Black Division Stats

It was surprising how close the team averages came out in the Red Division. That didn't happen in the Black division.

Dart Frogs       17.01
Cory's Team      11.92
Rats             11.66
Young Guns       10.91
Horny Toads       9.71
Pobody's Nerfect  9.47
Black Widows      9.37

Looking at those ppd's, you kinda gotta expect that the Frogs are going to dominate the top 10 - and here it is.

Dan Zimmerman    20.93
Kraig Moore      19.39
Dwane Clifford   18.02
Clint Phillips   14.90
Cory Donham      14.86
Brett Rogers     14.02
Terry Hassler    13.36
Marc Garcia      13.30
Jeremy Fleetwood 12.89
Mike Seeley      12.87

Some Points Per Darts Stats

The WDA's points per dart are based on roughly equal numbers of 501 and 301 games and should not be compared to soft-tip averages or to steel-tip leagues that do not play 301.

Team ppd averages - Red Division:

Lizzards        11.96
Dairy Air       11.84
Mz Thang's Gang 11.57
Outlaws         11.21
Generation X3   11.07*
It's All Good   10.95
Doug's Team     10.67

*That one was a little surprising since 2 players have averages above 11 and 5 have averages below 11, but the number of games played by each player is what pushed the overall average up.

If you're looking for Black division, come back in a few days.

PPD leaders (minimum of 6 games - sorry, Jennifer, with your 12.62 ppd average.)

Dale Casey            15.57
Kenny Chamberlain     15.22
Gregg Turner          14.58
Rich Pike             14.36
Paul McPhillips, Jr.  13.21
Shawna Inkelaar       13.11
Dave Rosendale        12.86
Steve Stuckey         12.82
Bill Patrick          12.60
Dennis McHugh         12.49

Smoking Ban and Effect On WDA Meetings

If we have a meeting at a smoking establishment, it is illegal for members under 18 to attend. It doesn't seem right to require someone to buy a membership if it is illegal for them to attend meetings.

The sections of the bylaws that are on topic include:

Article 3, Section 2 - Meetings. "Attendance by a Board Member ... is required at all Board of Directors meetings..."

Article 5, Section 5 - Action of Members For Voting Purposes. "Members in good standing ... shall be entitled to vote..."

Article 5, Section 6 - Association Meetings. "All Association meetings shall be open to the General Membership..."

The simplest solution is to create a non-voting membership that's free and available to anyone under 18 who plays in leagues. Make another bylaw change that requires that Team Captains are voting members. And another change that Association meetings are open to voting members. Then players under 18 are WDA members, but are not required to go to meetings.

There is a loophole in the City ordinance. This is the exact wording from the ordinance: "Business means any ... entity formed for profit-making purposes..."

Post 4 is having a lawyer contact the city about this for the city's interpretation. It seems that non-profits (Post 4, Post 256, Eagles) are exempt from the smoking ordinance. Businesses exempt from the ordinance can have people under 18 in the establishment and allow smoking.

Deepest and Heartfelt Condolences To Steve Terronez

Steve's mother passed away Thursday morning, July 10.

Steve and his mother were very close. They were important parts of each other's lives.

Keep Steve in your prayers and let's all wish him the best as he enters a part of his life missing a person who was very important in his life to this point.

The Air Cap is a $7,500+ tournament

Entry fees are being raised by $2 for all events other than blind draws and the Youth event. That puts the Air Cap in line with entry fees for other tournaments in the region.

Math stuff here - shut your eyes if you can't stand it. It takes about the same number of entries to break even on entry fees and payouts for the $7,500 payout as it did for the $6,500 payout.

There was a thorough presentation of the pros and cons of raising fees and payouts. There was discussion and consideration. I think it's worth mentioning that there was no arguing, no shouting, no interrupting. After people voiced their opinions they fielded questions to clarify their presentations.

I thought the reasons for and reasons against the change were legitimate, well-considered, and well-presented. Then the board voted overwhelmingly in favor of raising entries and payouts.

Even though I presented the reasons not to raise the payouts, I'm kinda giddy that the Board voted to raise the payouts. It's kind of a chest-thumping announcement to the region that we have a great tournament and a great organization that can afford to throw a bigger tournament.

July Captain's Meeting Highlights

Order your LizzardPalooza shirts online or by email. Save yourself and Jim the time for all the personal contacts. Jim has more obligations this year and isn't going to be able to track you down to buy a shirt. If shirt sales don't fly, the funds for the event don't fly. ORDER SHIRTS! NOW!!!

The really big news has it's own post - $7,500 Air Cap is coming to a town near you this January!

The next Thursday session will start September 4. Monday night singles league is taking signups now. Post 4 will hang another board if needed, which would allow 10 people playing singles out of one location.

General Membership meeting is August 3 at 2 PM at Post 4. Encourage your team members to attend. Drag them kicking and screaming if you have to.

The smoking law eliminates Side Pockets as a home for the Youth League. Both Post 4 and Post 256 have stepped up to the plate and offered to host the Youth League. Both posts know hosting the Youth isn't a money-maker, but want to do whatever is needed to support Youth Darts. It's great to see our sponsors offering to open at times they might not normally be open, put staff in place, and cover utilities and other costs with opening the doors without expecting anything in return.

Sandy informed the Board of her efforts to get sponsorship money for Regional entries from other sources than WDA funds. Our region is in danger of being eliminated and absorbed into another region that would likely include St. Louis. Going to regionals would require more travel time and expense if that happened. Wichita is the strongest organization in our current region, but we can't finance the region out of mostly WDA funds.

The deal for another company to buy the Broadview didn't get the city funds they wanted and it fell through. Ron has stayed in close contact with the Broadview. There are other buyers. One print article was written without contacting any employees of the Broadview or the company that owns the Broadview. The situation is not as bleak as some reports have indicated.

I've got to add a comment here. About the same time the doom and gloom articles were published there was another article about Wichita needing MORE hotel rooms within walking distance of Century II for convention business. Imagine trying to book a convention into Century II with a shut down hotel right across the street. That's a tough sell. The City has to keep the Broadview open.

In the absence of the HeadLizzard, the honor of the motion to adjourn was passed to Dale DeScale, who performed brilliantly.

WDA Nationally Ranked Players

Men:
45 - Dan Zimmerman
91 - Gary Boisen
171 - Chris Martin
269 - Danny Evans
284 - Bryan Byrnes
377 - Mike Durham
396 - Brent Johns
414 - Kraig Moore
417 - Randall Patterson

Ladies:
53 - Christy Zimmerman
104 - Teresa Garcia
136 - Leanna Clifford
180 - Sandy Diel
181 - Michelle Donham
200 - Kelly Balliet
207 - Shelley Hein
212 - Lori Kennedy
215 - Missy Leffew
274 - Jennifer Holley
425 - Diane Menard

$7,500 Air Cap - To Be Or Not To Be?

There is discussion of raising payouts at the Air Cap. I don't think it's a good idea. There's too much we can possibly lose and not that much we can gain.

I've asked why we should raise payouts and got the following answers:
1) We want to bring in more players.
2) It doesn't cost the WDA anything.
3) We want to bring in better players.

More players: With the number of players we had last year there were some long waits between board calls. We're adding 6 boards, but most delays were caused by people still playing in earlier events. Long matches and slow responses to board calls played a big part. Doesn't it make sense to see if we've corrected the delays before we try to get more players?

No cost to the WDA: If we use last year's record turnout and raise entry fees, this is true. If there is an attendance drop due to weather or travel costs, raising payouts costs the WDA $1,000.

Better players: Additional payouts are going to top 4. That could convince some money players to shell out the $$ for a plane ticket to Wichita, which would give Wichita's better darters better competition.

More/better players: What happens if we get some money player - say 8 men and 4 ladies? Chances are they end up in the money and take a solid share of the increased payouts. We're raising costs for local players and giving them less of a chance to get in the money.

Smoking: No smoking in the hall slows down every event. Players eliminated in previous events and players in slow brackets are called immediately. Bathroom and refreshment breaks are expected. Add about 7 minutes for a smoke break. No smoking adds at least 30 minutes to events. Should we wait to see how that affects timing of events - or possibly attendance - before we raise payouts?

Bubba gets another lead story in the Eagle

http://www.kansas.com/entertainment/story/440246.html

Somewhere around June 27, 2008, this story will disappear into the archives. Friday morning, June 20, Bubba's was front page content on the Eagle's website. After 24 hours there, it dropped off into the Lead Story in the Entertainment section.

I think the Eagle's food critic was a bit skeptical. "You don't need sauce" is a challenge to a food critic who really doesn't want to be told what they need or don't need when they go out to eat. Bubba pulled it off.

From the first paragraph in the featured article: "...a boastful but tasty new barbecue restaurant...". About Bubba's claim it's so good you don't need sauce: "...we didn't feel like we needed sauce, we wanted sauce. And, fortunately, Bubba's sauce is good, too".

About the turkey: "The meat was the thick, smoky, melt-in-your-mouth variety that you always wish you had at Thanksgiving (but somehow never do)".

Thursday Night Smackdown

Check out Thursday night Red Division. Here's the win numbers for the leaders:

Dairy Air       31
Mz Thangs Gang  31
Outlaws         30
Lizzards        29
It's All Good   27

There's a tie at the top of the Black division, but that's the Black division. Red Division is where real darters play. Ron swears he didn't rig the divisions to put all the good teams in Red, but sometimes I wonder. I can hang with a team named after a reptile, but a team named after an amphibian? What kind of weak stuff is that?

Here's a quick recap of Dairy Air vs. Outlaws last Thursday.

It was a dark and stormy night as the Outlaws jumped out to a huge lead. 4-2 favoring the Outlaws going into Cricket. Sylvan and I played the first Cricket game and needed lots of Bulls. Back-to-back Hat Tricks. Unfortunately we kept knocking them out and only 3 of the 6 counted. Dairy Air down 5-2.

Then we rallied. We asked ourselves - "What are we really made of?". Flatulence! You can only hold flatulence so long and then it's going to come out and make itself known. Final result: Dairy Air-8, Outlaws-6.

Next week it's Mz Thang up against the Dairy Air as the Thursday Night Smackdown continues.

Dismal turnout for Coop Warmup/Regional

For those of you old enough to remember Johnny Carson:

The turnout for the blind draws was so bad (pause)

How bad was it, Johnny?

It was so bad that Merlin got into the top 4 in the blind draw Friday night.

If you're thinking that the only way I could get into the top 4 was if only 8 people showed up - you'd be right.

There were 18 people Saturday night. 26 people over 2 nights wasn't quite what anyone was expecting. Very few of the entrants in the Regional played in the Blind Draws. Maybe it's time to think about not having events in association with the Regional or come up with something that will actually get some people to attend.

Post 4 and No Smoking Law

I am confident the Legion will opt for the $250 annual license and smoking at the Legion will continue. I'm going to recommend a $1 surcharge for smokers as a voluntary donation to pay for the license. That seems a fair way to pay for the licenses without Post 4 having to come up with the $$ out of normal business.

This will likely affect both sides, but after the city forced Post 4 to have separate addresses for the 2 sides, they may want $250 per address. Some day I will post how much Post 4 pays the city each year. It is an incredible amount.

Businesses can have both smoke-free events with under-18's attending and still have 18+ events with smoking as long as there's at least 12 hours separating the events. This has a complication at the Legion. Both sides have to be considered. Post 4's doors between the bar and the hall couldn't possibly pass the "separate environment" test for a single location having both smoking and non-smoking areas.

Here are the darters options and some non-options. General Membership meetings will either be smoke-free or no one under 18 will be allowed to attend. That rule will apply to any event in the building. On dart nights, if there are no team members under 18 in the building, smoke 'em if you got 'em. If there are teams with players under 18, it's smoke outside night.

The 12-hour rule means that if there are players under 18, no one can smoke in the Legion the day of the matches. It remains to be seen how that will fly with Post members.

Youth League is done unless some place goes smoke free where we can maintain some boards. Side Pockets might go smoke free. I have no information about Side Pockets, but generally newer and more upscale places are more likely to opt for "smoke outside".

If Side Pockets chooses to go "smoking", I am confident Post 4 would consider hosting the Youth Leagues. Cutting off smoking at midnight Saturday wouldn't be a problem. Post 4 gripes about utility bills for events in the Hall, but not when it comes to doing something for kids.

Anatomy of the Air Cap

This is going to be filled with statistics, numbers, analysis and facts. If these things upset you, this is your warning to stop reading now. I'm going to be using 30 minutes per round. That's a reasonable time unless it takes 15 minutes for people to show up for a match or matches become marathons.

One of the biggest challenges in the Air Cap is to get people disqualified from earlier events so they can be called in the next event. Let's start with Saturday morning.

Youth-Adult: The functional maximum entries is 32. More entries leaves the Youth-Adult with 8 Adults still playing when Mixed Trips starts. More boards doesn't help.

Mixed Trips: Functional maximum is 32 entries. More entries leaves 8 Mixed Trips teams playing when Open Doubles starts.

Open Doubles: If there are still 8 teams in Mixed Trips, then it's at least an hour and a half until the Mixed Trips winners are available for their first board calls in Open Doubles. There's enough time before Men's Singles (2-1/2 hours) to go through 5 rounds, but there's only enough time for the Mixed Trips finalists to go through 2 rounds in Doubles before Singles is called. To get to 8 teams still playing (which leaves 32 matches that can't be called in Open Singles) there shouldn't be more than 32 entries in Open Doubles.

This is about the first time that the number of boards becomes a factor. It's also when an "efficient" tournament has anyone not playing automatically in the prelims and those playing are kept out of prelims - which I consider a dishonest tournament.

Women's Doubles starts 1 hour after Open Doubles. Boards aren't available, plus there are still women in Mixed Trips, plus there are women in Open Doubles.

At this point it should be obvious that our format is being stretched to the maximum with the number of entries we are getting. It's possible to have a woman simultaneously entered in 3 events.

More boards won't solve the problems of late board calls in events for some entrants.

It is my opinion that if the Air Cap is to offer more money with the hope of drawing more entrants, then the format needs to be evaluated or excessive delays for some players to be called in events they've entered will damage the reputation of the Air Cap.

Air Cap Comments

Wow! WOW! What an amazing turnout. 110 for the first blind draw Friday and 66 for the second. I can't remember the numbers for the Youth-Adult shoot, but I remember 43 entries in Mixed trips. We figure 30 - 35 to be an outstanding turnout for Mixed Trips. We had 10 more teams than that. 10 Mixed Trips teams is 30 darters.

In Men's Singles there were 65 entries. That put the preliminary match in the 128 bracket. I don't think that's ever happened at an Air Cap in over 20 years. Maybe at the old $10K+ Air Caps in the early '80's when we played the Air Cap on 30+ boards.

My early guess is that we had a record turnout at least 10% bigger than any recent Air Cap and probably 20% bigger than a "typical" recent Air Cap.

The huge majority of players I talked to loved the event and had a great time. A few complained about long waits between when an event started and when they got their first board calls. This is a legitimate concern for them and needs to be a concern for us.

We got all but 3 events started on time with board calls for preliminaries made within about 5 minutes of closing the events. The first board calls for the Saturday Blind Draw (9:00) were made at 9:30. We didn't have boards available and we didn't have matches available because the participants were playing in events still running. Open Singles Cricket (7:00) initial board calls were made at 7:20 for the same reasons. The other event that didn't start on time was Youth-Adult, the first event Saturday morning. That event started 40 minutes late when entries were held open to even up the Adults and Youth. Between the late start and the number of entries, we still had 8 Adults in the Youth event at 10:30 when Mixed Trips board calls started.

Another problem was slow play and long matches. The general plan is to allow 30 minutes for a round of play and sometimes a longer round. To demonstrate this, the Saturday league is handicap and a 2 of 3 format. In handicap we have players starting in the 800's and 900's in '01 games and players starting at 400-500 in Cricket and we chalk our own games. Those matches finish in about 30 minutes per round. From early Saturday afternoon into the evening matches, we had matches going 45-60+ minutes. To make matters worse, those matches tended to group into one bracket leg, which seriously extended the length of multiple events.

By the time we got to the 4th event Saturday we were running brackets and board calls for 3 events simultaneously. It wasn't because we weren't filling boards, it was because most events had an extra round due to the turnout. The extra round meant we had more people playing in earlier events and fewer matches to call in the event that was starting.

Women's Doubles 501 began on time at 2:30. At 5:00 when we made the first board calls for Women's 501 Singles, we still had 8 women playing in Doubles. That eliminated a lot of possible early board calls in Singles. It also meant there were the semi-finals and finals still to be played in Doubles before we could call those Women in Singles. That led to some Women getting their first board call in Singles 2 hours after the first board calls were made. That has to be dealt with.

Some tournaments minimize problems by intentionally setting up players in previous events against each other and making sure they aren't in preliminary rounds. I'm strongly opposed to that. It makes the tournament run smoother, but it's at the expense of an honest draw.

In one instance we called a Ladies preliminary about the same time we called the Finals in an earlier Ladies event. The preliminary match finished, which gave us a board and a match to play, so we called the next round for the winner of the preliminary. That match ended before the Finals from the previous event finished.

On the lighter side, we had someone pick up 2 board call tickets and mix them into the winners tickets - and no one called for the matches noticed their tickets were missing. Someone saved a losing 501 entry from the round of 32 and turned it into the round of 32 winners in Cricket. One person in Mens Singles nearly got called to 2 boards in the same group of board calls because he entered the event twice.

Captain's Meetings Are On WEDNESDAYS Now

Yes, that's right. Captain's Meetings have moved from the first Tuesday of the month to the first Wednesday. That means the January meeting will be January 2, 2008 at The Detour.

That works out great since no one wanted to have a meeting January 1, but...

...this is not a one-time change. All future meetings have been changed to Wednesday instead of Tuesday.

This is an important meeting. We hope to hash out the details on some rules changes - nothing major - just some clarifications, simplifications and some changes that make the rules easier to understand. We hope to get all the details worked out and be able to approve the proposed changes without lengthy discussion at the General Membership at Post 4 in February (date to be determined at the January meeting).

It's also the last meeting before the Air Cap. Show up and let your voice be heard.

Jim Dunham Is the MAN!!

Last Thursday night, Jim Dunham became eligible for the Jerry Hat Tricks League. Yes, Jim turned 50. It was a memorable night. 50 helium-filled balloons were released to announce to the world north of Post 4 that Jim had managed to survive to reach that milestone.

Jim's performance in darts is probably a first in the history of all darting. He threw his age on his birthday. OK, lots of people have done that. Jim did it twice. Still, lots of people. Jim was 50. He shot his age by hitting a double bull - twice Well, not so many people but still a bunch.

Jim threw 2 double bulls that ended 2 different games on the day he turned 50. We're narrowing the field down quite a bit, but still nothing earth-shattering. There's got to be a kicker and here it comes.

Jim threw those darts backwards. Yes, backwards - as in flights first.

The day that Jim turned 50, he threw his age twice with a single dart that ended the game by hitting a double bull "flights-first". It is believed this is the first time this has happened in the entire history of darting.

Jim is also the darter who called a "double-loop" on the 8 (one dart in each loop of the number 8 displayed outside the scoring area) and hit it while throwing both darts at the same time.

Jim Dunham is THE MAN!!!eleventy!11

"Official" Ruling On Payouts To Youth

There has been an ongoing question about the effect of cash payouts to Youth players and their amateur status. It was reported that the ADO does not consider cash payouts in eligibility criteria for playing in ADO Youth events.

Past that, the only consideration for amateur status appears to be college scholarships for competition events. Colleges allow non-amateur status in areas other than the area where the scholarship is offered.

There are no known college dart scholarships. If darts becomes a competitive college event and scholarships are offered, then amateur status is a factor.

Recap of Air Cap Planning Meeting

Setup at the Broadview (or whatever the name is by now) starts at 6 PM. A group will meet at Post 4 at 5 PM with pickups and trailers to get the standards to the hotel.

The list of tear-down volunteers has 13 people. The WDA will be providing 15 steak dinners at the After-Air-Cap Party and Die-Hard Blind Draw at Post 4 after tear-down is completed. The free dinners will go to those who worked the stage all weekend and those who helped with tear-down. Dale and Rose are in charge of the free dinner coupons.

The Legion will have ample steaks on hand for all who want a great meal after eating "dart hall food" all weekend. The Broadview has good food, but many find a good steak to be a welcome change of pace Sunday evening. The Legion will likely order more steaks than needed. If there are any uncooked steaks left after everyone is served, the Legion will offer them at cost to anyone who wants to take them home.

After 15+ years of busting what's left of her butt, Juanita will be manning (or womanning) the bar instead of cooking steaks. She was asked if she wanted to cook steaks. I think you can guess her answer. There will be Legion volunteers freezing their butts off this year instead of Juanita. Looking for a charcoal-grilled steak in January? Come on down after the Air Cap and you got it.

WDA sponsors have priority buying Air Cap boards. The price to WDA sponsors is $25. Steve at Mary's already asked for 4 boards. Please contact your sponsors. Sponsor boards need to be known no later than Thursday at set-up so out-of-town purchases can be handled.

Organization, planning and implementation of the Air Cap was surprisingly advanced. I can overANALyze anything and I'm rumored to be picky about details. Everybody - and I mean everybody - has their areas covered and well-planned. The only area needing attention is volunteers to help Missy with the Youth Wheel. Dan Zimmerman will be contacted to encourage Youth League participants to assist.

Officers, effective March 1 - with one exception

The nominations are closed. President is the only contested office. This should allow time to address some other issues at the February meeting and still have a short and pleasant meeting.

President: Rich Pike - Mike Durham. This is the only contested office.
VP: David Garrett
Sec/Treas - Ron Diel
Publicity: Jennifer Holley
Sgt-At-Arms: Shelley Hein
Awards: Rose Casey
ADO Rep: Sany Diel

Sandy is also running for Regional ADO Rep. Early indications are that she has the support of the Associations in the Region for that position. We might be able to "eliminate the middle man" on things that need to go to the Regional Rep.

The date for the February meeting is not decided. There's a tournament in Joplin on Feb. 15, 16, and 17. Those dates are out. We will check with the Legion for available dates and have a firm date at the January Captain's meeting. That will be Wednesday, January 2 at the Detour.

More Hot Darts Saturday Night

It doesn't pay to throw at your average in the Saturday night league. I managed to average 15.38 ppd in 8 matches while playing as a 13. That was good for 3rd because Katherine threw 2 16 ppd games against me while playing as an 11.5. It's a tough league. The only thing I really accomplished was to raise my ppd's to 14 for the rest of the season, which is unfortunate since I throw Cricket like I was a 10 ppd player.

Ian continued his streak of never finishing below 2nd and now has a commanding lead. The battle for the remaining payout spots is heating up and will go down to the final Saturday night.

Speaking of Ian, he managed to get 2nd place Saturday while actually lowering his ppd's in a match he won! Dang! The game Ian lost (while winning 2 of 3) Ian threw 87 darts for 499 points. I think I'll review the scoresheets for evidence of sand-bagging.

11's Rule

It's long been thought that 11's are the hardest players to beat in Handicap leagues. There's proof in this league. Check the standings and the ppd's.

               Points   PPD
1 - Ian          35    10.99
2 - Katherine    28    11.76
3 - Jimmy        27    11.39
4 - Merlin       23    13.83
5 - David        21    11.33
6 - Kraig        17*   19.48
7 - Sherry       17     9.00**
8 - Lisa         11     9.23

* Kraig still has a makeup match against Sherry which will give him 7 or 8 points.

** We've got the bloodhounds out after Sherry, but in her absence we are grooming a new dart player who is rapidly improving. Thanks, Monica.

With 2 weeks remaining there are first round matches of Kraig against Ian and Jimmy against Katherine. The other first-round match of interest pits Katherine against Ian.

Stay tuned. It's going to be a wild and crazy finish for the last 2 payback spots in this league.