How to play Around the Clock
Around the Clock is a race through the numbers. Start on 1, and work up to 20 in order. Hit your current number with any dart — single, double or triple, it makes no difference — and you move on to the next one. First player to clear 20 wins, immediately.
Also played as Round the Clock, Around the World, 20 to 1.
Chuck Darts scores this game to exactly the rules on this page, and keeps the card open mid-match so anybody at the board can check one. A full leg of 501, a board of Cricket and six practice drills are playable right now with no account at all.
WHERE IT STARTS AND WHERE IT ENDS
Everyone starts on 1. The game finishes on 20. There is no bull in this game: the bullseye is not a target, and a dart in it does nothing at any point.
WHAT COUNTS
Any dart in your current number confirms it. The ring is ignored — S7, D7 and T7 are all worth exactly the same thing, which is one step forward. Doubles and triples do NOT skip ahead. Each dart moves you at most one number, but the three darts of a turn chain: throw S1, S2, S3 in one turn and you finish that turn on 4.
MISSING
Missing costs you nothing. There is no penalty, no reset and no score in this game — a dart that is not your current number is simply a dart you do not get back. (This is the opposite of Accumulator, which sends you back to 1.) You keep throwing at the same number, turn after turn, until you hit it.
ROUNDS
Play goes round the throw line (the oche) in a fixed order until somebody finishes. There is no round target, and unless the host set a Round limit (below) there is no last round either. Your position in the throwing order does not change during the game.
ROUND LIMIT
The host can cap the game at a set number of rounds when creating it — a round is one turn for every player still in the game — and with the Round limit left off, nothing on this card changes. It is this app's option, not a rule of the game. With a limit set, the app takes no turn after the last capped round, and if nobody has cleared 20 by then the game is recorded exactly as if the host had ended it at that moment: no winner and no placings, though it still counts as played in everyone's stats.
WINNING
The FIRST player to clear 20 wins the game, on the dart that clears it. The game stops there. Play does not continue to the end of the round, the player behind you does not get a matching turn, and any darts left in the winning turn are not thrown. The app does not lock the pad when someone finishes — stop throwing by agreement; anything entered after the winning dart is ignored by the board. Because of that first-to-finish rule, throwing earlier in the order is a real advantage — agree the order before you start. Around the Clock cannot be tied.
ENTERING SCORES
This game is scored dart by dart. Every turn must be entered as the three darts you actually threw. Typing a bare turn total is rejected by the app — a total cannot say which number was hit, so it cannot advance anybody. There is nothing to add up either: every turn is stored as 0, and that is the only score the app will take.
THE CLOCK
In online ranked games with a turn timer, letting the clock run out records your turn as three misses. In this game three misses cost nothing, so a timeout does not set you back — it just wastes the turn. If someone has to leave, the host — or that player themselves — can take their seat out of a live game, as long as two players are left at the board: the app refuses a removal that would leave one player throwing alone, so a two-handed game has to be ended instead. The app keeps the seat in the running order so everyone else's turn order holds, but nothing more is scored for or against them: their board stops where they left it, and they are placed after everyone who finished. It cannot be undone, and Rematch will not bring them back: it carries only the seats that were still in, so start the next game and add them to it yourself.
WHAT GETS RECORDED
The app works out the winner for itself when the host ends the game; nobody has to name one. Everyone who is not the winner is recorded in equal second place — the app does NOT rank the losers by how far round the board they got, so the player on 19 and the player on 3 finish level on the record. The one exception is a seat taken out of a live game: it is placed behind everyone who was still at the board at the end, because a player who left should not finish level with one who stayed. If the host ends the game before anyone has cleared 20, no winner and no placings are recorded — but the game still counts as played in everyone's stats, and a linked league match still closes, with nobody credited a win. Play it out. The host can override the result and name any player the winner when ending the game (on the phone: End Game, then Forfeit — pick winner; on the web: End Match, then pick the player). That is a manual decision, not the engine's.
CORRECTIONS — READ THIS BEFORE YOU ARGUE
Progress is built entirely from the recorded darts. Undo genuinely works here: it removes the last turn completely and replays the race without it, so the player steps back to where their real darts left them and throws the turn again. Correcting a turn to 0 lands the board in the same place — three misses cost nothing in this game — but leaves the turn on the record as thrown. A turn the clock forfeited is the clock's own record: neither you nor the host can undo it or correct it afterwards. A correction typed as a number is refused — a total cannot say which number was hit. If neither door puts things right, agree it at the oche and have the host name the right winner when ending the game.
HOUSE RULES THIS APP DOES NOT PLAY
There is no governing body for Around the Clock and the variants are many. Chuck Darts plays 1 to 20, any ring counts, one step per dart. Common alternatives you may have played elsewhere: finishing on the bull after the 20 (the most common addition by far); doubles-only or triples-only, where a single does not confirm the number; "skip ahead", where a double moves you two numbers and a triple three; starting on a double before the 1; and requiring more than one hit per number. If your venue wants one of those, agree it out loud before the first dart — the app will still score the version above.