Incentives, performance and choking in darts

Abstract

This paper examines how within-match variation in incentives affects the performance of darts players. The game of darts offers an attractive naturally occurring research setting, because performance can be observed at the individual level and without obscuring effects of risk considerations and behavior of others. We analyze four data sets covering a total of 29,381 darts matches of professional, amateur, and youth players. We find that amateur and youth players display a sizable performance decrease at decisive moments. Professional players appear less susceptible of such choking under pressure. Our results speak to a growing literature on the limits of increasing incentives as a recipe for better performance.

You’ve Got Three Choices: Give in, Give up, or Give it All You’ve Got: Does Contest Heterogeneity Affect Effort in Individual Competitions?

“…Perhaps only those players who are able (and willing) to maintain concentration over a long period of time can play darts professionally. This hypothesis is supported by Klein Teeselink et al (2020), who find significant differences in the behavioral patterns of professionals and amateurs, as they find only the latter group to perform worse under pressure.…”

“… 17. Klein Teeselink et al (2020) and Ötting et al (2020) examine choking under pressure in darts. Klein Teeselink et al (2020) first analyze if finishing a leg (reducing the score to exactly zero) is affected by pressure.…”

“… 17. Klein Teeselink et al (2020) and Ötting et al (2020) examine choking under pressure in darts. Klein Teeselink et al (2020) first analyze if finishing a leg (reducing the score to exactly zero) is affected by pressure. They find some evidence that professional players’ performance is reduced in decisive legs, thus in situations in which both players only need to win one more leg to win the match.…”

Elite darts performance and the social influence of real crowds and simulated crowd noise

“…A darts match is usually played over a fixed distance (e.g., best of 11 legs). An in-depth explanation of the rules of darts can be found in previous reports 23 , 25 , 26 , and the exact rules are described in the darts regulation authority rulebook 24 . During matches, the rules are enforced by a “Caller” , which is responsible for the correctness of the scores and calling the scores to the opponent.…”

“…There are a few studies which investigated choking under pressure in darts 23 , 25 . Interestingly, different studies found that professional darts players overall do not display the tendency to choke in important situations: when investigating the likelihood of winning one “leg” (i.e., fixed distance within a game that wins a point) of darts when the opponent exerts pressure on the performer (by threatening to win the leg with the next throw), players did not display decrements of performance 23 and even increased their performance 25 .…”