The mental game in darts is how you keep throwing the same way when it matters: at a match dart, in front of a crowd, or on league night after a long wait. The best-supported tool is a pre-performance routine, the same short sequence of thoughts and actions before every throw. A meta-analysis of 112 effect sizes found that routines improve sport performance, with moderate to large effects in experiments both in low-pressure and pressurized conditions (Rupprecht and colleagues, 2021). Practicing under pressure, useful self-talk and imagery have evidence too. Much else you read about "darts mindset" does not.
| Tool | What the research found | How strong |
|---|---|---|
| Pre-performance routine | Better performance, also under pressure | Meta-analysis, 112 effect sizes |
| Practicing under pressure | Expert dart players who trained with anxiety kept their level in an anxiety test | One study, 17 dart players |
| Self-talk | Moderate positive effect; instructional cues work better for fine tasks | Meta-analysis, 32 studies |
| Imagery (visualization) | Medium effect; best combined with physical practice | Meta-analysis |
| Where to focus (target or arm) | Mixed results in dart throwing, no uniform winner | Systematic review, 19 studies |
This page is about sport performance. It gives no medical or therapy advice.
Build a pre-performance routine
A routine is a set of "task-relevant thoughts and actions an athlete systematically engages in prior to performance execution" (Rupprecht and colleagues, 2021). The meta-analysis found the effect did not depend on the type of routine, so the point is to have one and use it every time, not to copy a specific player's. A simple one to start with:
- Feet first. Put your front foot in the same place on the oche every visit.
- Grip check. Settle the dart in your fingers the same way every time.
- Look at the target. Pick the exact spot, for example the middle of the treble 20 bed, and hold your gaze on it.
- One cue word. A short instruction such as "smooth" or "through".
- Throw at your normal pace. Do not speed up when it gets tense.
Why pace matters: in a study of 47 professional darts players, preparation times were shorter before poor performances than before good ones, and faces before poor performances showed more arousal and anxiety (Furley and colleagues, 2021). That study shows a link, not a cause, but rushing is easy to spot in yourself. If you notice you are hurrying on a double, reset your feet and start the routine again.
What matters is doing the same thing, not doing it for a set number of seconds. In 284 NBA play-off free throws, shots after the player's usual sequence went in 83.77% of the time and shots after a changed sequence 71.43%, while the length of the routine made no difference (Lonsdale and Tam, 2008). That is basketball and an observational study, but it fits the darts data above.
Practice under pressure
In one experiment, 17 expert dart players practiced either normally or from a high position on a climbing wall, which made them anxious. Only the group that had practiced with anxiety kept its performance in the anxiety test afterwards, "despite higher levels of anxiety, heart rate, and perceived effort" (Oudejans and Pijpers, 2009). It is one small study, but the idea is easy to use: put something at stake in practice.
- Play practice games with a consequence, for example games like Bob's 27 or Halve-it, where a miss costs you points.
- Play full matches against a friend instead of throwing at treble 20 alone.
- Finish every practice session on a double you must hit before you stop.
Self-talk and imagery
Self-talk: a meta-analysis of 32 studies found a moderate positive effect of self-talk interventions on performance. Instructional self-talk (cues about what to do, like "follow through") worked better than motivational self-talk for fine motor tasks (Hatzigeorgiadis and colleagues, 2011). Darts is a fine motor task, so keep your cue word practical.
Imagery: picturing the throw and the dart landing. A meta-analysis found a medium overall effect (d = 0.43), and imagery combined with physical practice worked better than physical practice alone (Simonsmeier and colleagues, 2020). Use a few seconds of imagery inside your routine, not as a replacement for throwing.
Where to put your focus
You may have read that you should always focus on the target and never on your arm. For dart throwing specifically, a 2026 systematic review of 19 studies with 923 participants found the evidence "does not support a uniform advantage of either attentional focus strategy" (Feng and colleagues, 2026). Most of those studies were lab tasks, often with novices.
The same caution applies to the quiet eye, the last steady look at the target before the throw. Across sports, experts hold it longer than novices (Lebeau and colleagues, 2016). But a study of skilled dart players found their long quiet eye did not carry over to unfamiliar throws and suggests it may be a result of expertise rather than a cause (Flindall and colleagues, 2020). Keep the steady look in your routine; do not expect it to fix your throw by itself.
Why your match average is lower than your practice average
Many players say they average less on league night than at home. We found no study that measured this for amateur players, so we cannot tell you how big the gap usually is. For professionals the picture is mixed:
- An analysis of 32,274 professional dart throws found "no evidence in favor of either choking or excelling under pressure" (Ötting and colleagues, 2020).
- An analysis of 26,724 professional performances from 2018 to 2021 found that real crowds lowered checkout percentage and three-dart average compared with empty venues, with small effects (Greve and colleagues, 2023).
- Among ten of the world's best players, triple 20 hit rates declined over the course of a match (Stins and colleagues, 2018).
- In the 2017 PDC World Championship, the first dart of a visit was less accurate than the next two (36,168 scores; Wunderlich and colleagues, 2020). The authors explain it as recalibrating after walking away from the oche, not as nerves.
None of that tells you why your average drops. Pressure is one candidate; others, none of them measured for amateurs, are a different board and light, waiting a long time between visits, and throwing fewer darts to warm up. The honest way to find out is to measure it.
Measure it with Darts Counter
Darts Counter keeps statistics per player, and you can create as many players as you like. Create two profiles for yourself, for example "Anna" for practice and "Anna League" for match nights, and always score under the right one. After a few weeks, open the statistics and compare the two: average, darts per leg, highest checkout and how many 60+, 100+ and 140+ visits you threw.
- If the gap is large, practice more under match conditions (above).
- If it is small, your match nerves may cost less than you think.
- A handful of evenings is not enough to judge: compare over many legs.
Note that the app's match and lifetime averages are the mean of your leg averages; the average guide explains how that differs from total points ÷ darts.
Dartitis
Dartitis is the name players use when they suddenly cannot release the dart properly. Wikipedia describes it as a condition "believed to be a form of dystonia", a movement disorder, and compares it with the yips in golf. It is not a lack of willpower, and this page does not cover it. If it happens to you, a doctor is the right person to ask.
Keep reading
- How to calculate your 3-dart average: the number you are tracking
- Darts games: practice games that put something at stake
- Find and join a darts league: where the pressure comes from
- Darts rules: the official rules of a match
Sources
Written by FLAME Apps, maker of Darts Counter since 2015. Checked 2026-09-25. Studies were read as abstracts on PubMed or OpenAlex.
- Rupprecht, Tran and Gröpel (2021). The effectiveness of pre-performance routines in sports: a meta-analysis. International Review of Sport and Exercise Psychology, 17(1), 39 to 64. doi:10.1080/1750984X.2021.1944271
- Furley, Klingner and Memmert (2021). Nonverbal pre-performance expressions of professional darts players distinguish between good and poor performance. Scientific Reports, 11, 20147. PubMed 34635761
- Oudejans and Pijpers (2009). Training with anxiety has a positive effect on expert perceptual-motor performance under pressure. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 62(8), 1631 to 1647. PubMed 19123115
- Hatzigeorgiadis, Zourbanos, Galanis and Theodorakis (2011). Self-talk and sports performance: a meta-analysis. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 6(4), 348 to 356. PubMed 26167788
- Simonsmeier, Andronie, Buecker and Frank (2020). The effects of imagery interventions in sports: a meta-analysis. International Review of Sport and Exercise Psychology, 14(1), 186 to 207. doi:10.1080/1750984X.2020.1780627
- Feng, Shangguan and Zhu (2026). Effects of internal and external attentional focus on dart-throwing performance: a systematic review. Frontiers in Psychology, 17, 1923857. PubMed 42755506
- Lebeau and colleagues (2016). Quiet eye and performance in sport: a meta-analysis. Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology, 38(5), 441 to 457. PubMed 27633956
- Flindall, Sinnett and Kingstone (2020). The quiet eye and expertise: sustained fixations do not transfer to unpracticed throws among expert dart players. Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology, 42(4), 269 to 279. PubMed 32585637
- Ötting, Deutscher, Schneemann, Langrock, Gehrmann and Scholten (2020). Performance under pressure in skill tasks: an analysis of professional darts. PLOS ONE, 15(2), e0228870. PubMed 32084161
- Greve, van Meurs and Strauss (2023). Elite darts performance and the social influence of real crowds and simulated crowd noise. Scientific Reports, 13, 12346. PubMed 37524747
- Lonsdale and Tam (2008). On the temporal and behavioural consistency of pre-performance routines. Journal of Sports Sciences, 26(3), 259 to 266. PubMed 17943592
- Wunderlich, Heuer, Furley and Memmert (2020). A serial-position curve in high-performance darts. Psychological Research, 84(7), 2057 to 2064. PubMed 31179520
- Stins, Yaari, Wijmer, Burger and Beek (2018). Evidence for sequential performance effects in professional darts. Frontiers in Psychology, 9, 591. PubMed 29755389
- Wikipedia, Dartitis (revision of May 27, 2026)
