a group of throwers scoring 1,000,001
>points. We have a group of folks who are crazy enough to attempt it. Please
>respond if you have heard of a time.

As the WDF has no rules about world records, and as the WDF thus don't
approve any results as world records, there is no such thing as an
official world record whatsoever in darts!
From time to time - if one reads Darts World - one reads that a new
record has been set. And, also one now and the comes across 'world
Records' and also listings of those 'World Records'. But, as earlier
mentioned, these can't be claimed to be official world records in any
sense. There is a whole lot of possible and impossible 'records' being
beaten. First there is the number of players and second there is a
multitude of score achived in stipulated time, time to achieve a
stipulated score, number of darts to achieve a stipulated score and so
on...
For instance in the April -97 issue of Darts World there is reports
on new records for a ten men team going round the board on doubles 133
times in 12 hours, and also of an eight men (well one was a woman,
does that make it a different category, as eight men have made
883802?) team that made 417089 points in 24 hours.
The last publication of the 'Darts maraton world records' was
published in the June 1966 issue, and for a million and one there is
the following two records:
'Alan Powling and Eddie Davies completed the score in 48334 darts at
the"
END QUOTE

A Better Dart Joke

Dart Jokes: "A man goes into a strange pub and starts chatting to some of the local darts players when they ask him if he wants a game. He says 'I have never played a game of darts before but I will give it a go if you tell me what to do.'

After playing for about an hour he has not lost a single game and has hit some fantastic shots. One of the players says to him 'I thought you had never played before?'

The man replies 'No I haven't, but there are a lot of flies in my flat and I have got some old darts which I throw at them and pin them to the wall.'

'No wonder you are so good then if you can do that. But doesn't it make a mess on the wall?'

'Not really' replies the man 'Because I only pin them by their back legs.'"

Would you pay £24.99GBP ($44.11USD) per year?

Planet Darts launches PC dart viewing!: "WATCH EXCLUSIVE DARTS ACTION ON YOUR PC Only £24.99 a year.

Sign up to Darts.TV to get all the latest action on and off the oche. Our brand new channel brings you:

# Sky Bet Grand Prix highlights & commentary
# Tournaments
# Classics
# Interviews
# Upsets"


Hmmm..... for a mere £24.99GBP ($44.11USD) per year you can see the major darts tournaments as they happen on your PC. But I have to think about value of watching vs. the price. I'm not sure I would pay that much to watch darts when I don't know what's included in the package. There is an option that says £2.99GBP ($5.28USD) per month. I'm wondering how many darts events are covered each month? I may just have to check the lower priced option. What do you guys think? First I have to figure if it's available to the countries on this side of the pond, and what payment options are available.

Guinness World Records Day

I saw a guy on TV carve 48 Jack-o'-lanterns in an hour in an attempt to set a new world's record (the old record was 42), and not long ago on the same show there was a woman who crochets and knits really fast (crocheted a sweater in an 2 hours) and has set world records. These are individuals are shown between the shows feature segments. The show is ESPN's coldpizza which I think is rather entertaining and informative that does some quirky things form time to time geared to get the viewers attention. Well they got me thinking about world records and darts.

My first stop was Guinness World Records and I searched the word darts.... results were something about a Poison Dart Frog, Highest Ski Base Jump on Fillm and this guy:

Oldest Competitive Dominoes Player
Alf Hill, born in 1908, is the world's oldest competitive dominoes player. He plays for the Jolly Carter pub team and has been a member of the Lowton and District Darts and Dominoes League, for over 25 years. Alf is a retired miner.
Guinness Site

Hardly what I had hoped for.

I then thought “would setting a darts related world record of some sort help promote the sport?” I mean really the average American loves world records they might pay more attention to the sport of darts if there was a darts related World Record. So then I thought it would be interesting to see how to go about getting a World Record recognized. So I looked further into the Guinness World Records site and found this:

Planning on breaking a record? Think you've got what it takes to become a record breaker? Hold that thought, why not join in on the biggest record breaking event of all time and attempt to smash a record on Wednesday 9th November - the first ever official Guinness World Records Day.

Hmmm.... could this be a message to dart players......
Should there be darts record of some type in the Guinness World Records Book?
What should the record be?
Most 180's in an hour?
Most low darts games of 501 in 8 hours?
Most double 1's in an hour?
All of the darts players around the world throw three darts at the bull at exactly
1200hrs GMT on November 9th and then post how many bulls they hit on a special website?
Well the ideas maybe endless.....
What do you think?