High-Low rules: beat the last visit, or duck under it
High-Low — Splash, in half the pubs that play it — is the party game where you never know what you are aiming for until the moment before you throw. A call of HIGH or LOW comes down, and your three darts have to beat or come in under the total the player before you left. Miss the call and you lose a life. Last player standing wins.
How a visit is judged
Everything is a three-dart total, and the only number that matters is the one the previous visit left — the reference. Then:
- HIGH — your total has to be strictly more than the reference. 41 answers a HIGH on 40; 40 does not.
- LOW — your total has to be strictly less. 39 answers a LOW on 40; another 40 does not.
- The first visit of the game is free. There is nothing to beat yet, so no call is made, nobody is at risk, and the total it lands on is what the next player answers.
- The reference is always the last visit actually thrown — pass or fail. A player who missed their call still moves the number, so the game never settles.
Everybody starts with three lives. Miss a call and one goes; run out and you are eliminated, and the last card still standing wins. Five lives, or none at all, are one tap on the setup card.
The two calls nobody can make impossible
There are exactly two totals with no answer on one side of them, and the game refuses to ask for one. After a 0 the call is forced HIGH — there is nothing under zero to hit — and after a 180 it is forced LOW, because nobody has ever thrown 181. Every other number can be answered both ways, which is what makes the calling itself worth arguing about.
That is also where the skill hides. High-Low looks like a scoring game and is not one: a LOW on 26 is a harder throw than a HIGH on 26, because three darts that all miss the 1 and the 5 will quietly add up to more than you wanted. Players who can only score big are the first ones out.
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 previous player calls The pub version, and the one the game is really about: whoever just threw looks at the total they left and names the direction for the next player. Calling LOW after a 26 is a dare, calling HIGH after a 140 is a sentence, and both are now somebody's decision rather than the board's. The two fairness clamps still apply, so no call can be impossible to answer. Set it up →
- A level score is safe The commonest house reading: land exactly on the reference and you keep your life — you answered the call, you simply did not improve on it — and the next player throws against the same number. Set it up →
- A level score throws again Nothing lost, nothing moved on: the same player throws again against the same call, so matching the total exactly neither punishes nor rewards. Set it up →
- Five lives A longer game for a bigger group, where one unlucky call early does not end somebody's evening ten minutes in. Set it up →
- Nobody goes out Lives off entirely: the calls keep coming, the misses are counted, and nobody is sent to the bar. The version for practice, or for a board where one player is far stronger than the rest. Set it up →
The strict reading — a level score is a miss — is what the board plays unless you say otherwise, because HIGH means beat it and LOW means come under it.
Common questions
- What is High-Low darts? A call of HIGH or LOW comes down and your three-dart total has to beat, or come in under, the total the player before you left. Miss the call and you lose a life.
- What happens if you score exactly the same total? Under the strict rule this board plays it is a miss, because HIGH means beat it and LOW means come under it. House rules make a level score safe, or a re-throw.
- Can a call be impossible to answer? No. After a 0 the call is forced HIGH, since there is nothing under zero to hit, and after a 180 it is forced LOW, because nobody has ever thrown 181.
Play it
High-Low 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 makes the call, scores the game for you, undoes the visit you typed wrong, remembers who won, and can put the board on a TV while everybody scores from their own phone.