Bob's 27 rules: every double on the board, and a bank you can lose
Bob’s 27 is not really a game, it is the doubles routine that made a generation of players find D1. You start on a bank of 27 points and throw three darts at D1, then three at D2, all the way to D20 — and every round you blank takes points off you.
Play Bob’s 27, from a bank of 27 →
How it works
You start with 27 points in the bank — the double of the 27 nobody can hit is the joke the name comes from, and it is really just three times nine.
Round one is three darts at D1, round two is three darts at D2, and so on to round twenty at D20. That is the order this board calls the ladder: round 1 is the 1 and round 20 is the 20 — the routine as every practice sheet prints it, cheapest round first, and the one everybody has thrown.
Every dart in the double adds twice the number. Three darts in D18 is 36 + 36 + 36 = 108 points in one round.
A round with nothing in it subtracts twice the number instead. A blank round at the 1 costs 2 points; a blank round at the 20 costs 40, and that is the round that ends most cards.
Drop to zero or below and you are out. Survive all twenty rounds and your bank is your score — which is the number to beat next time.
Why everybody who practises plays it
It is the only routine that makes you throw at all twenty doubles in one sitting, in the order that guarantees you cannot avoid the ones you are bad at. D3, D7, D11 and D13 are where cards die.
It also gets harder as it goes, exactly backwards from the way scoring practice usually works: the early rounds are cheap to blank and the late ones are ruinous, so a bank of 200 at the 15 is not as safe as it feels.
A round of 500 or better is a good card. Getting past the twentieth round at all is a start, and the reason the bank knob below exists.
It is scored here as a solo practice game, and several players simply race the same routine side by side — nobody interferes with anybody, and the card is the opponent.
House rules this board plays
The part no other rules page has, because no other site implements them. Each one opens the setup screen with that rule already set.
- The Treble 27 run The same twenty rounds thrown at the trebles: T1 up to T20, a hit paying treble the number and a blank costing treble. The card swings half again as hard, and it keeps its own high-score board. Paired here with the bank that makes it survivable. Set it up →
- Finish at the bull The twenty-first round the practice sheets add: three darts at the bull, 50 for a hit and −50 for a blank round. The routine as it is really thrown, and the last round with the card on it. Set it up →
- Keep throwing at zero The classic rule ends your card the moment the bank hits zero, which is no use to a practice session — half the point is the doubles you have not thrown at yet. With this on, a busted card plays the routine out to the twentieth round. Set it up →
- Deal the twenty rounds The ladder above is not just familiar, it is sorted — the cheap rounds come first and build the bank the expensive ones spend. So: the same twenty numbers dealt in a random order, once per game — the 20 can be the first round on the card, which is 40 off a bank of 27 for a blank visit, so the ladder stops being a warm-up (its own high-score board). The deal is made when the match starts and carried with it, so an undo, a resume and the TV all throw the one card, and the board names the round after this one because on a dealt card nothing else can. Set it up →
- A bank of 54 Twice the classic bank: a cushion, so a cold start on D1 and D2 need not end the card before it has started. The way to give somebody a start at the same routine. Set it up →
Common questions
- What is Bob's 27? The doubles routine that made a generation of players find D1: you start on a bank of 27 points and throw three darts at D1, then three at D2, all the way to D20.
- What happens if you miss a double with all three darts? A blank round subtracts twice the number, so blanking the 1 costs 2 points and blanking the 20 costs 40. Drop to zero or below and your card is over.
- What is a good score at Bob's 27? A card of 500 or better is a good one. Getting past the twentieth round at all is a start, which is why the bank can be set to 54 or 81 instead.
Play it
Bob’s 27 is one of the twenty modes in Friendly Fire Casper, a free darts scoreboard that runs in a browser and keeps working when the wifi drops. It scores the game for you, undoes the dart you typed wrong, remembers who won, and can put the board on a TV while everybody scores from their own phone.