ANALYSIS | The art of the 'big numbers': Why even the best darters mess up

Darts is a sport of millimeters. A fraction too much left or right can mean the difference between triumph and disappointment. Yet it is not always about the smallest squares on the board. Sometimes a match is actually about hitting the biggest and - on paper - easiest sector: the so-called "big numbers". And remarkably, for many top players, that turns out to be trickier than you might expect.

This was demonstrated recently at the Hungarian Darts Trophy in Budapest. Former world champion Rob Cross ran into a curious blunder there in his match against the later winner Niko Springer. Cross missed the big number three times in a row, a scenario that is almost impossible according to statistics.

His three darts yielded only 12 points - no chance of a double and much frustration on the Englishman's part. Statistically, the chance of three consecutive misses was 1 in 5000. Springer probably would have won the match even without this miss, but the moment typified how even the biggest names in sports sometimes struggle with the seemingly easy.

What makes the big number so interesting? These are the largest sectors on the board, which are nine times larger than a triple and 18 times larger than the bull. Professional players hit a triple on average about 35 percent of the time and the bull about 20 percent. Then you would expect hitting a single to be child's play for them - practically flawless.

The numbers, however, tell a different story. On the PDC's stage, an average of one out of every eighteen darts thrown on a singles court misses their target. That still sounds like a high degree of precision, but in the world of top darts, one missed dart can cost a leg, a set or even an entire title.

A player is not always completely "guilty" of such a miss. Darts already in the board can block the view or the path. Sometimes the outcome is also less disastrous than it seems: those who aim for single 20 but accidentally hit double 20 simply end up on double 10 instead of double 20. For many players, that hardly makes a difference. Still, a wrong throw can often lead to awkward finishes, a missed chance at double or - at worst - a busted score.

The reactions of players often betray how important these moments are. A shake of the head, an irritated look or just a sigh of relief says it all: even the largest squares on the board require supreme concentration.

Who have best mastered the art of the ankle box? So far, Chris Dobey is this season's standout. The Englishman records an impressive 97.5 percent accuracy: only one miss in forty attempts. In total, he only went wrong ten times out of almost four hundred attempts this year. Against Danny Noppert in Budapest, he accidentally hit double 14 instead of single 14, which contributed to his 6-2 defeat. But that incident takes little away from his status as the most reliable player in this field.

Even more impressive: with the first dart of a turn, Dobey hit his intended ankle box in 154 out of 155. That's a level of focus that seems almost superhuman.

Gerwyn Price also scored high. With 548 attempts and an average of 97.1 percent, the Welshman is among the absolute best. Callan Rydz goes even further: he has not missed a single box on a stage or stream match in over four months. And then, of course, there is prodigy Luke Littler, who is smashing all records on the triples. His score on the big numbers? A fairly average 94.4 percent. That sounds less spectacular, but is exactly what the PDC averages predict.

What is further striking: the difference between the best and worst single-squad throwers is small. It is only about 7 percentage points. Even the least accurate players hit their target in more than 90 percent of cases. That means no darter has to worry structurally about this part of the game.

This raises the question: why do analysts pay attention to this statistic at all? After all, it is not a decisive factor in profit or loss. The answer lies in the psychology of the sport. Hitting a singles box seems easy, especially compared to throwing 180s or checking out difficult finishes. Yet that is precisely where things often go wrong, as players lose concentration. So the difference is not so much in technical skill, but in mental discipline.

A player who takes the "simple" arrows seriously avoids unnecessary problems and keeps himself in the game. Dobey and Price show that it is precisely that constant focus that can set a player apart. Not because it instantly wins matches, but because it prevents a match from slipping out of his hands unnecessarily.