Cut Throat Cricket Rules - How to Play
Cut Throat Cricket is a Cricket game where points are a penalty. Everyone races to close 15 to 20 and the bull, but when you score, the points go to your opponents. The first player to close every target with the lowest score wins.
Also known as: Cutthroat Cricket or Cut-throat Cricket.
How it differs from Standard Cricket
If you have played Standard Cricket, the targets and marks will feel familiar. Scoring runs the other way:
| Standard Cricket | Cut Throat Cricket | |
|---|---|---|
| Extra hits on a target you have closed | Add points to your own score | Add points to every opponent who has not closed it |
| To win, close every target with | The highest score | The lowest score |
| Best with | 2 or more players | 3 or more players |
New to Cricket? Everything you need to play is on this page.
Turns and targets
Everyone throws 3 darts per turn, in the same order, until someone wins. You all begin with 0 points and no marks.
Only 7 targets matter: 20, 19, 18, 17, 16, 15, and the bull. Go for them in any order, and switch whenever you like, even between darts in the same turn. A dart anywhere else changes nothing.
Marks and closing
You need 3 marks on a target before you can use it. The ring a dart lands in sets how many marks it is worth.
- Double: 2 marks
- Single: 1 mark
- Triple: 3 marks
- Single: 1 mark
- Outer bull: 1 mark
- Bullseye: 2 marks
Marks add up across turns, so a now and a later make 3. One dart can never close the bull, because the bullseye is worth only 2 marks.
When keeping score by hand, draw a slash for the first mark, turn it into a cross for the second, and circle it for the third.
With 3 marks, a target is closed for you, and in Cut Throat that does two jobs. Opponents can no longer give you points on it, and you can start hitting it to give points to anyone who has not closed it.
Where the points go
After you close a target, each extra mark on it is worth that number, or 25 on the bull. A on your closed 20 is worth 60. Those points go to every opponent who has not closed the target, and each of them takes the full amount. Opponents who have closed it are safe. Once every player has closed a target, darts there score for no one.
A dart can close a target and give points with the same throw. With 1 mark on 20, uses 2 marks to close it, and the third mark gives 20 points to each opponent who has not closed 20.
Read a Cut Throat scoreboard
With 3 or more players, the targets usually run down the left, each player gets a column of marks, and points go along the top.
Here you, Sam, and Alex are partway through a game. Remember that fewer points is better.
| You | Sam | Alex | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Points | 0 | 19 | 40 |
| 20 |  | |  |
| 19 | |  | |
| 18 | | | |
| 17 | | | |
| 16 | | | |
| 15 | |||
| Bull | |
- 0194020
Alex has not closed 20. You and Sam have closed it, and Alex has only 1 mark. Every extra hit either of you made on 20 went to Alex, which is how Alex reached 40.
- 0194019
Sam has not closed 19. You and Alex have closed it. One extra hit there gave Sam 19 points.
- 0194018
18 is finished. All 3 of you have closed it, so nobody can give or take points there.
What one dart can change
Each example starts from the scoreboard above.
The top line of each small board is points, and the bottom line is marks.
- 0194020You hit
01910020Alex takes 60. Sam has closed 20, so Sam's score stays the same.
- 0194016You hit 0355616
Sam and Alex take 16 each. Nobody splits the points. Every opponent who has not closed 16 gets the full value.
- 0194020Alex hits 0194020
Alex is safe on 20. All 3 of you have closed it now, so nobody can add to Alex's score there.
How to win
Close all 7 targets while you have the lowest score, or share the lowest. Closing everything isn’t enough if someone has fewer points than you. Keep hitting targets you have closed and they have not, so the points go to them, until your total is the lowest.
Stats tracked in DartsOn
At the end of each leg, DartsOn shows these stats for each player:
| Stat | What it shows |
|---|---|
| Score | Points your opponents gave you during the leg. Lower is better. |
| MPR | Marks per round: your marks per 3 darts. A triple gives 3 marks, a double or the bullseye 2. |
| Darts | Darts thrown in the leg. |
| Hits | Darts that counted: on a target you had not closed, or on one you had closed that an opponent had not. |
| Heat map | Where each player's darts landed. Tap it for a full-screen view of every landing. Shown when darts are scored with the camera. |
At the end of the game, the summary shows each player's Top Score, Top MPR, and legs won.
