February 8, 2012

Well, the first two majors (for me, anyway) are out of the way!  Results-wise, there was nothing that fantastic, but again, I'm quite pleased at the way I'm playing.

I reached the quarter-finals of the WDF-Ranked 501 Singles at the Las Vegas Open, losing to eventual runner-up, Timmy Bagley.  Timmy lost the final to Howard Meyers, who now gets a trip to the World Masters after nearly thirty years of trying!

I shot doubles with Dan Zimmerman, and we lost the final of the 501 doubles to Norwegians Vegar Elvevoll and Stig Knudsen.  It m-i-g-h-t have been different had I not wired a 170 out on the first leg, but in all honesty, Vegar and Stig outplayed us.

Before I leave Vegas, congratulations to our new National Cricket Champions, Darin Young, and my Cosmo Darts team-mate, Shea Reynolds.

Moving on to one of my  favorite tournaments, the Shoot for the Moon in Decatur, Alabama, I had another pleasing - yet disappointing (!) weekend.  The main reason I say that is that I lost second round of the 501 singles to Steve Panuncialman.  Hey, on the third leg, I was on 68 after 12 darts, but back-to-back 180's gave Steve the first shot at the double, which he hit.  It hurts to lose that early, but when you lose a game like that, there's nothing to feel bad about.

In the cricket singles, I reached the final for the third time in four years, but lost to Joe Chaney.  I really gave away the deciding leg after getting a great start, but full credit to Joe, who never gave up, and took full advantage of a couple of poor shots.  It's good to see Joe back after a quite spell.

Finally, I picked up another sinus infection in Decatur (I had one last month as well), so I'll have to see how that goes.

January 6, 2012

It's time for my first post of the year, and even though 2012 is but six days old, I'm really hoping that it gets better!  We had our usual New Year's Day tournament at the South 94 Bistro in St. Charles, and quite honestly, I'd have been better off staying in bed...  I'll admit to having some tough early draws, and never looked like making it into the money in any of the three events.

Actually, I wasn't too unhappy at the way I played, and I was still pretty weak after being laid up with another bout of that novovirus nonsense.  Four days without food shows you how bad I was...

We started the new season of the MVDO league this week, with a new team, new venue, and even a new night.  Despite winning the City Championship - again - just before Christmas, Mondays were becomingly increasingly difficult for some of the team, so we moved to the Wednesday night league.  Switching to Hotshots at South County, we have brought in several new faces, including a couple of 'B' players.  A 6-5 loss wasn't the best start to the season, but seeing as our opponents are a much stronger team overall, it really wasn't a bad performance.

This weekend sees the first real tournament of the year, with the annual trek down down to Jefferson City for the Missouri State Championship.  Next week gives me my first ADO action of 2012 at Wichita's Air Capital tournament.  It's always a great weekend, although the drive down is rarely as much fun with snow and ice being a regular feature of the trip.

Talking of the ADO, I'm not quite sure how I ended up in the 2011 rankings, as there are still a couple of missing results.  However, I'm delighted to confirm that I made the Top 10 - for the nineteenth consecutive year!  Considering that I had a poor year (or at least I feel I did), and had to miss a number of tournaments, I'm proud of that achievement.  I just hope I can keep that run going this year, and perhaps improve on that a little.

I'll take this opportunity to give a little plug to my new website, "Darts in St. Louis".  It is designed to be a complete resource for darts in the St. Louis area, and is centered on a tournament calendar.  This includes all weekly blind draws, both steel and soft-tip, and I'm hoping to include as many tournaments results as possible.  There will be directories of leagues and venues in the bi-state region, and several other features, such as a page for historical items and articles.  Don't forget that I still post my "Brownie's Blog" on the ADO website.

I'll be in touch in a few days...

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