How to play Cut-Throat Cricket
Same board and same closing as Cricket — 20, 19, 18, 17, 16, 15 and the bull, three marks each — but the points you score are given AWAY. Every opponent who still has that number open takes the damage. You win when you have closed all seven and your score is the lowest, or level with the lowest. Low score wins here, so the number next to your name is damage done to you.
Also played as Cutthroat Cricket, Cut Throat, Cut-Throat.
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.
THE BOARD
Only seven beds are in play: 20, 19, 18, 17, 16, 15 and the bull. Everything else is dead — a triple 7 marks nothing and does nothing.
MARKS
A number closes at three marks. A single is 1 mark, a double 2, a triple 3. On the bull, the outer ring is 1 mark and the inner (double) bull is 2. There is no triple bull and the app will not let you enter one.
DAMAGE
Once you are on three marks, every extra mark on that number is worth its face value — 20s are 20 a mark, the bull is 25 a mark — and that amount is added to the score of EVERY opponent who still has the number open. Each of them takes the full amount, not a share: a triple 20 on a closed 20 with two opponents still open puts 60 on each of them. An opponent who has closed that number is immune to it. Once you have closed everything, nobody can put another point on you and your score is frozen. That is the whole game: close fast, then punish whatever is still open. When every player has closed a number it is dead for the rest of the game and no dart on it does anything. Playing solo there is nobody to damage, so nothing scores at all.
WINNING
You win when both are true at the end of your own turn: every number closed, and your score equal to or lower than every opponent's. Level on the lowest is a win, not a draw. The app checks the win at the end of the turn that completes it. Because damage lands on your opponents, you can become the lowest scorer on someone ELSE'S dart — when that happens the app does not notice until your next turn, so play on and it will catch up. Nothing ends the game automatically; the app prompts the host and the host presses End 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. With a limit set, the app takes no turn after the last capped round. Close out inside the limit and you win exactly as above. If nobody has by then, the damage decides it — the one time this game is won on points alone: the fewest points wins, counting only the players still at the board, and a tie for the fewest is a draw that records no winner, unlike closing out level, which is a win. A turn that could not be read dart by dart keeps the points from deciding it, and then no winner is recorded either. It is the format the soft-tip bar machines use.
ENTERING SCORES
Cut-throat is scored dart by dart. A turn typed as a bare total is refused, because a total cannot say which numbers were marked. One, two or three darts a turn — enter what you threw, and use Miss for the rest. The number stored against your turn is the damage per opponent, not the total damage dealt: hitting two opponents for 60 each is recorded as 60. Your own score on the scoreboard is damage taken. If the total the app is sent disagrees with the darts it is sent, the turn is refused rather than guessed at. In a game of two or more, only the player whose turn it is can enter a score.
CORRECTIONS
Correcting a turn replays the whole board, so all damage after it is recomputed. Correcting a turn to zero is stored as a miss. Undo is a different door: it removes the last turn completely and replays without it, so the turn goes back to unthrown. A turn the clock forfeited is the clock's own record: neither you nor the host can undo it or correct it afterwards. Once the marks have decided a winner, a correction typed as a bare total is refused — re-enter the turn dart by dart. Before a winner exists, correct with the darts too: a bare-total correction erases that turn's marks, and once any turn has no darts the app stops naming a winner for the rest of the game.
THE CLOCK
A turn clock only auto-forfeits in ranked online games; the turn is then recorded as three misses and play moves on. Local games are honor-system and the host fixes mistakes by hand.
LEAVING THE GAME
If someone has to go, 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. Everything they already threw stands, and here that includes the part a table will argue about: the damage they put on you stays on you. Those darts were legitimately thrown and nothing gives them back. The app keeps their seat in the running order so the turn order holds for everyone else, but nothing more is added to their card, 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.
PLAYERS
Cut-throat is a three-or-four-player game and that is what it is designed around. With two players it is just Cricket with the scoreboard the other way up. Each setup screen holds you to six, and a seventh player trying to JOIN is refused by the server — as is a seventh seat asked for when the game is created. If the host ends the game before anyone has legally won, no winner is recorded. The finishing order shown is lowest score first, and does not mean anyone won; if the two lowest scores are level, no places are given at all.
HOUSE RULES THIS APP DOES NOT PLAY
No governing body publishes Cut-Throat. Chuck Darts hands the points to every opponent who still has that number open, each of them taking the full amount, and a player level with the lowest score still wins. Common alternatives you may have played elsewhere: giving the points to ALL opponents whether or not they have the number open, which is how some bar machines read the rule; playing a decider when two players finish level rather than letting them share it — no published guide gives a tie rule at all, so this one is the app's own; and the machines' pick-your-own-numbers board played cut-throat, which this app does not offer. If your venue wants one of those, agree it out loud before the first dart — the app will still score the version above.