Red Dragon Darts - DARTS :OShea faces switch decision Home > News > DARTS :O'Shea faces switch decision DARTS :O'Shea faces switch decision WORLD Championship finalist Tony O'Shea is facing the biggest decision of his darts career just days after his agonising defeat at the Lakeside. Stockport player O'Shea, nicknamed Silverback, lost 7-6 to Ted `The Count' Hankey in a thrilling British Darts Organisation (BDO) final last Sunday. But now 47-year-old O'Shea must decide whether to stay with the BDO or move to the more lucrative Professional Darts Corporation (PDC) that is televised by Sky and home to arrows legend Phil `The Power' Taylor. Although he admits the lure of cash is hard to resist, O'Shea's ability to represent England while with the BDO, plus the chance to have another crack at Lakeside glory, has left the Silverback scratching his head. O'Shea, who used to be a greenkeeper at Hazel Grove Golf Club, said: "I've had hundreds of e-mails and texts since Sunday asking what I'm going to do.

My heart tells me to stay with the BDO but my head says go to the PDC. "Earlier on in the season I had a disagreement with the BDO over my ranking and that got me thinking about a move. "There is so much money in the PDC that my head says that is where I should go, but my heart says stay in the BDO because I can play the internationals there. "If I had to say right now I would probably say I'll stay in the BDO, but I haven't made my mind up once and for all." Superb O'Shea has been in superb form this season, reaching the semi- finals at the three tournaments preceding the Lakeside. He went one better at Frimley Green, Surrey, to reach the showpiece match after beating fellow Stockport thrower Darryl Fitton in the semis. And although he didn't win, O'Shea has not been discouraged by his defeat to Hankey. O'Shea added: "The fact I came so close to winning at the Lakeside has given me the hunger to put that right and carry on. "I have never felt like I did in that final.

When it got to six-all and the fans were chanting my name it was amazing - it still gives me goose bumps now just to think about it." O'Shea will be following a well trodden path if he does decide to switch to the PDC. Raymond van Barneveld, Jelle Klaasen and Mervyn King are all high-profile players who have made the switch in recent years. Even though O'Shea has sampled the sport's bright lights, he is looking forward to representing The Pineapple Inn in Marple in the local leagues over the coming weeks. In nine years competing on the local circuit he has lost just once, a record even the world finalist is proud of. "I lost to a lad called Robbie Sherlock. We only play over three legs and he's a decent player.

But even so, to lose just once is not bad going because there are some decent players around in Stockport." Story By: Manchester Evening News BDO Lakeside : World Darts Federation Lakeside to be increased to 40 men and 16 women Monday January 28, 2013 The 2014 Lakeside World Professional Darts Championships will be played from Saturday, January 4th to Sunday, January 12th, 2014 and will be bigger and better than ever! The largest ever field of 40 Men and 16 Women will be competing for the most prestigious titles in World Darts. The first three World Professional Championships from 1978 to 1980 were contested by just 16 Men, but from 1981 to 2013 the field was 32 Men. The Women’s World Championship was introduced by the BDO in 2001 and has always been contested by 8 Women. Now it is being increased to 16 Women from the 2014 Lakeside World Professional onwards. “This is a significant, exciting and progressive step forward”, says BDO Tournament Director Wayne Williams.

“Not only does it illustrate the global increase in the higher standards of BDO and WDF players, but it also satisfies the growing TV audiences created by TV coverage from BBC, ESPN and Europsort. “Needless to say, we are delighted to be providing even more valuable opportunities for our players – men and women – as we move the BDO forward and enhance the most prestigious Championships in world darts”. The additional 8 Men for the 2014 World Pro will earn their places from competition within the worldwide regions of the WDF: Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Eastern Europe, Western Europe, Asia, Baltic & Scandinavia and the USA. All have regional ranking tables which are accessible on the BDO website from the Tables drop-down menu. The remaining 32 players will come from the BDO Invitational Table, the World Professional International Play-Offs and include the Winmau World Masters Champion if not already qualified. The 16 Women will come from the BDO Invitation Table, the World Professional International Play-Offs and include the Winmau World Masters Champion if not already Qualified.

The BBC contract for the BDO Lakeside World Professional Darts Championships has been extended by three years up to an including 2016. Wednesday January 16, 2013 from bdodarts.com Super Scott Waites was crowned world champion with a clinical 7-1 drubbing of “nearly man” Tony O’Shea to win the £100,000 top prize. The Yorkshireman who had failed to reproduce his true form in five previous appearances was in defiant mood, blasting out six 180s, as his power-scoring eclipsed the performance of a below-par O’Shea. Stockport-based O’Shea had been hoping it would be third time lucky after two previous final defeats but has to chalk up his seventh major defeat in a major BDO tournament. Waites becomes the 22nd new name on the trophy since the event was launched on the calendar back in 1978 when the late great Leighton Rees from Wales became the inaugural winner. Since then there have been winners from six different nations – England, Wales, Scotland, Canada, Australia and Holland. The win this year for Waites gave England their 13th winner.

Waites becomes only the third winner of the title from Yorkshire, joining Dennis Priestley and John Walton as White Rose victors, while at the same time thwarting 51-year-old O’Shea’s bid to become only the second fifty-something to lift the world crown. O’Shea had produced a 30.47 per dart average to reach the final, whitewashing 2001 World Champ John Walton 3-0 in his opening game and then dashing the hopes of Steve Douglas 4-1. Mighty Kong, Robbie Green was Silverback’s Quarter Final victim (5-3), while flying Dutchman Wesley Harms was grounded by rampant O’Shea in the Semi-Final 6-4. Read more Tuesday January 15, 2013 from bdodarts.com Anastasia Dobromyslova clinched her third world title, defying a battling performance from debutant finalist Lisa Ashton 2-1. Bolton-based Ashton hit a maximum and an 80 checkout but was powerless to stop the 28-year-old Russian from chalking up her third world title.

It was an entertaining 30-minute encounter between second seed Dobromyslova and the veteran England international, with Dobromyslova holding her nerve to clinch the title on double six. Afterwards Dobromyslova said: “I still don’t realise I have done it. It was such a tough game. If it had gone to 2-2 in the final set it could have been anyone’s title. “Being here in the final before meant I know how to handle myself. I would just like to thank my family and friends for all their support,” said the newly-crowned champ. Beaten finalist Ashton admitted: “I am gutted at losing but was really pleased to get through to the final. I don’t think the break in the game did me any good.” Read more ESPN and BBC collaborate for complete coverage of Lakeside World Professional Darts Championships Wednesday November 7, 2012 ESPN has reached agreement with BBC Sport and the BDO for the two broadcasters to share coverage of the 2013 Lakeside World Professional Darts Championships.

The BBC will screen exclusively live coverage of the afternoon sessions of the tournament over the opening weekend of January 5th and 6th 2013. There will be extended BBC afternoon highlights from Monday, January 7th to Friday, January 11th, plus late-night highlights on BBC Two and extra action on BBC Sport Online. Additionally, the first Semi-Final will be broadcast live on the BBC on Saturday, January 12th, plus exclusive live coverage of the Final on Sunday, January 13th. ESPN will broadcast both evening sessions of the opening weekend of January 5th and 6th, plus every weekday evening session from January 7th to 11th exclusively live. Its coverage will also include the second Semi-Final exclusively live on Saturday, January 12th and highlights of the Final, on Sunday, January 13th. Additionally, ESPN will bring fans live coverage of the women’s final on Saturday, January 12th, plus selected coverage of earlier rounds. BBC coverage is presented by Colin Murray, who will once again be joined by two-time World Championship runner-up Bobby George.

ESPN’s live televised darts coverage will be led by Ray Stubbs, presenter of both the BDO World Professional Darts Championships and the Winmau World Masters for several years during his career with the BBC. All ESPN discussion and analysis will come live from the Lakeside, capturing the environment and connecting viewers to the unique atmosphere of live darts. Commentary for both broadcasters will come from Jim Proudfoot, Tony Green and Vassos Alexander. Simon Potter, Senior Director, programming, ESPN, Europe, Middle East and Africa, said: “Our first year broadcasting the competition this past January was a great success. We’re looking forward to being part of the wonderful atmosphere and excitement at the Lakeside as we continue to broaden our offering of live darts alongside other sports.” BDO Chairman Barry Gilbey said: “We are absolutely delighted at the extent and diversity of the combined coverage from ESPN and BBC for the 2013 World Pro.

Not only does it provide a fitting celebration of the BDO’s 40th Anniversary Year (1973-2013) but we have an exciting line-up of players, including one of the strongest fields ever assembled for the Women’s World Championship – which is why everyone will be delighted that ESPN is screening the 2013 Women’s Final live on January 12th.” Philip Bernie, Head TV Sport, BBC said: “We are delighted to be showing the World Professional Darts Championship once again on BBC TV , and look forward greatly to its unique mix of top Darts action, great entertainment and a wonderful atmosphere.” Issued by Robert Holmes on behalf of The British Darts Organisation 7/11/12.

Email: robertgholmes@hotmail.com t: 0781-0047925 BDO’S 4Oth anniversary celebration to be launched at Lakeside 2013 Wednesday October 24, 2012 The 40th Anniversary Year of the British Darts Organisation (1973-2013) will be launched in style with the staging of the 2013 Lakeside World Professional Darts Championships at Lakeside Country Club, Frimley Green, Surrey from Saturday, January 5th to Sunday, January 13th, 2013. And the BDO’s website Home Page features a video (courtesy if IMG Sports Media and the BBC) illustrating the unique and entertaining sights and sounds of the 2012 World Championships. A fitting celebration in the run-up to Lakeside 2013. England’s STEPHEN BUNTING and DETA HEDMAN are the No.1 Men’s and Women’s Seeds respectively and there will be comprehensive TV coverage on BBC, ESPN, Eurosport and Eurosport Asia.

The full Draws are as follows: MEN’S FIRST ROUND: No.16 Seed: DARRYL FITTON (ENG) v BENITO van de PAS (NETH) No.1 Seed: STEPHEN BUNTING (ENG) v JAMES WILSON (ENG) No.9 Seed: ALAN NORRIS (ENG) v WAYNE WARREN (WAL) No.8 Seed: WESLEY HARMS (NETH) v RUNE DAVID (NOR) No.12 Seed: SCOTT MITCHELL (ENG) v MARK BARILLI (SCOT) No.5 Seed: ROBBIE GREEN (ENG) v CHRISTIAN KIST (NETH) No.13 Seed: STEVE DOUGLAS (ENG) v GARY STONE (SCOT) No.4 Seed: TONY O’SHEA (ENG) v JOHN WALTON (ENG) No.15 Seed: RICHIE GEORGE (ENG) v DAVE PRINS (ENG) No.2 Seed: MARTIN ADAMS (ENG) v JIMMY HENDRIKS (NETH No.10 Seed: GARY ROBSON (ENG) v GARRY TH

OMPSON (ENG) No.7 Seed: JAN DEKKER (NETH) v JEFFREY de GRAAF (NETH) No.11 Seed: MARTIN ATKINS (ENG) v JASON CULLEN (REP of IRE) No.6 Seed: ROSS MONTGOMERY (SCOT) v PAUL JENNINGS (ENG) No.14 Seed: GEERT de VOS (BELG) v TONY ECCLES (ENG) No.3 Seed: SCOTT WAITES (ENG) v WILLY van de WIEL (NETH) WOMEN’S QUARTER-FINALS: No.4 Seed: IRINA ARMSTRONG (GER) v SHARON PRINS (NETH) No.1 Seed: DETA HEDMAN (ENG) v LISA ASHTON (ENG) No.3 Seed: JULIE GORE (WAL) v TRINA GULLIVER (ENG) No.2 Seed: ANASTASIA DOBROMYSLOVA (RUS) v LORRAINE FARLAM (ENG) Sunday January 15, 2012 For full brackets, stats and summary of each match,

 click here Silent man Christian Kist let his darts do the talking as he toppled favourite Tony O’Shea 7-5 to lift the Lakeside world championship at his first attempt.

The debutant 25-year-old Dutchman, an out-of-work road worker, who began the tournament as a 66/1 outsider steamrollered his way to the title in 146 minutes blasting out eight maximums, a120 checkout and two 12-dart finishes to beat the man double his age. But brave Tony O’Shea almost staged a remarkable comeback after battling back form 6-2 behind to 6-5. Kist becomes only the third player from the Netherlands to lift the world crown, following in the footsteps of Raymond van Barneveld and Jelle Klassen – the last Dutch winner back in 2006. Both sent messages of support before the final. Read more Meet the players - 3 Meet the players - 3 Mon, Dec 29th, 2014 9:34:00 am Let’s have a look at our next set of players for the 2015 Lakeside World Professional Darts Championship.

See also: Meet the Players - here comes the girls What more can be said about Martin ‘Wolfie’ Adams who has been a mainstay at Lakeside winning 3 world titles in his 22 appearances on the Lakeside stage. His debut was in 1994 and since then he has experienced every high and low the world stage has to offer. As top seed in 1997 he went out in the 1st round to American Roger Carter, and in 2007 he won his first title – a game that will go down in the annals of history. Having lead 6-0 the late Phill Nixon nearly pulled off the greatest comeback of all time to level the game. However ‘Wolfie’ dug deep and won the final deciding set. Adams, this year, has picked up his form and currently holds the Welsh Open, HAL Open and BDO International Open titles. In the tournament last year Adams reached the quarter finals but lost out to young Dutch star Jan Dekker. But the legend of the BDO went on to add three new titles to his name – this takes him over 30 titles in his career, the first being the British Open some 21 years ago.

After last year’s Lakeside, Adams reached the quarter finals of the BDO World Trophy and in October the 3 times former World Masters Champion beat both Nick Kenny (last 16) and Gary Robson (quarter final) in deciding legs to reach the semi-finals, before losing in a decider to Jamie Hughes. ‘Scotty Dog’ Scott Mitchell is seeded 4 in this tournament which is his highest seeding since his debut in 2010 and since then has been a seeded player in 5 of the last 6 years. He is the current British Open Champion and has been on great form this year. Currently holding 5 ranking titles, the Romanian Classic, Muensterland Classic, Top of Ghent and most recently the Jersey Open, he also reached the quarter finals of the Winmau World Masters, the BDO World Trophy and the last 16 of this tournament last year. He was a member of England’s successful WDF European Cup winning team taking the pairs title with Scott Waites, and also won the EDO England Matchplay title. In this year’s tournament ‘Scotty Dog’ is drawn against Lakeside favourite Tony O’Shea in what must be the match of the first round.

Mitchell beat O’Shea over this format 3-1 to reach the Zuiderduin Masters semi-finals in 2012 in their only previous televised meeting, and beat him in the French Open final 2013. Both men found success at this years’ Jersey Festival of Darts – O’Shea winning the Classic and Mitchell the Open. The current Winmau World Master, Martin Phillips, has had a terrific year on the oche. After some time away from the rigours of the full circuit Phillips is back, and proving he’s still got what it takes as he’s won the German Masters, Austrian Open and Belgium Open titles this year. These coupled with his appearance in the finals of the British, Turkish and Northern Ireland Opens means that Phillips has never been ranked higher. Phillips also had the honour of captaining his country again this year in the Europe Cup. Wales won the four man team event, beating arch rivals England 9 games to 7. Phillips has appeared 131 times for his country since 1987 and it makes him the most capped international player in darts history.

For Phillips, however, 2014 will be memorable because for the first time his name went on the Winmau World Masters trophy. Phillips’ has reached the semi-finals of Lakeside twice – 2010 and 2011. On both occasions he came up against Martin Adams who beat him 6-4 on both occasions and on both occasions it was Adams who went on to become Champion. However with this year’s draw the two Martin’s may not meet each other until the final. Darius Labanauskas makes his debut at Lakeside and will make history as the first Lithuanian to play on the iconic darting stage. A prolific player in the Baltic & Scandinavia Region he currently holds 2 ranking tournament titles – the Riga Open and Riga Masters. He was also runner up in the Finland Open to Jeffrey de Graaf. The winner of the Estonian Open in 2012 and 2013 he was unable to make it a hat-trick in 2014 just losing out to Belgium’s Geert de Vos. Labanauskas has also won his native Lithuanian Open in both 2011 and 2013.

A member of the Lithuanian team at the last two WDF Europe Cups, reaching the pairs final in 2011 with Arunas Ciplys to win their nation's first ever medals, and in 2013 made the final of the singles where he lost out to Ireland's David Concannon 7-5 after a closely contested best of 13 leg match. Geert de Vos returns to Lakeside as one of two Belgium representatives in this his fourth consecutive year in the Tournament. In the last 3 visits to Frimley Green the young man from Aalst has been unable to progress past the second round. In 2014 he beat Latvian Qualifier Madars Razma in the 1st Round 3 sets to 1 and then lost to eventual semi-finalist Jan Dekker 4-2. Following Lakeside last year he won the Estonian Open Champion title and reached the final of the Denmark Masters as well as reaching the semi-finals at the Denmark and Polish Opens. He also reached the semi-finals of the Zuiderduin Masters in December.

An International player De Vos has represented Belgium at the highest level and was part of the 4 man team event winners at the 2010 WDF Europe Cup. ‘Pip’ Blackwell makes his debut this year at Lakeside qualifying directly through the BDO rankings. This follows a year where he has reached the final of three BDO ranking tournaments. The last of these being the Swedish open back in August 2014 where he lost to Alan Norris. This was a repeat of the British Classic final only a couple of weeks before when again Blackwell came up against Norris only to lose out again. Blackwell’s impressive form stood him well in the Winmau World Masters in October 2014 where he qualified for the staged finals from the floor stages. In the last 32 he came up against Dutchman Jeffrey de Graaf who was seeded 11th for this tournament. Blackwell went on to meet eventual finalist Jamie Hughes in the next round but was not strong enough to stop ‘Yozza’ and he lost 3-1. ‘Pip’ has been around the darts circuit for many years and reaching Lakeside has been a life time ambition that he is now fulfilling.

Daniel Larson returns to the Lakeside stage after a 6 year absence. In 2009 he reached the finals through the qualifying playoffs beating none other than Stephen Bunting 2-0 in his final match. Larsson was drawn against ‘Silverback’ Tony O’Shea in the first round. O’Shea took the game 3-0 and went on to reach the final where he met Ted Hankey. An avid ice hockey fan Larsson made an impact at last year’s Winmau World Masters skating to the staged finals and knocking out Rick Hofstra 3-2 in the Last 32 – this with the help of a 156 checkout. Larson is a Swedish International and ever present at every WDF World and European Cup since 2004. In the 2006 European Cup Singles he beat Tony O’Shea and Martin Phillips to reach the semi-finals. He is a former Finnish Open and Swedish Open semi-finalist and is the reigning Nordic Cup Singles champion. International Qualifier Eddy Sims began playing in WDF ranked events in 2006, mainly playing in his homeland.

He reached the quarter finals of the Pacific Masters in 2006 and 2007 and followed it up by reaching the final of the 2007 Australian Masters where he lost to Simon Whitlock. Sims made four ranked semi-final appearances in 2008, in the Pacific Masters, Malaysian Open, Central Coast Australian Classic and the New Zealand Masters. Sims then won the 2008 Australian Masters, defeating Adam Bainbridge 8-1 in the final. His good performances in 2008 earned Sims automatic qualification for the 2009 Lakeside Championships, entering as No. 16 seed. He was drawn with Welshman Robert Hughes in the first round but lost 3-2. 2009 also saw Sims win other ranking title at the Victoria Easter Open”. A current member of the Australian darts squad he represented his country at the 2013 WDF World Cup in St. John’s, Canada and more recently in Hong Kong at the Asian Pacific Cup. Sims successfully defended his Australian National Singles title in 2014.

His appearance at Lakeside this year is as a result of becoming the 2014 New South Wales Masters champion, Pacific Masters finalist and reaching four ranking semi-finals which helped him top the Australian Regional Table. The Tryout: Darts « Missing the Olympics? May we suggest the obscure, absurd world of professional darts? by Nate DiMeo on August 23, 2012 The Mission: The Japanese turned out to be right: Raw fish laid on top of smushed-together rice is delicious. That’s all I’m doing here. I love sports. I grew up an, in order, MLB, NBA, NCAA men’s basketball, NFL, hockey guy. I grew into an MLB, Premiership, NBA, NFL, halfhearted bracket-filler-outer, occasional playoff-hockey bandwagon jumper. I love soccer. My life is better off because I gave a foreign import a shot at winning its way into my American heart. So I’m giving other sports the same shot. Simple as that. Methodology: They’re getting a shot. They’re not getting an extended trial.

I’m not going to be fostering, say, Australian Rules Football like a rescue dog, keeping it around long enough to see if I like it and it doesn’t eat my toddler’s face. A successful tryout will end with me wanting to watch more. There’s the bar. I know, however, that I would hate for the first-time baseball watcher to be stuck with a three-rain-delay, interleague monstrosity between the Pirates and A’s at the Coliseum. So, I’ll be watching championships. Finals. One-match playoffs. The Tryout: Welcome to something called the Lakeside BDO World Professional Darts Championship! It happened months ago. January, I think. I’ve successfully managed to avoid knowing who wins because I’ve done near-zero research. Also because it’s darts. Let’s be real. Here’s all I know of the event, learned in an effort to track down a video of the final: There are two governing bodies in professional darts. Apparently there was a schism at some point in the fairly recent past. From one, staid organization, two rivals were born. Do I know if there is a demonstrable difference between the two organizations? No.

I just know that there was something billing itself as the World Championship and it was broadcast by both the BBC and ESPN in the U.K. That seemed pretty legit to me. So, with all due apologies to dart fans (“darts fans?” I really don’t know), I am well aware that I may be watching an inferior product. This could be the USFL of darts. One other thing, dart(s) fans: Know that I go into this, my first darts-watching experience, with clear eyes and a full heart. I hope that I love it. I hope I will become a fan. But I am sure I’m going to wind up writing things that are super-ignorant and will make you want to scratch my corneas with whatever it is you call those little feather things at the back of a dart. So, fair warning. Now, having brought up the Lakeside 2012 BDO men’s final on YouTube, I will press play … Michael Schur and Nate DiMeo look overseas to fill a sporting gap with … cricket? 00:01 The show opens on a black screen.

A small star shape appears in the center and expands — a video wipe — revealing your standard, post–Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? 1 television stage set. A large, generic silver-cup trophy and a red-white-and-blue dartboard sit on a table in the foreground. The star, the dartboard’s concentric circles, the color scheme, and the cheap production tricks make this look like a retirement video put together by Captain America’s grandkids. 00:15 That said, I am in good hands with the producers at ESPN U.K. The Lakeside 2012 BDO men’s final (LBMF2K12, from here on out) starts the way all good championships do: with a how-we-got-here montage set to music. The type of bombastic soundtrack usually reserved for scoring epic mid-trilogy battle sequences blares in the background as we are introduced to our two competitors. First Guy: Fifty-ish. Grimace-ish. Slimming properties of his all-black outfit being sorely tested. He’s nearly entirely bald — a no. 1 shaver setting having left a faint, black archipelago of hair atop his head and white Romney patches above his ears.

His face, eggplant-shaped, is bisected by thin black-framed glasses. Thick, enviable, super-villain eyebrows arch above them. A scrappy gray goatee is the only thing keeping his chin doubled rather than yielding to one chest-to-lips chin. He hits his chest twice with his closed fists. This man is not an athlete. This man is Tony O’Shea. His quick-cut journey to the finals sets him up as The Sentimental Favorite. He’s a local boy. Or local-ish. He’s British, anyway, from a rough-and-tumble-sounding place called Stockport. The fans love him. We get lots of shots of him doing something fantastic and then throwing out his arms or beating his flabby chest while the crowd goes bananas. He’s apparently a frequent runner-up (“So often the nearly-man,” says the announcer, in a nice turn of phrase, with “demons” to vanquish). He beat the champion of LBMF2K11 2 to make it into the finals of LBMF2K12.

He is described by the announcers as both “one of the most talented darts players of the modern age” and “the man who put the ‘ocky’ in stocky.” He seems to be punching way over his considerable weight in the romance department. They frequently crosscut between Tony at the line and his wife cheering in the audience. She is so far out of Tony O’Shea’s league it’s making me question why I didn’t pursue a career on the professional darts circuit. Here is a man who throws each dart knowing that, whatever the outcome, he has already won the greatest prize of all: the love of a woman who sort of looks like Emmylou Harris. And the Other Guy, The Scrappy Upstart: He’s also heavy. Maybe 30 years old. Head’s been Bic-ed bald. Small silver hoops in both ears and one eyebrow. He looks a little bit like Tony O’Shea, actually, just unburdened by 20 years of choking down bitter darts disappointment. He is Christian Kist. He’s from the Netherlands. This is his very first time in the Lakeside tournament. He brought along his own wife or girlfriend.

She’s young, brunette, factory-town pretty. She keeps hugging a guy who seems to be Kist’s brother in inappropriate ways. That’s basically it for Christian Kist. There’s pretty much no way I’m rooting for Christian Kist. 2:27 Here we go! Another ocky gentleman in a bulging tux stands on the stage (darts is, it seems, a sport played on a stage) in front of an enormous dartboard backdrop: “Are! You! Ready?!?!? Ladies and Gentlemen … Let’s! Play! Darts!” The crowd chants along with his every word. Apparently, he’s the Michael Buffer of darts. The camera swoops over the crowd and gives us the lay of the land. They seem to have set up a stage in the center of a casino floor. Surrounding it is general admission bedlam. There’s a jester hat. Some life-of-the-party wigs. Sharpied signs taunt unfortunate friends who couldn’t score tickets. I don’t think I actually saw anyone drinking, but in my memory, everyone is waving a red Solo cup in the air.

Up onstage, the Victorian-debtor’s-prison-inmate’s Michael Buffer welcomes the competitors. The bowling-pin silhouette of Tony O’Shea stands to one side. He’s pumped up. Wild-eyed. He looks like a just-introduced American Gladiator if American Gladiators was about eating mozzarella sticks. “And now, the man they call,” the announcer booms, “Silverback!” (Good God, I think I might love darts.) The crowd goes appropriately apeshit. Then, even better, it starts clapping out a beat and sends a full-throated version of that song from the Dirty Dancing soundtrack that goes “Heyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy-yyyyyyyyyy, baby / I wanna know / if you’ll be my girl” into the hall. Which would be great as is, but is made all the better by the fact that they add, between the “Hey baby” and the “I wanna know,” a gorilla-y “Hooh! Hah!” while Tony, the Silverback, does that chest-beating thing from the opening montage. This crowd loves Tony O’Shea.

Up onstage — Silverback emblazoned on the back of his shirt alongside a semi-menacing gorilla — Tony puts his hand to his ear and milks one more “Hey Baby” chorus before the announcer tamps it down. There’s very little daylight between the entrance of darts player (Darter? Dartist?) Tony O’Shea and that of The Birdman, Koko B. Ware. Not so for his competitor. All he gets is, “He comes from the Netherlands. Welcome Christian Kist.” The crowd offers up some polite applause and he stands awkwardly amid the neon swirl, shifting nervously between his heels. The cameraman tries to make up for his lack of dynamism by waving the camera around like a glow stick. Kist mouths, “Now?” and then shuffles to the stage, botching the few high-fives that are offered en route. He gets an assist from the boys in the booth as they drop the needle on “Thunderstruck.” 3 Kist and O’Shea give a perfunctory, one-handed bro-hug and then the screen goes kind of kerflizzle and I find out that this YouTube video of the final does not have commercials.

This is an outsize bummer as I was irrationally looking forward to watching ads for British consumer products. 4:58 Out of the break, two broadcasters break down Silverback’s and From-the-Netherlands’s tournament stats. The key to the match for Kist? “He’ll have to play within himself.” Good to see that color-man banalities work on both sides of the Atlantic. 5:39 Tony O’Shea steps up to the line. Here’s the setup: The players throw from behind a line that (I just looked this up) is 7 feet 9¼ inches away. 4 They’re standing out toward the front lip of the stage with their backs to the crowd. The audience is seated at small cocktail tables on the floor, like the World Darts Championship is a performance of Funny Girl at a dinner theater in Scarsdale. Kist and O’Shea are throwing at a standard dartboard that turns out to be the center of the enormous, decorative dartboard behind the stage. I’m hoping there is a tiny dartboard within the actual dart board that itself has an even tinier dartboard within it that itself has a tinier dartboard within it. Infinite regression freaks me out.

5:51 Tony throws a few warm-up darts. The color man tells us that this is O’Shea’s 11th Lakeside Tournament and “he wants it more than anything.” Kist steps up for his warm-ups and we’re treated to, essentially, the dartboard’s P.O.V. If this were in 3-D, the darts would be coming right at us. 6:17 I guess we’re playing darts now. After a two-minute montage that made O’Shea-Kist at Lakeside feel like the biggest deal since Ali fought Superman for the Intergalactic Heavyweight Title on the planet of Bodace , after all the razzmatazz of the introductions, it turns out that there’s no pomp between the warm-up throws and the actual throws. The Silverback steps up — toss-pock, toss-pock, toss-pock — scores a 140. Kist is right behind him — pock, pock, pock — for 59. Whole first round (or whatever) took about 15 seconds. Apparently, the winner is the first to seven sets. I’ll fill you in when I know what a set is.

7:39 Darts are being thrown. 7:59 Kist throws three darts and they each go into the little narrow sliver in the middle of the pie slice with the 20 over it, scoring 180. Apparently, you score triple in there. The crowd roars, if only because it gives them the opportunity to wave little paper signs that say “180.” I suspect the pleasures of darts fandom may be doled out in small favors. 8:11 All right, here’s what seems to be happening: Each guy started out this round/game with 501 points and is whittling that down with each throw, I presume, to zero. I also presume that 501 points makes a certain mathematical sense, but its logic isn’t instantly clear to me. Silverback had victory in his grasp but couldn’t quite bring it home. Kist cleaned up, hitting “Double 10s” out there on the outer edge of the board, leaving Tony O’Shea agrumble. Then they get up and just throw more darts. 8:50 Pock, pock, pock. Pock, pock, pock.

8:55 9:13 Two things: I’ve decided the sound is more of a “thuck” than a “pock.” Please do a find-and-replace in your head if the inaccuracy above bothers you. Note, however, that when they replay a winning throw (as they just did when Kist took yet another round from the sweating Silverback), the boys in the booth add a bunch of reverb on the low end, turning the friendly “thuck” into an imposing “thooooom.” Also note: Super-slow-mo replays in darts are patently ridiculous. It is a dart appearing in a dartboard. No matter how precisely thrown, no matter how dead-center bull’s-eye or hair’s-breadth out-of-bounds, it is just a dart hitting a board. Barring the only marginally likely event that Prince Harry drunkenly stumbles into the line of fire so that a dart whizzes just past his shoulder, thus pinning the SS insignia from his Nazi-themed Halloween costume dead-center in Triple 16, I don’t think I need to see another replay. They aren’t playing cricket.

That’s the game you know from, like, the basement game rooms of friends’ divorced dads; the one where you try to score at least one point in all of the different pie slices. Or something. I think that would be more interesting than what’s going on here. At least there’d be some sort of strategy, or at least discussion of strategy. “What’s Silverback thinking here, Nigel?” “Well, Liam, he’s already scooped up the four, six, and 11. But his DARTZ 5 score tells us that the 12 is his Achilles’ heel. I think he knocks down the 18 here, mate. Pass me a Boddingtons.” In this game, they just seem to be going for the highest possible score. So, that seems to mean they’re pretty much always aiming for the narrow, tripling strip in the middle of the 20 area. This makes sense, because if you miss the 50-point bull’s-eye you could end up with three or five or two points very easily. If you aim for the 60-point triple-20 and miss, chances are you’ll still end up with 20 points.

In other words, most of this game is taking place in about three square inches. Hmmm … 9:33 The competitors go, rather grimly, about their business. Every once in a while a man in a tuxedo who stands slightly off to the side, in the sweet spot between close-enough-to-see and far-enough-to-not-be-robbed-of-the-ability-to-see-by-an-errant-dart-to-the-eye, calls out the score. The crowd murmurs in the background, occasional applause interrupts chatting about the cost of their children’s orthodontic work and whether they heard that Clive ran into Kathy, the girl who used to wait tables at the Rose and Thistle in Frimley Green and let’s just say the bloom is off the rose. The announcers lament a missed throw by O’Shea that I also seemed to have missed: “That’s the thing about darts … you never know which dart will change the whole context of a match.” This for me is doubly true. I am surprisingly at sea in what seems to be a simple game. So, hang out for a second while I figure out the game of darts. I’m back.

Here’s what the Internet told me about darts. They’re playing a variation called “501.” And, yes, they’ve got to get down to zero as fast as possible. Here’s where 501 gets semi-interesting: To win the game you need to get the score down to precisely zero and you need to do that by hitting one of the bonus areas. So: if you’re at 22 points, you could “zero-out,” as the saying apparently goes, by hitting Double 11. If you were at 19, you’d have to, say, hit a 1 and then hit a Double 9. All of this means that there’s at least some strategy going on here. If you consider rudimentary math to be strategy. So, in this tournament, it looks like they’re playing sets, à la tennis. The match is first to seven sets. A set is won by the first to win three games (apparently called “legs”). Simple enough. OK, now that I understand what’s going on, again: LET’S WATCH SOME MOTHERFUCKING DARTS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 10:00 Watching some motherfucking darts.

10:01 Things are now making a lot more sense. Kist is sitting at 76. The announcer says “he’s looking at a Treble 20, Double 8,” and I understand what he’s saying. Kist, indeed, aims at, and lands, his first throw in the sliver in the middle of the 20 segment to get 60 points and then “zeros-out” by hitting the outer ring of the 8, scoring 16. He gives a little fist-pump and allows himself a self-satisfied smile. Silverback’s shaking his head with apparent disgust at the turn of events. Note: I’ve been watching and enjoying football for three decades and am continually learning relatively rudimentary aspects of the game; I’ve been watching darts for less than 10 minutes of actual gameplay and I think I’ve got the whole thing covered. That seems problematic. 10:38 Kist is developing something bordering on swagger as he wins another leg. He’s smiling more. Nodding to himself. Tony O’Shea is looking like a man with his Silverback to the wall.

But wait: Just when I resolved to give this thing a fair shot, I realized that somehow, I’ve missed a bunch of darts. This YouTube video may have been edited for time. I begin rapidly cycling through Elisabeth Kübler-Ross’s Five Stages of Grief, whipping through Denial and Anger before stopping abruptly at the third stage: Relief That One Has Less Darts to Watch. Anyway, Kist is currently up four sets to two. 11:00 I’ve decided I’m rooting for O’Shea because: Underdog, at least at this stage of the match. Underdog, in the game of life. Will try to plug “Overweight,” “Sedentary,” “Over-50,” “Occupation Both Highly Stressful and Plied in Pubs and Casinos” into an actuarial table during next break in the action. Home team.

His opponent has, in recent turns, developed both a cocky, self-congratulatory head-nod thing that seems unbecoming of a people’s champion and a tic whereby every time he throws a dart he moves his lips as though he’s trying to surreptitiously spit a small rodent out of the side of his mouth. 11:55 Kist just tried to hit a couple of Double 18’s to put the leg away and put, apparently, the match out of reach but shanks it, leaving a big opening for O’Shea. Kist’s girlfriend/fiancée/wife/whomever makes her first appearance since the opening montage looking both deeply nervous and a bit like Björk if her productive years were spent as a darts groupie rather than, like, mapping the REM cycles of squirrels and feeding the data directly into Ableton Live, or whatever it was I read her most recent album is about. 12:03 O’Shea and Kist back-to-back-blow it. Kist is pissed. Björk is pissed.

Silverback, back at the line, with three shots to get “Double Top” (the sliver at the top of the 20 slice), nails it on the first try. Leg to O’Shea. 12:45 They’re going back and forth, like two heavyweights at the top of the fight game who’ve taken a break from the fight game to throw some darts. 12:53 I find out that Björk’s name is Kirsten. So it’s Christian and Kirsten Kist. Ugh. Go Silverback. 14:20 With Kist poised to take the set with a win on his next set of throws, “there’s a lot riding on these darts” for Tony O’Shea. They cut to his own girlfriend/fiancée/wife. Her hands are knitted in nervous concentration. Her face, thanks to an odd camera angle, is obscured by some sort of bar light. The director really ought to cut away. Last time we saw her, she looked striking — long, silver hair falling in waves along a shoreline of dignified cheekbones; now she looks like a lampshade wearing a Lucius Malfoy wig.

14:42 Kist zeros-out with Double 10’s, giving him that 5-2 lead the commentators were worrying about. Throw this in the plus column for darts: I like how close the competitors stand to each other. They’re hovering right over each other’s shoulder while they wait to throw. I can’t think of another turn-based game where it’s quite so close. Makes for some nice two-shots, TV-production-wise, with one guy elated by a shot made, and the other guy glowering nearby. Also, opens up tremendous possibilities for physical violence. 15:01 Play-By-Play Guy: “Can the big boy from greater Manchester rouse the crowd’s spirits once again?” Colo(u)r Man: “Well, the answer could be on the back of his shirt … it’s Gorilla Warfare from here on out.” Bam! Jokes.

15:40 My new favorite thing about the Lakeside World Darts Championship may be how the tuxedoed scorekeeper pronounces his numbers: “Nointy!” “Firty!” “Eighty-free!” 16:11 Another 180 for O’Shea who, groove back, has revived to the Silverback chest-pound. I’d like to think there’s a darts video game in which you can unlock that signature move. That 180 has also brought forth the best from the announcer who describes the three darts bunched within the scoring sliver as “a tangle of tungsten around the treble twenty!” 16:24 O’Shea closes out the game, taking the first leg of a new set. The crowd goes ballistic. Chants of “Tony! Tony! Tony!” ring through the hall. Raphael Saadiq hops onto the stage attempting to lead the audience in a chorus of “ Feels Good ” before realizing his mistake, saying, “My bad,” and slinking off. 19:40 The first marginally exciting leg of the night just wrapped up. Each man blowing three chances to close it out.

O’Shea even had his final, would-be-clinching dart strike the feathers (or whatever they’re called) of one of his other darts and get diverted into a neighboring segment, which sounds more interesting than it actually was. O’Shea then had three throws to hit a Double 8 to close out and couldn’t, leaving him to mutter regional profanities while Kist ultimately took care of business. It was mildly diverting as an entertainment. 20:03 Kist took yet another leg. Mrs. Silverback is apparently named Jill. They showed a close-up of O’Shea’s off hand and he’s completely blinged out: thick rings on each finger and a wrist laden with the kind of big, honking gold watch you’d expect to receive to commemorate your 50th anniversary as Scrooge McDuck’s manservant.

I have a momentary reverie imagining that Tony, rolling onto his sweaty back at night after unsatisfactory rutting, looks at his rings in the blue moonlight spilling into yet another comped hotel room at a third-rate Blackpool casino, and wonders if they could somehow be laced with magnets such that he could wave his hand and control the trajectory of the dart once in flight and finally, for once in his bloody life, actually win a darts final. 22:00 During my reverie, I missed some darts. I could go back and rewind and recap, but really, it’s all the same. O’Shea’s dropped another set. Kist is one set away from winning it all in his first time in the tournament. O’Shea, I learned, has been to five big-time, televised finals and lost every time. For want of magic, magnet rings. 23:57 Silverback is throwing like a defeated man. Head shaking self-hatred with each miss. Occasionally looking off into the crowd — to his wife, I believe — and giving a sad shrug. 25:26 Tony O’Shea takes the first leg of his back-to-the-wall set.

He pounds his chest as though trying to wake the Silverback sleeping within. Jill O’Shea, shot in profile, no longer Lampshade Malfoy, cheers him on. Seated next to her is a young woman who’s clearly her daughter, looking like a Midlands Meghan McCain. College age, probably. College material? Unclear. One can only guess at the life and prospects of a girl who’s spent so many years as L’il Silverback, fending off the advances of darts enthusiasts in gaming floors and multipurpose rooms across the British Isles, SMS-ing S.O.S.’s to friends back home while pinching sips off of people’s Pimms Cups. 26:51 One of this game’s virtues is one of its faults: The game is unrelenting. They just keep throwing darts. Lose a leg and you’re right back up there. I’m sure there’s a time limit of some sort between throws, but even to me, the complete darts neophyte, it’s obvious that my man Silverback clearly would do well to chill out for a second here. Even if it only serves to break Kist’s routine, like varying one’s snap count.

But, either way, I’m enjoying how they just keep hammering away at each other. And not solely because it means that it promises a quick and merciful end to my darts-watching experiment. 27:00 That said, the commentators are working with what little they have pretty effectively: “It’s a very lonely place, the Lakeside stage. And a very public place to display your mental demons, but it looks like Christian Kist is a man without demons.” Tony O’Shea looks like he may have eaten his. In fact … 29:42 Silverback zeros-out to take the next leg. He licks his lips like he’s just polished off his third turkey leg at a Medieval Times. 31:22 For the first time, one of the darters (Silverback) hits the fins/feathers/whatnots of a dart already embedded in the board and it bounces off. Tony seems mildly annoyed. They show a replay and add on so much reverb and other effects that one dart flittering off the tail feathers of another now sounds like the train crash in Super 8.

32:00 Tony O’Shea’s shirt is sponsored by MariFlex, a company that, like the belly within that shirt, specializes in “Liquid Cargo Handling.” 32:15 After tying the set at one leg apiece, Kist drops a game “while holding the darts,” which means that, essentially, he failed to hold serve. Silverback mans up and takes the set. Cue the chest-pound. The Silverback is still in it. Although he does need to with four straight sets to pull it out. So, he’s not in it in it, but, you know. 34:32 The mood in the room has changed dramatically. Minutes ago, with their favorite son near the brink of elimination, the crowd continued to chat away. But Silverback’s victory has shut them up. People are starting to hang more on each throw, shouting and cheering at shots made, moaning with misses. It makes for way better watching here at home … four months later … on YouTube. 35:11 Kist “holds his throw.” He’s two legs away from winning Lakeside, guys!

37:40 The crowd members are shushing each other as Tony steps to the line with two throws to zero-out on a Double 8. Toss, thuck, miss. Toss, thuck, miss. Silverback goes ashen, knowing he’s left Kist with a great opening. “That’s the look of a man who starts to think, ‘This might not be my year again.'” But wait: Kist shanks it! “Come on, Tony!” shouts a man in the audience. “Come on, Tony!” says the commentator, throwing objectivity out the window like an errant dart. “Come on, Tony!” I shout, surprising myself. Double 10 for the win! Silver-back! Silver-back! Silver-back! 43:44 Something weird just happened: I started to enjoy watching darts. The game found a nice rhythm, the crowd found its rooting voice, both men threw well, and at the end of it, Tony O’Shea won another set. Down 6-2 not long ago, he’s pulled up to 6-4. Can he rattle off three more? I don’t know. Do I care? You know what? I might!

44:41 Both men, after finishing a round, shoot a glance offstage to their wives. It’s actually cool. It really feels like these people’s fortunes, maybe literally, are in the balance, and it’s adding to the experience. Part of the brilliance of the Rocky script is that Stallone realized this and brought Adrian into the arena. 46:33 Tony takes the first leg, then starts out strong in the second, putting up his first 180 in a long time. The commentators are pointing out that Tony O’Shea lost the Lakeside finals once in a 7-6 match. They’re invoking the possibility that he could be the first person to come back from being down 6-2 to win it, thus “exorcis[ing] a bucketful of demons tonight.” Win or lose, I suspect Tony O’Shea is going to exorcise a bucketful of chicken tonight. 47:40 Jill O’Shea is now standing up screaming. I assume it could be encouragement, but it could easily be about her need to pay the mortgage, such is her bug-eyed desperation. 48:11 DAMN IT!

Tony just missed chances to go ahead two legs. But … Kist fails to close him out and O’Shea takes care of business. Phew. I am genuinely relieved. 50:11 Tony has remained on a roll. He’s just won his sixth leg in a row. One more and they’re all knotted up. Kist looks rattled. I learn that Kist works on a road crew in the Netherlands, laying tarmac for a living. This is fantastic news. Had I known that earlier, it may have swayed my rooting interest, such is my bias toward working-class sports heroes. “Can he find his rhythm again,” asks one of the commentators, “and get himself back on the road to the trophy?” Bam! Jokes. 54:10 Kist seems to have held serve/the darts and gone up 1-0 in the set. I have been preoccupied trying to come up with a road-crew-related nickname for Kist. I’m leaning toward something clean and simple like “The Steamroller.” 55:12 Oh no! O’Shea made what I’d imagine is the darts equivalent of Tony La Russa botching the phone call to the bullpen.

He lost a game because he miscounted. He was throwing at the wrong target, thinking, it seems, he was setting himself up to zero-out in his next turn but, instead, left himself on an impossible number. The announcers went crazy: “Tony O’Shea! What were you doing????!” 57:38 Tony really is unraveling. He matches Kist’s opening 140 with a flaccid 43. Kist knocks down a 180. The announcers point out that he was a 66-1 underdog coming into the tournament. He’s only the 13th-ranked player in Netherlands. 58:39 Looking for a big number to stay in it, Silverback only manages an 83. As Kist steps to the line needing to hit two targets with three throws, Jill O’Shea shakes her head like she can’t believe she’s here again. Kist hits both throws. As Kist celebrates, the crowd chants “Tony Tony Tony Tony Tony Tony Tony Tony,” lifting the big man’s spirits.

Dignitaries from the British Darts Organisation and some sponsors give Kist the cup and a oversize check for £100,000. “The world of darts has a new superstar,” the announcer intones. “He’s 25. He’s bald. He’s Dutch. And he’s called Christian Kist.” Tony O’Shea, 50, also bald, from Stockport, receives his own check. It’s normal-size and for a highly respectable £30,000. He promptly folds it in half and shoves it into his wallet. The man’s got bills to pay and demons to exorcise. The Verdict: Darts isn’t for me. I like more strategy. I like gameplay variation. I like head-to-head competitions to be, more fully, competitions between two individuals whose skills and physical attributes fundamentally change how each person plays the game. Watching darts did make me want to play darts. I think it’s a good game. It didn’t make me want to watch any more darts, however. I don’t think it’s a good sport. That said, this is a different game than most.

How many people at Lucas Oil Stadium watching the most recent Super Bowl had ever played a proper game of tackle football in their lives? And, outside of the current or recently retired professionals in the stands, how many people were watching the game thinking, I could do that? Thinking that they could’ve caught that pass that Welker dropped? The people in this Lakeside crowd had to be thinking this. Or, at the very least, that, if they’d just practiced more, if they didn’t have to work so hard, that could’ve been them up there. They’d each had nights at the pub, when they were just the right amount of drunk, when just the right song came on the jukebox at just the right time, and they could stand up to the line, roll the shaft of the dart between their fingertips, and know that they’d found just the right grip, knew just how their wrist needed to move, and just floated them in. One after another. I like that. It’s not my game. But I like that. Most sports dreams end with a man sitting at the end of a bar, imagining what could have been. Darts dreams begin with a man sitting at the end of a bar imagining what could be.

Nate DiMeo ( @thememorypalace ) is the creator of the podcast The Memory Palace . He’s the co-author of Pawnee: The Greatest Town in America and a finalist for the Thurber Prize in American Humor. Is there anyone who has had a greater impact on television aesthetics than the person who designed the original Millionaire set? It’s the blueprint for every singing competition, every game show, most election-night punditry-athons: those neon-piped geometric platforms that float out in black space. Someone give that person a special Emmy. This man was wearing a black, bowling-style shirt with a massive picture of a wolf howling at the moon on the back. It is the exact same shirt Will Ferrell will wear when he gets around to playing a down-on-his-luck one-time darts champ on a comeback. AC/DC’s “Thunderstruck” may well be the last, pure sports-arena anthem. Setting aside Blur’s “Song 2” as an outlier, I get the sense that nearly all contemporary jock jam staples were written with the express purpose of becoming contemporary jock jams.

This seemed ridiculously arbitrary, so I looked it up, hoping it would have its roots in the dimension of some ur-pub. Perhaps, 7 feet 9¼ inches was the precise distance from the wall to the edge of the bar where some half-mythic darts pioneer used to throw the filed-down metacarpals of dead brigands into the actual eye of a bull that he’d first pinned to the wall back in 1597. Turns out that it’s actually just derived by estimating the height of eye level for a 6-foot man and then applying the Pythagorean theorem. “Darting Average Relative to Zone.” Which I made up just now. Closely related to PU/B, a tortured acronym for a predictive mathematic formula that aims to correlate points earned per alcoholic beverage consumed. BBC Sport - Darts - Top seed Tony O'Shea survives early BDO darts scare Top seed Tony O'Shea survives early BDO darts scare BDO World Professional Darts Championships Venue: Lakeside Country Club, Frimley Green, Surrey Dates: 2-10 January Coverage: Live on BBC Two, BBC Red Button and BBC Sport website.

Daily reports and scores on BBC Sport website Advertisement Belly-bouncing begins BDO World Championships Tony O'Shea survived a first-round scare to seal a 3-2 victory over Robbie Green on the opening day of the BDO World Professional Darts tournament. The top seed, nicknamed 'Silverback', raced into a 2-0 lead, Green responded by taking the third set to love before levelling in the fourth. However, O'Shea kept his composure in the fifth, using his superior finishing skills to see off 'Kong'. Defending champion Ted Hankey cruised to a 3-0 win over Gary Robson. 'The Count' set up a second-round tie against the Netherlands's Willy van der Wiel, who caused the first shock of the tournament when he beat former champion John Walton 3-2. Video - Willy van der Wiel makes spectacular 161 checkout (UK only) With the tie poised at 2-2, the 2001 winner lost his form when it mattered most, allowing his younger opponent to sneak the victory. England's Brian Woods saw off Van der Wiel's compatriot Joey Ten Berge in another five-set thriller.

Hankey, seeded fifth, produced a series of impressive finishes to completely outplay Robson. "I was a little shaky on the first two legs through nerves," he told BBC Sport. "But I finished well and I'm impressed with myself." There was another shock in the last match of the opening day's action as Norway's Robert Wagner defeated eighth seed Alan Norris 3-2. Wagner's reward is a second-round match against Woods.

Question: In the world of professional darts, which player is nicknamed 'The Silverback'?
Answer: TONY O'SHEA