Cricket darts scoreboard

How to use the cricket scoreboard

1. Choose 2, 3 or 4 players (or teams), type the names and pick Standard or Cut-throat scoring.
2. Press Start new game. The highlighted column is the player at the line, and the bar above the keypad shows which of their three darts you are scoring.
3. For each dart, choose Single, Double or Treble if needed, then tap the number. The multiplier jumps back to Single after every dart, so most taps are one touch. Tap Miss for a dart that scored nothing.
4. After three darts the scoreboard moves to the next player by itself. End turn skips the remaining darts, and Undo last dart corrects a wrong tap.

The rules of cricket darts

Cricket darts uses only the numbers 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20 and the bull. Everything else on the board is a miss. The aim is to close all seven targets and finish with at least as many points as anyone else.

Marks and closing

You need three marks to close a number. A single is one mark, a double is two and a treble is three, so one treble closes a number at once. For the bull, the outer ring (25) is one mark and the bullseye is two. The marks are drawn the traditional way: a slash for one, an X for two and a circled X when the number is closed.

Scoring points

Once you have closed a number, every extra mark on it scores its face value (25 for each bull mark) – but only while at least one opponent still has that number open. When every player has closed a number it is "dead" and scores for nobody; the scoreboard greys it out. Marks above three that come in the same dart count too: if you have one mark on 18 and hit treble 18, two marks close it and the third scores 18 points.

Winning

You win when you have closed all seven targets and have the same or more points than every opponent. If you close everything but trail on points, you keep throwing and score on numbers your opponents have left open until you catch up.

Cut-throat cricket

Cut-throat turns the points upside down. Your extra marks on a closed number give points to every opponent who has not closed it, and the lowest score wins once a player has closed everything. It is popular with three or four players because everyone can gang up on the leader.

Worked example

Ann and Bob play standard cricket darts.

• Round 1, Ann: treble 20 (closed), single 20, miss. Bob has not closed 20, so the single scores 20 points. Ann 20, Bob 0.
• Round 1, Bob: treble 19 (closed), double 19, single 20. The double scores 2 × 19 = 38 points. The single 20 is Bob's first mark on 20. Ann 20, Bob 38.
• Round 2, Ann: treble 19 closes 19 for her too. Her next dart, a single 19, scores nothing because both players have closed 19. Then double 20 scores 40, because Bob still has only one mark on 20. Ann 60, Bob 38.

In cut-throat the same darts would end differently: Ann's single 20 and double 20 would give 60 points to Bob, and Bob's double 19 would give 38 to Ann. Ann would have 38 and Bob 60, so Ann would be leading, because in cut-throat fewer points is better.

Tips

• Close before you score. Points matter only if you can also close everything. A common plan is to close the number your opponent is scoring on, which stops their points at once.
• Leave the bull for last only if you hit it well. The bull is the hardest target, and many games are decided there.
• Playing 501 or 301 instead? Use the X01 darts scoreboard with checkouts.

How we tested it

We wrote automated tests for the scoring code and ran them with Node. They replay the worked example above dart by dart and check every total (20, 38, then 60 points, with no points on the dead 19), then replay it in cut-throat and get Ann 38, Bob 60. Other tests check that a double then a treble on 18 closes the number and scores 36, that a bullseye after closing the bull scores 50 and a treble bull is rejected, that in cut-throat only the opponent still open on 20 receives 60 points, and that the winner is called only when all numbers are closed with equal-or-more points (standard) or equal-or-fewer points (cut-throat). Marks per round was checked as 5.00 for a treble and a double in one visit.