Archery Games – D

Alphabetical List of Games
                                                   
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DartsCourtesy of ~ Dave Beeton
60cm, 80cm, 122cm Dart target faces are available from most archery retail outlets.

Most professional matches are “501 up”. This is the simplest of games. Each player starts with a score of 501 and takes turns shooting 3 arrows. The score for each turn is calculated and deducted from the players total. Bullseye scores 50, the outer ring scores 25 and an arrow in the double or treble ring counts double or treble the segment score. The objective is to be the first player to reduce the score to exactly zero, the only caveat being that the last dart thrown must land in a double or the bullseye.

If a player reduces the score to 1 or goes below zero, the score is bust, that turn ends immediately and the score is returned to what it was at the start of that turn. e.g. if a player has 32 to go out and the first dart is a 16, the second is a 15, the player is bust and the score is returned to 32. So on the last turn, it is not necessary to throw all 3 darts – a player can win with the first or second dart of the turn.

Because a player who misses a targeted double is likely to score the single of that segment, good players attempt to leave themselves with a repeatably bustable number such as 24 or most ideally 32 – double 16. So for instance, if a player has double 16 left, and hits a 16, he has double 8 left and if he then hits an 8 he has double 4 left and so on – this is advantageous because no extra darts need to be thrown in order to reduce the score to an even number… It so often happens that people reduce their score to 1 (typically aiming for double 1), some people play a very unofficial rule called “splitting the 11”. This rule says that when the score is reduced to 1, instead of going bust, the player must “split the 11” by shooting an arrow between the two numbers forming the number 11 on the edge of the board. This is tricky.

301 is played in exactly the same way but players start the game with 301. Some games require a double to start scoring as well as to finish the game.

When the score goes below 171, professional players know the numbers to aim at in order to check out in a single turn with 3 darts. Here is a table of such combinations.

Dice and cards Courtesy of ~ Marc Rowley
Get a dice and also a pack of playing cards, and separate the ace through to the 6, in each suite (discard the rest). 2 teams, 12 games. Each team rolls the dice and the number of the dice will correspond to a number on the cards i.e roll a 3 then pick a 3 card (any suit, it doesn’t matter). The 2 opposing team members pick up their cards, based on the dice number they got, and place them on a boss 18m away. You have 6 arrows to hit every suit picture, in the middle of the card (you get a 3 of hearts then hit all 3 hearts in the middle of the card). Tot up the scores at the end to see which team wins.

Dice with DeathCourtesy of ~ Jason Phillips
Ideal for limited experience archers as the ideal approach is to scatter arrows in all colours on the target. You will require a dice with target colours designated to each number – e.g. 6=Gold, 5= Red….and 1=“a reward”; Or set-up a spin the wheel or get an app that does this on your phone for each colour. Each arrow is a “life” – start with 6 lives! Allow all to shoot the end – when completed, roll the dice. Any arrow in the randomly picked number/colour is “dead” and is left under the target for the remainder of the game. If using a dice – then a 1 can be rewarded with a life/extra arrow…or if you are feeling mean, then you can use this to remove one arrow from everyone! Lives will also be lost when an arrow is outside a scoring zone.I suggest you define line breakers up front! Either 1-you say that line breakers count for both colours and this means you are increasing your risk of death, or 2-you agree that you can save your life if you are touching another colour – chose one but not both as this causes a bit of an argument! Continue to shoot ends until there remains a winner with a “life”/arrow left

Dollar Game – Courtesy of ~ Archery Report

At my hometown archery club we used to play this every night after paper leagues.  Each person takes a dollar bill and folds it in half four times then hangs it up downrange using golf tees.  Everybody then picks a different bill to shoot at than their own.  If you hit one, you keep it.  If someone else hits yours, you’re out!  The game continues until no bills are left.  I should probably mention it might be better to use a different target and just have everybody put a bill into a pool.  That way you don’t end up going to the bank with a bunch of bills with holes in them!

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