How to play Legs in darts
Legs is 501 played as a match: each leg is a full 501 game, and whoever wins the agreed number of legs first — usually best of five, so first to three — takes the match.
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.
HOW THE APP PLAYS THE MATCH
The app plays the whole match, not one leg. Set the match length when you create the game — the seeded card is first to three. Each checkout banks a leg: the header keeps the tally ("Legs 2–1 · first to 3"), every board resets to 501 by itself, and openers alternate — whoever threw second in one leg throws first in the next, going around the table. Banked legs are final: corrections work on the leg being played, exactly as a real match works once hands are shaken. When someone reaches the agreed number of legs the app calls the match and the host confirms it, the same as any game shot. Everything below is the rules of each individual leg.
SCORING
Everyone starts on 501. Three darts a turn, and there is no double to start — your first dart scores whatever it hits. The outer ring doubles the number, the inner ring triples it. The outer bull is 25, the inner bull is 50. Your turn total comes off your remaining score.
WINNING THE LEG
Get to exactly 0 with your last dart in a double: any of D1 to D20, or the inner bull, which counts as double 25. The outer 25 is a SINGLE — it does not finish a leg, even though it is part of the bullseye. Reaching 0 on a single or a triple is not a finish either. Unlike a single game, the checkout banks the leg for you the instant it lands — you do not end each leg by hand: the tally ticks over, every board resets to 501, and the next leg starts. Once a leg is won, stop throwing. The match itself is decided by the leg tally, not by anyone's remaining score: the app calls the match when someone reaches the agreed number of legs, and the host confirms it the same as any game shot. If the match is ended before anyone reaches the agreed number of legs, nobody is recorded as having won it — there is no first place, however far ahead the tally is. Everyone who threw is still placed, starting at SECOND and ordered on legs won: two legs, one leg and none are recorded 2nd, 3rd and 4th. Players level on legs share a place, so a shared lead of two legs each against a player on none is 2nd, 2nd and 4th — a level tally costs the first place, not the places. (A match ended before any leg was banked at all is the one exception: with nothing on the tally the app falls back to the lowest remaining score, and that one DOES take first place. Only a tie on the lowest remaining records nothing at all.)
BUST
Three ways to bust, and all three do the same thing — the turn scores nothing and your score goes back to what it was when you stepped up: * you go below zero * you leave exactly 1 (there is no double that finishes 1) * you land on exactly 0 with a dart that is not a double or the inner bull Bust on your second dart and the third does not count either, exactly as a paper scorer would do it.
IF A TURN CANNOT BE READ
Score dart by dart — the phone's Coach pad, or tapping the darts into the web keypad — and the app sees which dart landed last, so it rules on the double. A turn typed as one total is different, and under DOUBLE OUT the app no longer takes it on trust: a total that would land you on 0 cannot say which dart landed last, so the app stops and asks for the darts. On the phone a panel opens and you tap the three you threw; on the web the total is refused and you enter the darts on the keypad instead. Nothing is recorded until you do, and backing out leaves it your turn. Under STRAIGHT OUT there is no double to prove, so a total that lands on 0 is simply the finish. Some remainings a total cannot claim at all: sitting on 1, 159, 162, 165 or 168 — or on anything from 171 to 180 — no three darts finish under double-out, and the app refuses the turn outright rather than record an impossible checkout. (Those are bogey remainders — a score you can be sitting on but cannot go out from in one turn; do not confuse them with the impossible turn totals below, which are scores three darts cannot add up to. 163, 166 and 169 are on both lists, and are stopped as impossible totals before the bogey rule is reached.) OUT* in the score table still marks an out the app could not check against the double — but since it started asking, that only turns up on games played earlier, and on a turn later corrected to a bare total. The below-zero and leave-1 busts always apply, darts or no darts. A turn total must be a whole number from 0 to 180, and it has to be a number three darts can actually make: the scoring pads refuse 163, 166, 169, 172, 173, 175, 176, 178 and 179, because no three darts on the board add up to any of them — a typed 179 is a mis-keyed 79 every time. If you enter the darts they must add up to that total.
STRAIGHT OUT
Straight out is a choice now, not just an engine mode: pick the Finish Rule when you create the game. Under straight out only the below-zero bust applies — any exact zero wins, leaving 1 is fine, and the last dart does not need to be a double. The match header shows a Double out or Straight out badge so everyone at the throw line (the oche) knows which rule is live, and a rematch or a game-night playlist carries the rule over. Leave the setting alone and the game is double out, exactly as above.
ROUND LIMIT
A limit caps a single leg, never a match, and this game starts as a best-of match — so the Round limit is offered only once you pick Single leg under Match length, which makes it one game of 501. The host can then cap it at a set number of rounds — a round is one turn for every player still in the game — and the app takes no turn after the last capped round. A checkout inside the limit wins; if nobody has checked out by then, the lowest score left wins — counting only the players still at the board — and a tie on the lowest score is a draw that records no winner and no places. With the Round limit left off, nothing on this card changes.
TURN ORDER AND TIMERS
Players throw in the order they were added, host first, and there is no throw for the bull. Inside a leg the throw rotates in that order. Between legs the app alternates the opener for you — whoever threw second in one leg opens the next, going around the table — so do not re-add the players in a different order to force it: the app is already alternating, and reversing the seats on top of that hands the same player every opener. In a game of two or more, the app will not accept a score out of turn. A turn clock is optional; it only auto-forfeits in a ranked online game, where running out records 0 for that turn and moves play on. In an online game your turn waits until every opponent confirms it, and a dispute holds it until it is settled. 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. Their score stops where they left it, the app keeps the seat in the running order so everybody else can play on, and they are placed after everyone who finished, whatever they were sitting on when they went. 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.
CORRECTIONS
The host, or the player who threw, can correct any turn while the game is live - with one exception, and it is the one the clock writes. A turn the timer forfeited is the clock's own record: neither you nor the host can undo it or correct it afterwards. The whole leg is then replayed under these same rules, so fixing an early turn can flip a later bust into a score or the other way round. Correct it with the darts as thrown — typed T20 D10 5, M for a miss — and the app re-scores the turn from those darts and can still rule on the double. Correct it with a total instead and the dart record is dropped: the new total counts, but a finish from it can no longer be checked against the double, so the score table marks it OUT*. Setting a turn to 0 undoes it. Once the game is ended the scores are frozen.
HANDICAP
If the game was created with auto-handicap on, the strongest player starts on 501 and the others start lower — rounded to a multiple of 10, never below 250, and only for players with enough recent scoring history. Everyone still finishes under the game's finish rule — on a double, unless the game was created straight out.
HOUSE RULES AND TOURNAMENT PLAY
The match format above is tournament play: each leg is a full 501, first to the agreed number of legs takes the match, and the opener alternates leg by leg. Two things on this card are the house's. Nobody throws for the bull here — tournament play decides the first thrower that way, and American rules throw for it again before a deciding leg. And with three or more at the board no rulebook defines a format at all, so going around the table is this app's own answer. One more thing worth knowing if you came here from a search: there is a published bar game also called Legs, in which everyone starts with three legs and loses one whenever they fail to beat the score of the player before them. That is not this game. If your venue wants one of those, agree it out loud before the first dart — the app will still score the version above.