6 ms·

Studying the limits of human perfection, through darts

25 points by wallflower 3y ago

dazc 3y ago
The amount of money one can earn as a professional sports player has also multiplied so the incentive to practice has multiplied also. If I spent my youth playing darts 8 hours a day I would be considered rather foolish, nowadays not so much.
- tokai 3y ago
  In professional cycling the earnings have fallen quite a lot since the 90s, but professionalism in training and the overall level has risen. So money can't be the only explanation.
  - Luc 3y ago
    I'm struggling to think of a way in which either individual or team earnings could possibly be lower now than in the 90's.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
  - mdw_ 3y ago
    What is the data that you are basing this statement on?
    - tokai 3y ago
      On that average speeds records are being broken in racing all the time. That ex pros comment that the professionalism and training is on a much higher level now than it was in the 90s. And a whole lot of other things picked up following cycling for a long time.
      - mdw_ 3y ago
        Sorry. I should have asked a different question. Your statement mentioned that earnings have fallen since the 90s. I don't know of any data sources outside of the price money of the Tour de France. I was wondering if there were different source on which you relied to make that statement?
        tokai 3y ago
        I commented and answer on that before but deleted it, as I didn't felt like having a discussion about it. Cycling economy is frustratingly oblique. I relied on a host of source most of them not in writing, beside my own calculations on salaries. The academic monography The Economics of Professional Road Cycling claims that cycling has expanded economically since the 90s, while I think that their method is not trustworthy.
  - sBqQu3U0wH 3y ago
    >So money can't be the only explanation. Well, of course not. There is better equipment, better training practices, and I imagine there are more participants doing cycling both on amateur and professional level. No wonder the results are better.
tromp 3y ago
> When Smith aims for the triple 20 — the highest-value subsection of the board, but smaller than half a square inch — he hits it less than half the time. Note that perfection does not necessitate hitting a high percentage of triple 20s, since one is also constrained by having to throw a total of 501 points. One way to achieve true perfection is to hit triple 20 + triple 19 + double 50 with every 3 darts, giving all 9 darters.
- monooso 3y ago
  I'm confused by your comment; there's no such thing as a double 50.
  - tromp 3y ago
    Oops; I meant double 25, a.k.a. bull's eye.
- ghusbands 3y ago
  None of the other options are significantly easier to hit. Also, the hit rate of any other suitable combo won't differ much from that of triple 20, and triple 20 has the advantage of getting you to the high numbers sooner. You could avoid triple 20 entirely, you can go for 8 triple 19s and a triple 15, for example.
  - tromp 3y ago
    No; that won't work, since the final dart is required to be a double...
  - Someone 3y ago
    > None of the other options are significantly easier to hit. Can you point to data supporting that claim? I would think a simple model for throwing is: - get the left-right direction right - get the throwing angle/speed combo right and do not rule out that some players are better at one of those than at the other, showing smaller variation. If so, those players would be better at hitting the (almost) vertical triples than the (almost) horizontal ones or vice versa. I guess I would want to know the point-spread function (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Point_spread_function https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Point_spread_function) per player. If you know that, you could devise an optimal strategy, weighing the number of points each target is worth (even if you can hit triple-10 with 100% precision, it most of the time isn’t a good idea to aim for it) and situation of the game (you’re maximizing the probability of winning, not the winning margin, so if you’re far, far ahead, that triple-10 may become enticing)
npinsker 3y ago
https://web.archive.org/web/20230814070005/https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/05/upshot/darts-sports-perfection.html https://web.archive.org/web/20230814070005/https://www.nytim...
isaacfrond 3y ago
tl;dr - Games are continually made easier by bending the rules and better equipment. Also more people practise more.
- dtgriscom 3y ago
  Where did you find "bending the rules" in the original article?
spullara 3y ago
The best baseball players get on base < 33% of the time.
- 63 3y ago
  Which imo makes the sport quite a bore to watch as someone who never played. I'm sure it's an incredibly impressive display of skill if I had any idea how hard it is, but all I know as a spectator is I get to sit there and watch people strike out. Occasionally there will be a base gained in an inning. Maybe a run or two from my team in a game. It just doesn't seem like a very balanced game, at least for the metric of creating excitement in the audience. I think it would be more interesting if the athletes were worse at it
  - function_seven 3y ago
    You’re not alone. MLB has adopted a bunch of new rules in order to both speed up the game and generate more plays. They see the problem as well. Pitch clock, pick-off attempt limit, the shift being reined in a bit. The bases are slightly larger, which should tip the scale toward the runner.
    - probably_wrong 3y ago
      And yet, based on the one game I saw while visiting the US, they will gladly spend hours doing anything except playing the game - they'll play 2-3 minutes and then go away for 15. I'm glad I got to see a "kiss cam" in real life, but I ended up watching more Jumbotron TV than game. You want to speed up the game? Turn off the screens. I know there's a tradition of taking baseball more like a picnic than a sport, but if cricket could come up with variations to shorten 2-3 days into 3 hours I'm sure baseball can do it too.
      - wincy 3y ago
        The only time I’ve gone to a baseball game as an American (with a “World Series” winning team, no less) in the last twenty years was because my work shuttle bussed us all an hour from the office, and we got unlimited alcoholic drinks in a covered area. I got to hang out with coworkers all day which was important as we were just coming out of Covid restrictions and were all working remotely, so it was an excellent opportunity to get to meet and interact with people. I have absolutely no recollection which team won or who was playing against my local sports team. But I remember having fun!
LanceH 3y ago
Having grown up through the changes to many sports, it feels like the answer is that we only reached a modern approach in the 90's for a lot of sports. People will cry "steroids", but it's way deeper than that. Weight wasn't everywhere like it is today. It's hard to imagine baseball or basketball without significant weight training, but it seems obvious now. Golfers and runners incorporate weight training which would have been unheard of just 30 years ago (except for that one weird guy). Nutrition has made huge strides. Also the concept of "off season" has largely disappeared. Football players no longer show up to preseason to get into shape -- that's what they were working on the whole summer. Then there is data analytics. Teens have power monitors and more in cycling. Baseball players have pitch tracking and way more. Then the internet. I played soccer in college in the late 80's. We had to learn everything from coaches or a "friend who saw this one thing from a guy they played with when travelling...". Now you can get a technique broken down -- in detail. Coaching has abundant online resources and training on how to run a practice and drill skills, so 8 year olds are receiving a better training. I'm watching this revolution take place right now in wrestling. The sport is getting bigger and better in the US. The difference between how a practice is run in soccer vs wrestling is stark. Wrestling is much more of getting thrown in the deep in and "find what works for you" where soccer is much more programmatic training of skills, raising the fundamental levels across the board. I suspect a lot of sports are going through this at the moment, catching up to the more formalized training methods of the biggest sports. Along these lines, this year we saw a European player dominate the NBA playoffs. Lots of talk about how strong the fundamentals of his game are and whether US players brought up with the solo style (showing off?) system are actually falling behind a bit in technique.
- dfxm12 3y ago
  It all boils down to money. Yeah, even in the 90s athletes were getting paid a lot of money, but since then, thanks to TV deals, union negotiations, etc., the money is exploding. If you take away Michael Jordan's outlier 2 year $30MM/yr contract, even today's journeymen players are making huge amounts of money relative to the top stars we grew up watching. The stars', and even top draft picks' contracts are in the stratosphere. Thanks to this, a cottage industry around improving performance and longevity has popped up as pro teams wanted to protect their investments. From there, you get people selling these techniques and lessons learned on all levels of sport, for athletes who want to invest in themselves, for parents who want to invest in their kids, for high schools and colleges wanting to get the notoriety through sport, etc. On a side note, whoever is talking about US players losing a step is just trying to be a provocateur.
EGreg 3y ago
Reminds me of Star Trek episode where they have darts and Bashir stops holding back: https://youtu.be/j3RgXKU0RsQ?si=Gbh7JPVoEgrmQJqR https://youtu.be/j3RgXKU0RsQ?si=Gbh7JPVoEgrmQJqR And it is this very topic: https://youtu.be/orDyHlnaFys?si=4BxQBBLaf7suk4XA https://youtu.be/orDyHlnaFys?si=4BxQBBLaf7suk4XA Star Trek explored many subjects! Too bad I can’t find the darts scene that closed out the episode

25 points by wallflower 3y ago

dazc 3y ago

The amount of money one can earn as a professional sports player has also multiplied so the incentive to practice has multiplied also. If I spent my youth playing darts 8 hours a day I would be considered rather foolish, nowadays not so much.

tokai 3y ago
In professional cycling the earnings have fallen quite a lot since the 90s, but professionalism in training and the overall level has risen. So money can't be the only explanation.
- Luc 3y ago
  I'm struggling to think of a way in which either individual or team earnings could possibly be lower now than in the 90's.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
- mdw_ 3y ago
  What is the data that you are basing this statement on?
  - tokai 3y ago
    On that average speeds records are being broken in racing all the time. That ex pros comment that the professionalism and training is on a much higher level now than it was in the 90s. And a whole lot of other things picked up following cycling for a long time.
    - mdw_ 3y ago
      Sorry. I should have asked a different question. Your statement mentioned that earnings have fallen since the 90s. I don't know of any data sources outside of the price money of the Tour de France. I was wondering if there were different source on which you relied to make that statement?
      - tokai 3y ago
        I commented and answer on that before but deleted it, as I didn't felt like having a discussion about it. Cycling economy is frustratingly oblique. I relied on a host of source most of them not in writing, beside my own calculations on salaries. The academic monography The Economics of Professional Road Cycling claims that cycling has expanded economically since the 90s, while I think that their method is not trustworthy.
- sBqQu3U0wH 3y ago
  >So money can't be the only explanation. Well, of course not. There is better equipment, better training practices, and I imagine there are more participants doing cycling both on amateur and professional level. No wonder the results are better.

tromp 3y ago

> When Smith aims for the triple 20 — the highest-value subsection of the board, but smaller than half a square inch — he hits it less than half the time. Note that perfection does not necessitate hitting a high percentage of triple 20s, since one is also constrained by having to throw a total of 501 points. One way to achieve true perfection is to hit triple 20 + triple 19 + double 50 with every 3 darts, giving all 9 darters.

monooso 3y ago
I'm confused by your comment; there's no such thing as a double 50.
- tromp 3y ago
  Oops; I meant double 25, a.k.a. bull's eye.
ghusbands 3y ago
None of the other options are significantly easier to hit. Also, the hit rate of any other suitable combo won't differ much from that of triple 20, and triple 20 has the advantage of getting you to the high numbers sooner. You could avoid triple 20 entirely, you can go for 8 triple 19s and a triple 15, for example.
- tromp 3y ago
  No; that won't work, since the final dart is required to be a double...
- Someone 3y ago
  > None of the other options are significantly easier to hit. Can you point to data supporting that claim? I would think a simple model for throwing is: - get the left-right direction right - get the throwing angle/speed combo right and do not rule out that some players are better at one of those than at the other, showing smaller variation. If so, those players would be better at hitting the (almost) vertical triples than the (almost) horizontal ones or vice versa. I guess I would want to know the point-spread function (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Point_spread_function https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Point_spread_function) per player. If you know that, you could devise an optimal strategy, weighing the number of points each target is worth (even if you can hit triple-10 with 100% precision, it most of the time isn’t a good idea to aim for it) and situation of the game (you’re maximizing the probability of winning, not the winning margin, so if you’re far, far ahead, that triple-10 may become enticing)

npinsker 3y ago

https://web.archive.org/web/20230814070005/https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/05/upshot/darts-sports-perfection.html https://web.archive.org/web/20230814070005/https://www.nytim...

isaacfrond 3y ago

tl;dr - Games are continually made easier by bending the rules and better equipment. Also more people practise more.

dtgriscom 3y ago
Where did you find "bending the rules" in the original article?

spullara 3y ago

The best baseball players get on base < 33% of the time.

63 3y ago
Which imo makes the sport quite a bore to watch as someone who never played. I'm sure it's an incredibly impressive display of skill if I had any idea how hard it is, but all I know as a spectator is I get to sit there and watch people strike out. Occasionally there will be a base gained in an inning. Maybe a run or two from my team in a game. It just doesn't seem like a very balanced game, at least for the metric of creating excitement in the audience. I think it would be more interesting if the athletes were worse at it
- function_seven 3y ago
  You’re not alone. MLB has adopted a bunch of new rules in order to both speed up the game and generate more plays. They see the problem as well. Pitch clock, pick-off attempt limit, the shift being reined in a bit. The bases are slightly larger, which should tip the scale toward the runner.
  - probably_wrong 3y ago
    And yet, based on the one game I saw while visiting the US, they will gladly spend hours doing anything except playing the game - they'll play 2-3 minutes and then go away for 15. I'm glad I got to see a "kiss cam" in real life, but I ended up watching more Jumbotron TV than game. You want to speed up the game? Turn off the screens. I know there's a tradition of taking baseball more like a picnic than a sport, but if cricket could come up with variations to shorten 2-3 days into 3 hours I'm sure baseball can do it too.
    - wincy 3y ago
      The only time I’ve gone to a baseball game as an American (with a “World Series” winning team, no less) in the last twenty years was because my work shuttle bussed us all an hour from the office, and we got unlimited alcoholic drinks in a covered area. I got to hang out with coworkers all day which was important as we were just coming out of Covid restrictions and were all working remotely, so it was an excellent opportunity to get to meet and interact with people. I have absolutely no recollection which team won or who was playing against my local sports team. But I remember having fun!

LanceH 3y ago

Having grown up through the changes to many sports, it feels like the answer is that we only reached a modern approach in the 90's for a lot of sports. People will cry "steroids", but it's way deeper than that. Weight wasn't everywhere like it is today. It's hard to imagine baseball or basketball without significant weight training, but it seems obvious now. Golfers and runners incorporate weight training which would have been unheard of just 30 years ago (except for that one weird guy). Nutrition has made huge strides. Also the concept of "off season" has largely disappeared. Football players no longer show up to preseason to get into shape -- that's what they were working on the whole summer. Then there is data analytics. Teens have power monitors and more in cycling. Baseball players have pitch tracking and way more. Then the internet. I played soccer in college in the late 80's. We had to learn everything from coaches or a "friend who saw this one thing from a guy they played with when travelling...". Now you can get a technique broken down -- in detail. Coaching has abundant online resources and training on how to run a practice and drill skills, so 8 year olds are receiving a better training. I'm watching this revolution take place right now in wrestling. The sport is getting bigger and better in the US. The difference between how a practice is run in soccer vs wrestling is stark. Wrestling is much more of getting thrown in the deep in and "find what works for you" where soccer is much more programmatic training of skills, raising the fundamental levels across the board. I suspect a lot of sports are going through this at the moment, catching up to the more formalized training methods of the biggest sports. Along these lines, this year we saw a European player dominate the NBA playoffs. Lots of talk about how strong the fundamentals of his game are and whether US players brought up with the solo style (showing off?) system are actually falling behind a bit in technique.

dfxm12 3y ago
It all boils down to money. Yeah, even in the 90s athletes were getting paid a lot of money, but since then, thanks to TV deals, union negotiations, etc., the money is exploding. If you take away Michael Jordan's outlier 2 year $30MM/yr contract, even today's journeymen players are making huge amounts of money relative to the top stars we grew up watching. The stars', and even top draft picks' contracts are in the stratosphere. Thanks to this, a cottage industry around improving performance and longevity has popped up as pro teams wanted to protect their investments. From there, you get people selling these techniques and lessons learned on all levels of sport, for athletes who want to invest in themselves, for parents who want to invest in their kids, for high schools and colleges wanting to get the notoriety through sport, etc. On a side note, whoever is talking about US players losing a step is just trying to be a provocateur.

EGreg 3y ago

Reminds me of Star Trek episode where they have darts and Bashir stops holding back: https://youtu.be/j3RgXKU0RsQ?si=Gbh7JPVoEgrmQJqR https://youtu.be/j3RgXKU0RsQ?si=Gbh7JPVoEgrmQJqR And it is this very topic: https://youtu.be/orDyHlnaFys?si=4BxQBBLaf7suk4XA https://youtu.be/orDyHlnaFys?si=4BxQBBLaf7suk4XA Star Trek explored many subjects! Too bad I can’t find the darts scene that closed out the episode