Inside Darts - UniFlip.com

FEATURE | SoFT TIp DArTS
Above: IDF World cup of Darts 2011, Shanghai, using
cyberdine. Below: mayumi ouchi from Japan beats
Anastasia Dobromyslova from russia in the women’s 501,
November last year. ©IDF
machines for their Darts World Cup
competitions.
SHOW mE THE mONEY
The amount of prize money is one
of the reasons why the game has
grown so quickly. The money is
exceptionally high due to one of the
biggest differences between steel
tip and soft tip darts, with soft tip
you ‘pay to play’.
This is perhaps the reason it
hasn’t yet taken off in the UK as
there are so many free steel tip
boards to play on in pubs and clubs
around the country. To play a game
in Japan costs ¥100 (just under £1)
medalist Asia International Bangkok,
Thailand (Feb 2012)
www.medalistworld.com
ADA 8th Tour
Hong Kong, China (March 2012)
www.asiadarts.com
Bullshooter XXvII
Illinois, USA (May 2012)
www.bullshooter.com
medalist World Championships
Las Vegas, USA (July 2012)
www.medalistworld.com
in Hong Kong it is HK$5 a game,
which is about 50 pence. It may
not sound like much but a busy
bar with only 4 or 5 machines can
generate thousands of pounds each
month. This enables the machine
manufacturers and distributors to
generate a lot of income, and gladly
they are recycling this back to the
players via big money competitions.
SOFT TIP WORLD
CHAmPIONSHIPS
The biggest soft tip competition
currently is called ‘The World’
championship which is in its
2nd year. Last year’s event was
won by Paul Lim who took home
HK$1 million (about £80K), the
competition is run by Dartslive and
has a purse of more than £300K.
Only the PDC steel tip World
Championship has bigger prize
money. But Dartslive are aiming to
eventually have a prize of US$1M
for the winner which will make it the
biggest darts competition anywhere
in the world – outright. If this
doesn’t prove that the soft tip game
is no longer second tier to steel tip
I don’t know what will.
Steve Ngu, CEO of Dartslive
International agrees, “people fi nd
soft tip darts, and especially our
iDarts bars, more entertaining than
playing regular darts, we are
D-Crown
Tokyo, Japan (Feb-Dec 2012)
www.d-crown.com
Super Darts
Japan (TBA)
http://superdarts.dartslive.jp/
index_pc.php
mJ / medalist Japan Tournament
Japan (Nov 2012)
Perfect Tournament
Japan (TBA)
Burn Championship
Japan (TBA)
really an entertainment company
and therefore we are attracting
a whole new younger crowd to
darts, people that never thought of
playing darts before – soft tip darts
are revolutionary, in Asia soft tip has
already taken over.”
paul Lim, (4th from left) picking up the winner’s trophy
and cheque for hK$1m about £80,000 in Dec 2011, hong Kong.
John part (far right), came in joint 5th. ©Dartslive
Steve Ngu (pictured, centre)
CEO of Dartslive International, is
greatly infl uencing the growth of
soft tip worldwide, may offer a prize
of US$1M for this year’s winner.
You can fi nd out more and keep
up-to-date with the 2012 Dartslive
Soft-tip World Championships at
the below website. Qualifi ers/stages
will start in March this year with
some to be held in the US as well as
Hong Kong.•
www.darts-theworld.com/en/index.html
OTHER mAJOR SOFT-TIP TOURNAmENTS TO WATCH OUT FOR THIS YEAR INCLUDE:
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IDF Darts World Cup
Shanghai, China (Nov 2012)
2012 Dartslive Soft-tip World
Championships
Hong Kong (Dec 2012)
general links:
www.leagueleader.net/bullshooter/
http://medalistgames.com/
www.ndadarts.com/
www.dartslive.com/
www.gs.phoenixdart.com/
www.cyberdine.hr/
www.idfdarts.org/
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NEWS