Tournament Results

Skill Level

Select a skill level to view the tournament results at that MPR (Marks Per Round). Higher MPR corresponds to more skilled players who hit triples more consistently.

Tournament Matrix

Each cell shows the row strategy's win rate (%) against the column strategy. Values above 50% (green) indicate the row strategy wins more often. The matrix is symmetric: if A beats B at 55%, then B beats A at 45%.

How to Read the Matrix

• Green cells (>55%) — The row strategy dominates this matchup, winning more than 55% of games.
• Yellow cells (~50%) — An even matchup where neither strategy has a meaningful advantage.
• Red cells (<45%) — The column strategy dominates, and the row strategy loses more than 55% of games.
• Diagonal cells — Always 50% since a strategy playing itself wins half the time by definition.
• Hover — Move your cursor over any cell to highlight the full row and column for easier cross-referencing.

Rankings

Strategies ranked by average win rate across all opponents. The average excludes self-play (the diagonal), so it reflects head-to-head performance against every other strategy in the tournament. Note: average win rate is heavily influenced by margins against weak strategies. Two strategies that tie head-to-head can have different rankings if one beats weak opponents by wider margins. See Key Observations below for details.

Key Observations

• Phase Switch (PS) is the strongest strategy head-to-head at high skill. PS ranks #1 at the two highest skill levels (MPR 4.60 and 5.28) and beats every other top strategy (S2, E1, E2) head-to-head from MPR ~3.4 upward. Its advantage over S2 grows to +5.2pp at pro level.
• S2 remains the best of the original 17 Frongello strategies at nearly every skill level. Its simple rule ("score until you have any lead, then cover") holds up under realistic miss rates. Only at the very lowest skill level does S10 edge it out slightly.
• Chase strategies (S10–S13, S14–S17) generally underperform their non-chase counterparts. Frongello's original finding that chasing is suboptimal holds across skill levels, with the gap widening as skill increases.
• Extra darts (S6–S9) do not improve on basic (S2–S5). Despite the intuition that redirecting leftover darts to scoring should help, S6 consistently underperforms S2 at every skill level. The extra-darts redirect appears to disrupt the closing tempo more than the additional scoring compensates for.
• E1 (Early Bull) tops average rankings but ties S2 head-to-head. E1 ranks #1 by average win rate at 9 of 11 skill levels, but this is largely a ranking methodology artifact. Head-to-head against S2, E1 wins ~50% at every skill level — they are effectively equal. E1’s higher average comes from beating weak strategies (S5, S8, S9, S13, S17) by wider margins than S2 does, inflating its overall average. Among the top strategies (S2, E1, E2, PS), only PS separates itself — and only at higher skill levels.
• At low MPR levels (high miss rates), strategy differences diminish. When most darts miss their target, luck dominates and the gap between the best and worst strategies narrows considerably.
• At high MPR levels, strategy matters more. The gap between S1 (close only, never score) and PS widens as skill increases, because skilled players can actually execute the strategic intent of their approach.

Frongello's Original Rankings

For comparison, Frongello's equal-skill simulation found the following ranking by average win rate:

S2 > S6 > S10 > S14 > S3 > S7 > S11 > S15 > S1 > S4 > S8 > S12 > S16 > S5 > S9 > S13 > S17

Frongello found S2 statistically significantly better than S6 against 13 of 17 strategies at equal skill (S2 beat S6 head-to-head 51.9%). However, in his unequal-skill simulation (one player at 95% relative accuracy), S6 became optimal — using “extra darts” extends the game and favors the stronger player. Under our realistic miss-rate profiles at equal skill, the gap between S2 and S6 widens further, confirming that extra darts disrupt closing tempo when accuracy is imperfect.