It’s an ongoing tradition at Volano to throw a quick game of 301 when everybody gets back from lunch. While even a rank amateur can enjoy a rousing game of darts it can become somewhat discouraging to see the trophy residing on everyone’s desk but your own. Since manual dexterity isn’t one of my prominent attributes I decided to try and find a creative way to improve my game.

Most beginners (myself included) yearn to hit the fabled Triple 20. This mark will land you more points than any other spot on the board. However, because of its relative size and position it is somewhat difficult to hit. Often I found myself missing the Triple 20 and instead landing on either 1 or 5. Those of us who can’t consistently snipe Triple 20 run the risk of hitting some of the absolute lowest possible marks on the board. Sometimes at the end of one of my more tragic games I would have an average dart score of 7-10 points. I decided to do some quick napkin math and determined that a dart thrown randomly at the board should average roughly 12-13 points. This means that aiming was actually hindering my performance.

In conclusion, I found that in order to give myself the best chance of success I needed to put forth the least amount of effort possible. While this strategy isn’t for everybody I found that it fits my mantra perfectly. I’m glad to have finally found a game that caterers to my unique outlook on sports and gaming: If at first you don’t succeed… quit.