How Tough Are the Toughest Under-55 Darts Tournaments?

 

At first glance, it sounds like a bit of an oxymoron.

How can an Under-55 average darts tournament be particularly tough?

Surely the whole point is that everybody entering averages below 55?

I've been looking through the Q4QS Tournament Strength database, and these competitions are actually a really interesting part of grassroots darts.

Because Under-55 doesn't necessarily mean somebody can't average 60, 65 or even 70.

It means they don't do it consistently.

And I know that because I'm one of them.

I'm Probably A Good Example

I regularly play in Under-55 competitions myself.

I've hit a 70 average.

I've also hit a 40 average.

That's my problem.

On a good day, I can produce darts well above the level you might expect from somebody playing in an Under-55 competition. On another day, it can disappear completely.

If I could average around 70 every time I played, I quite obviously wouldn't be playing Under-55 darts.

But I can't.

And I'm far from unusual.

There are plenty of players at this level capable of producing a really good match, a really good run or even an excellent tournament. What they haven't necessarily developed is the consistency to reproduce it week after week.

That's one reason these tournaments can be considerably tougher than the name suggests.

What Counts As An Under-55 Tournament?

I've been deliberately cautious with the data for this article.

There are lots of different formats listed in the Q4QS database.

Some open competitions, for example, offer a prize for the furthest-performing Under-55 player. I've excluded those because the tournament itself isn't restricted to Under-55 players.

I've also left out junior competitions, plate competitions and anything where I couldn't establish with reasonable confidence that the main event itself was an average-restricted competition.

That means this isn't necessarily every Under-55 tournament in the database.

It's a selection of the ones I can identify most reliably.

There is another complication: not every organiser determines eligibility in exactly the same way.

Some use a player's recent recorded average. Others use a specified number of previous competitions or performances.

So seeing somebody average 60+ in an Under-55 tournament doesn't automatically mean anything is wrong.

In fact, that's partly the point of this article.

Some Of These Tournaments Are Strong

Once I removed the more ambiguous records, there were still some fascinating Tournament Strength scores.

Remember, Tournament Strength is not a three-dart average. It's the Q4QS measure I use to assess the overall strength of a tournament field using the players and performance information in the database.

Here are some examples from clearly identifiable average-restricted events:

Event	Venue	Q4QS Tournament Strength
ADC Midlands Level Up Core Regional Final	Bagley Sports & Social Club	57.24
ADC South East & London Level Up Core Regional Final	Hotshots Sports Bar	54.69
Under-55 Average Series	The Bullseye Bar, Lichfield	53.62
ADC South East & London Level Up Core Regional Final	The Phoenix Club	53.53
Wobbly's Under-55	49 Club	53.52
ADC South East & London Level Up Core Regional Final	Fareham Social Club	53.41
ADC South Wales Level Up Core Final	Brynmawr Social Club	53.33
ADC South Wales Level Up Core Final	Briton Ferry Workingmen's Club	53.14
Oliver's & Castell Howell U55 Series	Oliver's Sports Bar	52.60

I've deliberately not produced a definitive 'Top 10' here.

Average-restricted events aren't always labelled consistently in the source data, so I'd rather show a collection of examples I'm comfortable with than manufacture a ranking by including events I'm less certain about.

57.24 Is A Serious Field

The one that really caught my attention was the ADC Midlands Level Up Core Regional Final at Bagley Sports & Social Club.

It recorded a Q4QS Tournament Strength of 57.24.

The ADC Level Up format is specifically designed for players at this level. For this event, eligibility was based around a running average of 55 or below, with qualification requirements attached to performances in the Vault system.

Yet the eventual tournament winner averaged 64.61 across the competition.

That, for me, sums this entire subject up.

An eligible Under-55 player produced a tournament performance nearly ten points higher than 55.

There's no contradiction there.

It's simply a player producing a very good day of darts.

The Same Thing Happens At Regular U55 Events

It isn't only the bigger regional finals either.

The Bullseye Bar in Lichfield has run its Under-55 Average Series, with one event in my database reaching a Tournament Strength of 53.62.

Wobbly's Under-55 at the 49 Club reaches 53.52.

The Oliver's & Castell Howell U55 Series also breaks 52.

Those aren't enormous numbers when compared with professional darts, and nobody is pretending they are.

But that's not the comparison I'm interested in.

These are competitions specifically designed for players below a particular established standard, yet they can still assemble surprisingly competitive fields.

A 52-Average Player Isn't Necessarily A 52-Average Player

This is where averages can sometimes be misleading.

Imagine somebody's recent performances look something like this:

48 – 51 – 63 – 46 – 59 – 50

There's some decent darts in there.

There's also enough inconsistency to keep the overall figure down.

Put a room full of players with that sort of profile together and you've got an interesting tournament.

Several of them might produce their best darts on the same evening.

Suddenly the standard of the competition bears little resemblance to what somebody might imagine when they see the words Under 55.

That's certainly how I see my own game.

The fact I've averaged 70 tells you something about what I'm capable of.

The fact I've also averaged 40 tells you rather more about why I'm still eligible for these competitions.

It's About Consistency, Not Ceiling

I think that's probably the biggest thing I've taken from looking at the data.

There is a difference between a player's ceiling and their normal level.

A developing amateur player might have a considerably higher ceiling than their overall average suggests.

The better players simply reach that ceiling more often.

Move further up the darting ladder and the really noticeable difference isn't always one spectacular performance. It's seeing somebody produce the same standard again and again.

A 65 average isn't particularly remarkable if somebody normally averages 65.

It's extremely good if somebody normally averages 50.

And That's Why Under-55 Darts Works

I actually think this is one of the attractions of average-restricted competition.

Turn up at a completely unrestricted open and you could be drawn against somebody operating at an entirely different level.

There's nothing wrong with that — that's open darts.

But restricted competitions give developing players the opportunity to play meaningful matches against people who are broadly around their level.

That doesn't make them easy.

Far from it.

You're potentially facing somebody who normally averages 52 but is perfectly capable of throwing 65 against you.

And if you're unlucky, that's the version that turns up.

Don't Mistake Under-55 For Easy Darts

That's really the conclusion.

Under-55 isn't a ceiling on how well somebody can play.

It's a way of grouping players according to a longer-term measure of their standard.

Within those tournaments there are players capable of producing some very good darts indeed.

The Q4QS Tournament Strength figures illustrate that. An ADC Level Up field has reached 57.24, while a number of other U55 competitions are above 53.

More importantly, we've seen players eligible for these competitions produce tournament performances well beyond the 55 mark.

I know from my own darts how that happens.

Give me the right night and I've shown I can average 70.

Give me another night and I can average 40.

Unfortunately, I haven't yet worked out how to make sure the first player turns up rather than the second.

And I suspect quite a few Under-55 players reading this will know exactly what I mean.