It’s a unique starting score to say the least when players first step up to the oche, but many people are still left baffled as to why darts begins on 501 and not 500
The dust has finally settled following the exciting finale to the PDC World Darts Championship at the beginning of the year.
Peter Wright pulled off a stunning comeback to defeat Michael Smith 7-5 at Alexandra Palace to secure his second world championship on January 3, to kick-off 2022 in style.
But after those near three weeks of highly entertaining drama, and ahead of all the action to come over the next 11 months, there are one or two things about the game that some fans may still need some clarity on.
And none more so than the rules surrounding the scoring system within the sport, specifically the starting score.
Darts fans and neutrals alike can most likely share the same confusion as to why the starting score reads as 501, rather than 500, but there is a reason for this.
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Round numbers certainly aren't a common occurrence in darts, hence the 501 starting score.
But the reason behind this unique rule is that it provides more competitiveness to the game.
With the expertise of some darts players, a nine darter is easily achievable after throwing a few accurate arrows and a game can therefore be won very quickly.
So by starting on 501 instead of 500, it limits the chances of the action being over very quickly.
If it was the other way around, then players could just very simply aim for the 20 on the board in order to win without having to hit an odd number.
So, by changing the starting score to 501, it forces each player to travel around the board in order to reduce their score in other ways, meaning that hitting an odd number makes it more difficult to win.
However, debates have been struck up online in order to answer this very same question, which has provided some interesting insight from a number of fans.
Especially one response, which claims that not all darts games start with the score at 501.
One fan explained on Quora : "If you started on an even number, then all you need to do would be to hit 20s (double, treble or single) until you reached zero.
"Starting with an odd number and finishing with a double means you have to get to an even number - so you have hit an odd number before your last dart. It makes things more difficult.
"FWIW [for what it’s worth], before the professional circuit started, the normal game was 301, double start, double finish - no score until you hit a double!!."
The ruling is perfectly understandable and seems simple enough, but there still remain plenty of people out there who are unaware of the reason for starting on 501 and not 500.
