We should teach children darts not chess? Discuss.

[Neil Graham]

You all know what this is about. 16 year old Luke Littler has just won £200,000 in the PDC World Championship after losing in the Final. I see today that he has been invited to participate in the Premier League Darts event; no doubt he will be a millionaire by the time he is 21.

[Matt Mackenzie]

Well one thing this seems to assume is that most young people are being taught chess as things stand.

[Kevin Thurlow]

Both finalists spoke politely about each other afterwards, which was nice. Darts appears to be improving its image.

Private Eye published a photo of young Luke, with the caption,
"How old are you?"
"Double 8"

I doubt it's good to encourage juniors (chess or dart playing) to have a diet of kebabs and pizza though.

[IM Jack Rudd]

It might be a good thing to investigate: at what point in the world rankings do the expected earnings of chess players outpace those of darts players? I reckon you probably don't have to go too far down the ranking list to reach that point.

[Neil Graham]

It might be a good thing to investigate: at what point in the world rankings do the expected earnings of chess players outpace those of darts players? I reckon you probably don't have to go too far down the ranking list to reach that point.

Chess.com gives a prizewinners list for 2023 here https://www.chess.com/article/view/bigg ... nners-2023.

Converting Littler's winnings for this tournament alone would put him in the top 10 chess earners.

[Paul Cooksey]

In fairness, he did finish second in a world championship.

Chess is obviously a poor choice if you are hoping the children will keep you in a style to which you would like to become accustomed. But darts too, probably. Better tennis and golf, if you have the resources, or football if you don't.

[Jonathan Rogers]

Even darts must be much better than chess. Television matters! Also, these sports are really largely UK based, notwithstanding the wish of their promoters to go truly global, so you only have to be outstanding by UK standards. As for chess, it really is played everywhere and with the internet, can be mastered anywhere and from a very young age. Being outstanding by UK standards gets you nowhere. If you are a parent whose child's overwhelming passion in chess, your best bet is teach them a few social and speaking skills so that they might coach or acquire a youtube or other following (or act as commentator) and then they will at least get by, hopefully doing something they enjoy.

[Brian Valentine]

When it comes to discussing the relative merits of each sport, one should consider the life skills learnt by the thousands who start, rather than the handful that can make a living from playing that sport. Hand-eye co-ordination against some of the chess benefits.

[Jonathan Rogers]

Agreed. Hopefully this is where chess does better than many traditional sports, and indeed is probably the reason why parents are often keen for their children to play chess. It is just that Neil started this thread by talking about the money!

[Neil Graham]

A look at the Junior Darts Corporation Facebook page makes very interesting reading :-

https://www.facebook.com/Juniordartscor ... cale=en_GB

Apparently they cannot cope with interest in junior darts clubs enquiries - membership btw is £49.99.

[MJMcCready]

Well there is chessdarts. But that aside, what else does dàrts have over chess other than prize money?

[Matt Mackenzie]

Developing mental arithmetic skills?

[Nick Ivell]

Apparently darts can be handy for arithmetic; apart from that, it strikes me as the most pointless activity imaginable, and its practitioners hardly 'athletes'.

Give me chess any day, but maybe not its poverty.

[NickFaulks]

Developing mental arithmetic skills?

It struck me fifty years ago that people who had never been near an O level were better at checking their change in a pub than the typical graduate.

[Christopher Kreuzer]

Developing mental arithmetic skills?

I wonder how much knowledge of the common finishes in darts owes more to pattern-recognition skills than to mental arithmetic? Do the top darts players actually consciously calculate, or is it more likely ingrained in their memory the right combinations of triples, and doubles (or bull's-eyes)? I suppose the combinations are so many, that they have to be able to do some calculations.