“You’re actually learning about where you want to miss” – Wayne Mardle swears by unusual darts training method

Wayne Mardle has spent much of his life studying a dartboard, first as one of the sport’s leading players and more recently as a commentator and coach. But one of his favourite ways to improve your finishing does not actually involve throwing a single dart.

In a recent video shared by Winmau Darts, Mardle outlined a simple exercise designed to sharpen a player’s counting, checkout routes and understanding of what happens when the first dart does not land exactly where intended.

All it requires is a dartboard, three darts and somewhere to sit. “Get a spare board, or take the board off the wall. Put it on your lap. Just sit there for hours,” Mardle explained. “Instead of watching TV, get your three darts and go through the finishes from two to 170. Just put them in the board. It’s on your lap.”

Rather than repeatedly throwing at combinations, Mardle’s idea is to physically place the darts into the board and work through the different possibilities that can develop from each score.

“You can play all these scenarios out. It’s visual. So say you are on 93: 57 for 36. If you hit 19, you’ve got 74, so 42, 32,” he said. “When you’re doing it with the darts in your hand, you’re seeing it visually and you are learning so much quicker. You are learning to see parts of the dartboard that, really, sometimes you don’t want to see.”

The value comes not simply from memorising the conventional route to a checkout, but from understanding the alternatives when things do not go to plan. Mardle again uses 93 to demonstrate the point. “Let’s just stick with 93. You’ve hit treble seven, leave 72. What way do you want to go now? Do you want to go double 18, double 18? Do you want to stick next door and go 48? Do you want to go 60? Do you want to go 36?” he continued. “You can do all this with the dartboard on your lap. You are going through the same scenarios you would do by throwing them.”

That is where Mardle believes the exercise becomes particularly useful. A player is not only learning where the next dart should go, but what different misses will mean for the remainder of the visit.

“Yes, you’re not practising, but you are learning about you and the board. You’re actually learning about where you want to miss,” Mardle said. “I’m the biggest advocate of this in the world.”

His example of 104 shows exactly what he means. For Mardle, starting on treble 16 offers considerably more flexibility than immediately heading towards the 20 segment, because 48 leaves 56 and keeps several routes alive with two darts remaining.

“Michael van Gerwen will tell you this. 104, there’s only one right way, and that’s 48. If you do not go that way, you’re not giving yourself options,” Mardle explained. “48 off of 104 leaves 56. You may not like tops. You may want to go 20, 36, or 16, tops, or even two 48s. Anything around there. It doesn’t matter, you can still take out 104.”

The contrast comes when a player elects to start on 20s. A wayward first dart can immediately remove the possibility of completing the checkout within the visit. “104 on 20s, can’t hit that, can’t hit that, you’re in trouble,” he added. “So if you’re wayward off 104 going for 20s, you cannot take it out.”

That awareness of the bad dart was also central to Mardle’s approach during his own playing career. His throwing style and personality at the oche hardly suggested caution, but the former World Championship semi-finalist says the thought process behind his finishing was far more calculated.

“Even I was an attacking player, the way I threw,” Mardle reflected. “I was called, somewhat by some, a defensive player because I was thinking of the miss.”

It is that side of counting which Mardle’s unusual training method is intended to develop. Knowing a standard checkout is one thing; recognising which route leaves the greatest margin for error can make the difference when the first dart misses its target.

By repeatedly working through those situations with the board on his lap, Mardle believes a player can build that knowledge without even needing to throw. The objective is not merely to know where the perfect dart goes, but to understand what happens when it is anything but perfect.