How to play High Score
Eight rounds, three darts a round, and the highest total wins. There is nothing to close, nothing to bust on and no target to finish on — every dart scores what the board says it is worth. The only rule that decides anything is the round limit: nobody has won while a player still has a round in hand.
Also played as Count Up, Count-Up.
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 MATCH
Eight rounds. The app plays eight and only eight — a ninth-round turn is refused outright. The app owns the round. It moves to the next one only when every player has thrown in the current one, so nobody can get a round ahead, and the throwing order is fixed by seat.
WHAT SCORES
Everything, at face value times the ring. A single is its number, a double twice, a triple three times. The outer bull is 25 and the inner bull is 50. A dart off the board scores nothing. The most any one round can hold is 180.
ENTERING A TURN
On the web app this is one of the games you can score as a plain total — type "100" and the app takes it as the complete record of the turn. On the phone you enter the darts. Entering the darts either way gives you a proper dart count and a per-dart average.
WINNING, AND TIES
The match is over when every player has thrown all eight rounds. Highest total wins. A trailing player is never out of it — 180 is always available — so no winner is named while anybody has a round left. A dead heat is not settled by the app; the host calls it. If the host ends the match early, the points leader is recorded as the winner. If the totals are exactly level when the host ends it, no winner is recorded — but the finishing order still is, starting at second: 480, 480, 240 and 160 are placed 2nd, 2nd, 4th and 5th, with nobody first.
PLACES
Second and below are ordered on points, most first. Players level on points share a place (2, 2, 4 — places under a winner start at second). 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.
TIMED TURNS
If the host has set a turn clock in an online ranked game, running out of time records that round as three misses — a played round worth 0. The match still finishes normally.
PLAYERS
Two to eight is what the game is built for, and it is a fine solo practice drill: one player throwing eight rounds is recorded as a win.
HOUSE RULES THIS APP DOES NOT PLAY
No governing body of the sport publishes High Score; where it is written down at all it is by the soft-tip machine tours, and they agree with the app on the length. Chuck Darts plays eight rounds, every dart at face value times the ring, the outer bull 25 and the bullseye 50, highest total winning. Common alternatives you may have played elsewhere: a fat bull, where BOTH rings of the bullseye pay 50 — the usual setting on the machines that call this game Count-Up, and worth a great deal over eight rounds to anyone who throws at the middle; a fixed target rather than a fixed length, first past 300 taking it; and house lengths other than eight rounds. If your venue wants one of those, agree it out loud before the first dart — the app will still score the version above.