By the end of 2024 I’d been playing darts for a few months at home and online, but I really wanted to play socially in real venues against other people.

I knew this was outside of my comfort zone so I set myself a new years resolution to enter a Darts Tournament at some point in the year.

In June 2025 I plucked up the courage and entered one.

The Fail

The speed of the players was immediately daunting and I thought about turning around and leaving.

I was horrified to learn that players were also scoring for each other when not playing. That meant standing by the board, watching the darts land, adding the score and entering it into the console. Fast.

I couldn’t calculate the trebles and doubles being thrown fast enough, never mind then add them together.

I was so stressed and worked up about the maths that when it was my turn to play, I’d lost the plot and just wanted to get out of there as fast as possible.

It was a complete fail.

In my mind - New Years resolution: not achieved.

I’ll be honest and say it took a little time to get my mojo back and, after vowing never ever to put myself through that again, I knew I had unfinished business to deal with.

I had to re-enter another tournament and enjoy it.

This time I had to include maths practice as part of my training and I needed an easy way to learn all the trebles and doubles and be able to recall them quickly and confidently.

We have a busy family life and so it had to fit into any limited down time I had, particularly when I didn’t have access to a board .

I also knew I didn’t want it to be on a screen.

The Prototype

I made the prototype of Dartible flash cards using paper and started practicing in the kitchen and took them with me whilst travelling with work. I remember playing them on a flight to London and it was a perfect use of time.

I continued grabbing 5 minutes here and there and roped my kids in to test me when they were agreeable. The dog was a good listener too.

I found my maths agility was improving straight away and I was getting quicker at instantly recalling the treble/double values.

The paper prototype was getting a bit dog-eared so I ordered some blank flashcards, and I went to work handcrafting Dartible mk2.

In the new version I included multipliers and singles which meant I could work on addition, subtraction and checkouts too and simulate real game scenarios.

My maths continued to improve which I also found was beneficial in other areas of my life.

My speed of recall went off the charts, and processing speed doubled.

Soon after and with my newfound maths confidence, I was ready to put things right.

I entered my second tournament and maths was not an issue.

New years resolution: achieved.

Ready to play?

Transform your darts maths confidence with Dartible and start taking part.