Whining winners, crying like three-year-olds and acting like “Richard” heads. A 5-point player plays a 12-point player straight up (no parity points or marks), the 5 expects to lose, but hopes he has a great game or that the 12 has a bad game; whatever the outcome, both players will be OK with it.

Then, the same two players play with the 5 point player getting the parity points or marks, and whoever loses will end up huffing, puffing, snorting, spitting and calling the winner a sandbagger! Can someone with an IQ over 23, tell me why?

In any competitive sporting event, i.e. drag racing, chess, softball, billiards or bowling, any of these where you have competitors of different skill levels competing against each other on the same playing field, some form of handicapping is used to make it even. And still, the biggest, fastest, smartest or most skilled competitors win the majority of the time. The players giving the points should be happy. Yes, the more points they have to give the happier they should be.

Fact: in a parity tournament, the more points you give up, the better your chances of winning. Does it not make sense to make sure that in the rare case that the less skilled team wins, that you congratulate them, buy them a beer, tell how great they played? It is in the better player’s interest to make sure they come back; they add to the total prize money payout and the odds are that you will beat them if you happen to get matched up against them again.

In a perfect parity program, if the same 20 teams play in 20 tournaments, there should be 20 different winners. The rating system works, however, it does not react to every dart, every game and every match that a player plays. It reacts at a time when enough real data has been collected and then a numerical rating is established and/or changed. A new player’s rating is going to be more volatile than that of a player who has had lots of stats to establish his rating.

The loud mouth ignorant “rating vigilantes” only run off new players. In any competitive situation, to win, you must be playing at your best: 110% effort (that means better than usual). If everybody played at his or her rating, every game would be a tie. In my memory, I can not remember the huffing, puffing, snorting, name-calling being more prevalent in darts than it is now. I have competed in all of them. I wonder if it is because the competitors in other sports realize that to perpetuate their sport, you must encourage and be happy when someone new or less skilled wins.

I wonder if they are smarter than the rating vigilantes. The vision, the goal, is to provide entertainment and competition in an environment where everybody has a chance to win while surrounded by friends, with everybody having fun. Can’t grasp this simple concept?

See ya, hasta la vista baby… try tiddly winks.

— Jet Black