Darts Averages Explained: 10 Ways to Lift Yours from 30 to 50+

What a Darts Average Actually Measures

Your three-dart average is the total points you score divided by the number of darts you throw, multiplied by three. That simple formula produces the number every app and every pundit quotes. But two players can both be "averaging 50" and be completely different players, because the average counts every dart in the leg — the scoring darts, the set-up darts, and every dart you take to hit the final double.

This is where most players fool themselves. If you throw nine darts at treble 20 and score 140, 100, and 120, your scoring looks like a 60 average. But if it then takes you eight darts to check out of 32, your overall average collapses toward 45. The people who tell you they "average around 60" are almost always quoting their scoring average, not their match average.

That is why the two numbers matter: your first-nine average (the average of your first three visits, before checkouts come into play) measures pure scoring. Your overall average measures everything, including finishing. Comparing the two tells you exactly which half of your game is leaking points.

The lesson from the calculator is simple: to move your average from 30 to 50, you almost never need to fix only scoring. You need to raise your scoring floor and shorten your time on the doubles at the same time. The 10 changes below attack both.

What Counts as a Good Average?

"Good" depends on who you are throwing against. Here is how three-dart averages typically break down:

• 30-45: Beginner. Still spraying, still learning the board, doubles are a coin flip at best.

• 45-55: Solid pub player. Wins most friendly games, scores in the 40s and 50s, but can lose legs from winning positions.

• 55-70: League player. Reliable scoring, hits doubles under pressure, regularly wins in local competition.

• 70-85: Advanced amateur. Competing for regional and county honours.

• 85-100: Semi-professional. Q-School and Challenge Tour level.

• 100+: World class. The names you watch on television.

If you read r/Darts threads from players who started in the last year, you will see a clear pattern: most settle somewhere in the high 30s to low 50s, and almost everyone reports the same two bottlenecks — scoring drift into the 5 and the 1, and a checkout percentage stuck around 10-15%. Sound familiar? That is exactly what the 10 changes below target.

The 10 Training Changes That Lift Your Average from 30 to 50+

These are ordered roughly by how quickly they move the number. Start at the top and work down. You do not need all ten at once — pick the two or three that target your biggest leak and run them for two weeks before adding more.

1. Track Your Real Average (With Checkouts)

You cannot improve a number you never measure. If your app only shows a "scoring average" or you only remember your good legs, you are flying blind. Log your overall match average, including the darts you spend on doubles, after every session. That single habit is the difference between players who plateau and players who climb.

Once you track it, look at the gap between your first-nine average and your overall average. A gap of 10 points or more means your finishing is the bottleneck. A small gap means your scoring is the problem. The Dartsva Gauntlet does this comparison automatically and tells you which skill is holding you back.

2. Focus Your Scoring Practice on the First Nine

The first nine darts of a leg are the highest-leverage scoring window. They are thrown with no checkout pressure, so they are the purest measure of your scoring mechanics. A player stuck at a 40 average usually has a first-nine average in the mid 40s — not far off a 50-average player's scoring — which means the loss happens at the back end of the leg.

Spend the first 15 minutes of every session on first-nine work: throw a score, reset, throw a score. Do not play full legs. This isolates scoring and builds volume fast. The Road to 40 plan structures this exact kind of scoring volume into daily workouts.

3. Kill the 26s — Stop Feeding the 5 and the 1

The 26 (20, 5, 1) is called breakfast because it is a cheap way to start the day, and it is the single most expensive score for a developing player. Darts that drift into the 5 and the 1 are quietly destroying your average, and they do not show up in your memory the way a 140 does.

The fix is not aiming at treble 20 harder. For many players in the 30-45 range, aiming at the fat part of the 20 — the big single — produces a higher average than spraying at the treble and bleeding 1s and 5s. Once you can land three darts in the big 20 consistently (60 per visit), you start creeping into the treble again. This is covered in detail in our guide on choosing the right target segment.

4. Raise Your Checkout Ladder Frequency

The checkout ladder is the 121 game: start at 121, and every time you check out, you move up one number (122, 123, and so on). If you fail, you reset. It is the single best drill for raising your checkout ceiling, and the word that matters in this tip is frequency.

Most players play the ladder once a week and wonder why their finishes have not improved. The ladder should be a near-daily habit — 10 minutes a day beats a single long session on Sunday. Because every reset starts at 121, you are constantly practicing the scoring dart, the set-up dart, and the double under self-imposed pressure. Players who run the ladder daily report their overall average climbing 5-7 points within a month, almost entirely from the finishing side.

5. Make Bob's 27 a Weekly Ritual

Bob's 27 forces you through every double from 1 to 20 plus the bull, with a running score that punishes misses. It exposes your blind spots ruthlessly — almost every player has two or three doubles they cannot hit under pressure, and Bob's 27 finds them within minutes.

Run it twice a week, minimum, and record your score. Once your score is consistently positive, you have eliminated the doubles that were costing you legs. This is the strongest single doubles drill in the game, which is why we ranked it so highly in our list of practice games that improve your average.

6. Learn Your Setup Shots (Board Management)

A 50-average player and a 40-average player often throw the same darts. The difference is that the 50-average player leaves themselves on doubles they can hit, while the 40-average player keeps landing on awkward numbers. Learning which shot to throw from every score under 170 is board management, and it adds points to your average without you throwing a single faster dart.

The biggest offenders are the bogey numbers — scores like 169, 168, 166, and 165 that cannot be finished in three darts. Leaving yourself on a bogey wastes an entire visit. Our guide to bogey numbers lists all seven and the exact shots that avoid them.

7. Group Around Your First Dart

In practice, stop re-aiming at the treble after every throw. Wherever your first dart lands, aim the next two at its flight. This trains the skill your scoring depends on: reproducing the same throw twice in a row.

Three darts bunched in the single 20 is worth more to you right now than one treble and two strays, because a tight group can be moved onto the treble with a single alignment tweak. A scattered group cannot be fixed by aiming harder. This marker principle is the heart of grouping training, which we cover in depth in our guide on improving your darts grouping.

8. Warm Up Every Single Session

Cold sessions teach your body bad habits. If you walk up, miss a double, get frustrated, and start throwing harder, you are engraving a worse throw into muscle memory. A five-minute warm-up — arm swings, wrist mobility, and a slow throw-in at the big 20 — changes how every dart after it lands.

This matters even more for players below 50 average, because their form is less stable to begin with. Use our beginner warm-up routine as a template and stick to it before every session, including league nights.

9. Practice Short and Focused, Not Long and Aimless

A 30-45 minute session with a plan beats two hours of wandering between the treble and your phone. When your form starts to drift — darts scattering, release getting jerky — stop. Practicing tired reinforces the bad form you are trying to fix. Twenty minutes of deliberate, well-formed throwing every day will raise your average faster than one marathon session a week.

Keep a notebook or an app, and end every session by writing down the three numbers that matter: your first-nine average, your overall average, and your checkout percentage. If you do not know what to practice each day, the Weekly Darts Workout removes the guesswork entirely.

10. Follow a Structured Plan and Trend Your Data

The players who climb from 30 to 50 and keep going share one habit: they follow a plan and they watch the trend, not the single session. One bad day tells you nothing. Four weeks of gradual movement tells you everything. Structured plans rotate scoring, finishing, and match work so you improve the whole average instead of chasing whichever skill felt good last night.

Dartsva tracks your sessions automatically, charts your trends, and adapts your plan based on your results. If your average has stalled, our guide on breaking through a plateau walks through exactly how to diagnose and fix it. To get from 40 to 50 specifically, the Road to 50 plan is built for that jump.

A Sample Week That Moves the Needle

Here is how the 10 changes combine into one realistic week. Total time: about four hours. Adjust to your schedule, but keep the daily rhythm:

• Monday: Warm-up + 15 minutes of first-nine scoring work + 10 minutes of the checkout ladder (121).

• Tuesday: Warm-up + 20 minutes of Bob's 27. Record your score.

• Wednesday: Warm-up + 20 minutes of grouping practice at the big 20 (first dart as marker). Focus on the fat 20, not the treble.

• Thursday: Warm-up + checkout ladder (push for your highest number yet) + 5 minutes of setup-shot review on scores under 100.

• Friday: Warm-up + 15 minutes of first-nine work.

• Saturday or Sunday: Match day. Play 5-10 legs of 501, track your overall average, and compare it to your first-nine average.

Run this for four weeks, then review the trend in your stats. You will almost certainly see the gap between your first-nine average and your overall average narrow, and the overall number climb toward and past 50.

Quick Takeaways

• Your average counts every dart in the leg — scoring, set-up, and the darts on doubles. Ignore anyone who quotes a "scoring average" as their real number.
• The gap between your first-nine average and your overall average tells you which half of your game is leaking points.
• Aiming at the fat 20 beats spraying at the treble for most players below a 45 average.
• Run the checkout ladder daily, not weekly. Frequency is what moves your finishing.
• Bob's 27 twice a week finds and fixes your weak doubles.
• Learn your setup shots. Leaving yourself on a bogey number wastes a full visit.
• Follow a plan and watch the trend. Single sessions lie; four weeks of data do not.

Which of these 10 changes are you already doing, and which one sounds like your average's biggest leak? Pick one, run it for two weeks, and share your before-and-after numbers with a friend who plays. Comparing stats is one of the fastest ways for both of you to climb.