FAQ

Not really an accurate title, given that these questions have not been asked frequently, or for that matter asked, but I thought with it getting towards the business end of the season I'd answer a few things that might come up often:

What was with the name?

It comes from the old blog Fire Joe Morgan, criticising bad journalism/punditry etc, and Harrington's the worst of the lot (at least in darts, if I was given godly P45 powers to use on one commentator, he'd be at the back of a queue containing Dennis Taylor, ITV's entire football unit, and if someone ever gives him a job again, Phil Simms), lacking the knowledge of a Part, Nicholson or a lot of those who aren't even ex-players, lacking the entertainment value of a Mardle, continually likening darts players to electricians or other tradesmen, having an irrational fear of switching from one double to another at the same level straight in the middle of two that most players like (nobody thinks 8's to 4's is a bad switch, oddly enough, despite 4's being the same height as 9's, and 8's being close to the opposite side of the board), seemingly being completely clueless as to why anyone would ever switch from treble 20 despite it being obvious to anyone who's analysed things even slightly, I could go on.

What are the FRH rankings you post up after each event?

I posted up on this right at the start of the blog, but that's over 120 posts away by now. They work exactly the same as the PDC rankings except they favour recent results, namely keeping everything at 100% of value for around four months, then degrading at 1% every six days until, after two years, they reach zero at the same time as the official rankings do. They also do not arbitrarily remove money for non tour card holders at the end of the year, don't arbitrarily score a first round seed loss on the European Tour as zero.

How do you derive a lot of the winning chances you list?

I have a large spreadsheet containing the results of (at present - edited before the 2019 worlds) over 6,000 darts matches on both sides of the PDC/BDO divide which tells me how quickly each player finished the leg when they won, and how many points they scored if they didn't. It's easy from there with a pivot table to tally everything for a player over a given time frame, then look at percentages of how quickly they kill legs. I then throw them against each other - it's a fairly simple formula, if someone on throw finishes in four visits they win (I exclude the remote chance of a nine darter), if they finish in five visits they win unless the other guy finishes in four visits, etc etc. These then give chances for each player to win/lose a leg on throw, from there I can extrapolate to set victories and so on.

What are all those unit things that you list in the bets?

It's typical to vary a bet size depending on confidence and odds, 1 unit would be a standard bet for however much you want to bet, if something's a longer price or I have less confidence I might reduce the amount bet or vice versa. It's easier to track this way and you can then multiply by whatever your standard stake would be. ROI means the same as it does in normal usage.

Do you play yourself and do you suck?

Yes and yes. Presently using 24g Winmau Simon Whitlock darts (not the current version, from about 2014-15 or so), cheap standard poly stems and thick standard flights (pink, naturally) off of Darts Corner, all carried in Target's Tacoma wallet which is a great bit of kit. Previously used 25g Designa straight knurled darts, again from Darts Corner.

Will edit this post as and when I think of new stuff to add and/or get asked relevant questions.