Darts Checkout Chart

What a Checkout Actually Is

In darts, a leg ends the moment your score hits exactly zero — but the final dart must land in a double (or the double bull). The sequence of darts that takes you from your remaining score to zero is the checkout, the "out shot." Knowing them cold is what separates players who finish legs from players who fumble around 36 for six visits. The tool above gives the standard route for every finish from 2 to 170; this guide explains the thinking behind the table so you can improvise when the standard route goes wrong.

Notation first: S = single, D = double, T = treble, DB = double bull (the 25-ring's inner bull, worth 50 and counting as a double). So "T20 D20" means treble 20 then double 20. The last dart shown is always the double you finish on.

The Magic Number: 170

The highest possible checkout is 170: T20, T20, double bull — the "big fish," the most celebrated shot in darts. It works because 60 + 60 leaves exactly 50, and the bull counts as a double. Memorize the top tier of finishes, because they come up constantly in 501:

The Scores With No Checkout

Seven scores between 2 and 170 cannot be finished in three darts with a double: 169, 168, 166, 165, 163, 162, and 159. They are checkout black holes — if you leave yourself on one, you need at least two visits. The practical lesson: when setting up a finish, aim to leave a makeable number, not just any number. Leaving 164 beats leaving 169 even though they are five apart, because 164 has a route and 169 does not.

Thinking in Setup Shots

Great finishers rarely think one visit ahead — they think two. The art is the setup shot: with a high score remaining, your first darts should manufacture a favourite out. From 200, T20 leaves 140 (no — that is not a finish); the pro route is setting up 170, 136, 100, or 80 depending on rhythm. The golden principle: leave yourself on a double you like. Most professionals engineer toward 32 (D16), 40 (D20), or 36 (D18) because the surrounding misses stay kind.

Why 32 Is the Professional's Favourite

Ask pros their favourite double and an overwhelming number say double 16. The geometry explains it: miss inside and you hit single 16, leaving 16 — still D8. Miss outside and you hit single 8, leaving 24 — D12. Either miss leaves a clean two-darter. Compare D20: miss inside for single 20 leaves 20 (D10, fine), but miss into the 5 leaves 15 — no finish, and miss into the 1 leaves 39 (S7, D16 — awkward). The best doubles are the ones whose misses forgive you. D16, D20, D18, and D8 top the forgiveness ranking; D13, D17, and D3 sit at the bottom.

Two-Dart vs Three-Dart Routes

Many finishes have multiple routes, and the choice depends on your strengths and the match situation. Take 120: the classic is T20, S20, D20, but some players prefer S20, T20, D20 to keep the treble for the second dart. Take 90: T20 D15 is standard, but T18 D18 suits players who group better low on the board. Rules of thumb: prefer routes that keep you on the 20 bed (your most grooved target), prefer finishing on your best double over the "textbook" double, and in pressure moments choose the route with the fewest trebles — singles and doubles are calmer darts.

The Bust Rule

Score more than remains, hit exactly 1 remaining, or reach zero without a double, and you bust — the visit scores nothing and your score resets to what it was. The cruelty of the bust rule shapes all checkout strategy: from 36, hitting S20 leaves 16 (fine); hitting S18 leaves 18 (fine); but a stray treble anywhere is disaster. This is why the table favours routes where the common misses stay safe — from 40, even a single 20 leaves D10, but a single 5 leaves 35 with no one-dart out. Aim small, miss small.

Doubles Practice That Actually Works

Knowing the table is 20% of finishing; the other 80% is grooving the doubles. Three drills professionals actually use:

• Round the board on doubles: hit D1 through D20 in order, counting darts. Under 60 darts is solid; under 40 is excellent.
• The drill in the tool: deal a random checkout and give yourself 3 darts. Track your conversion rate over weeks — improvement is brutally honest data.
• Pressure doubles: pick your worst double and throw 10 darts at it to start every practice session. Boring, transformative.

Practice checkouts at match intensity: stand at the oche, take your full routine, no rethrows. Casual "just throwing" practice does not transfer to the moment your hand is shaking at 76 with the match on the line.

Checkout Etiquette and Matchplay

A few unwritten rules: call your checkout before you throw it in league play ("one hundred — going for tops"), so the marker can follow. Never celebrate an opponent's missed double — darts has one of the strongest silence codes in sport. If your opponent is on a finish, throw at your best pace; slowing down deliberately is gamesmanship and everyone knows it. And learn to mark: scoring for other players teaches you the table faster than any amount of solo practice, because you watch every route succeed and fail in real time.

Common Mistakes

• Leaving a bogey number. 169, 168, 166, 165, 163, 162, 159 have no checkout. Setup shots should avoid manufacturing them.
• Always going the textbook route. The table's route is the consensus best — but your best double beats the consensus. Personalize the last dart.
• Forgetting the bust. From 32, a single 20 leaves 12 — no finish. Know which misses are safe before you throw.
• Practicing only treble 20. Scoring wins visits; doubles win legs; legs win matches. Split practice 50/50.
• No routine under pressure. The players who finish are the ones whose pre-throw routine never changes, especially when it matters.

Learn the table, groove two or three favourite doubles until they are boring, and practice the bust-aware setup game. Do that and you will not just know the checkouts — you will hit them.

Steel Tip vs Soft Tip: Checkout Differences

The checkout table works for both codes, but the games around it differ. Steel-tip darts (the traditional bristle-board game) plays 501 with double-in/double-out in most serious competition — the table above assumes this. Soft-tip (electronic boards, dominant in parts of Asia and the US) often plays with double-in/double-out or straight-in depending on the league, and the boards' smaller doubles change the forgiveness math: the "best double" rankings shift slightly because soft-tip doubles are proportionally tighter. Bull finishes gain value in soft-tip since the bull is a generous target on many electronic boards. Whatever code you play, the core skills transfer — setup thinking, favourite doubles, and bust awareness are universal.

The Mathematics of 501

A leg of 501 is a race to a checkout, and the arithmetic shapes strategy from the first dart. The perfect leg is 9 darts (seven treble 20s, then T19 and D12 — or the televised T20/T20/T20, T20/T20/T20, T20/T19/D12 route). But real legs are won in the setup zone: with 200 remaining and three darts in hand, the professional thinks in terms of leaving — T20 (140 left, no finish) is a worse dart than planning toward 170 or 100. The key numbers to internalize: from any score, your first job is reaching a three-dart finish (170 or below), your second job is reaching a favourite finish. Players who think "score as much as possible" lose legs to players who think "leave 32." The table is the vocabulary; setup thinking is the grammar.

Building a Checkout Routine

Finishing is a closed skill — same situation, same response — which makes it highly trainable. Build a pre-throw routine and never vary it: same stance check, same number of sighting looks, same breathing. Practice checkouts in sets of increasing pressure: solo drilling, then scored drills (the random checkout generator, tracked over weeks), then practice matches where every leg must end on a double. The jump from drilling to matchplay is where most players' finishing collapses, and the only bridge is rehearsed pressure. Record your checkout percentage in practice — anything above 30% on attempts under 100 is genuinely good, and watching it climb is the most motivating number in darts.

How to practice checkouts that stick

Knowing the out is half the battle; throwing it under pressure is the other half. Build a practice loop around the twelve most common finishes from forty to eighty, throwing each three times in a row and only moving on after two clean hits. When you miss, do not immediately rethrow the same dart line — step back, reset your stance, and treat the next visit as a new problem. Alternate between favourite outs and the ones you avoid, because opponents will happily leave you on the double you fear most. Finish every session with a simulated match leg where every missed double costs you the leg, so your arm learns what your head already knows.