5 Checkout Tips That Actually Lower Your Average | Oche

Most club players lose legs at the finish, not the start. You can throw a respectable scoring average and still leak points the moment you’re on a checkout. These five tips focus on the one thing that actually moves the needle: turning more visits at a finish into legs won.

Leave a number you can finish

The scoreboard rewards players who think one dart ahead. Whenever you have a choice, score down to a number with a clean double route — 40, 32, 24, 16 — rather than an awkward odd number like 39 or 25.

Pick a route you can repeat

A checkout you can hit under pressure beats a “textbook” one you can’t. If you trust your treble 19 more than your treble 20, build your finishes around it. Consistency at the oche comes from repetition, not from chasing the route a pro would take.

Always have a bail-out double

Good finishers plan their second and third darts before they throw the first. Leaving yourself a double after a missed first dart keeps the visit alive and takes the panic out of the finish.

Practise your favourite doubles

You don’t need all 21 doubles to be sharp — you need the four or five you actually leave. Spend your practice time on D16, D20, D8 and the bull, and your real-game checkout percentage will climb.

Track it so you can see progress

What gets measured gets better. Logging every checkout attempt shows you which doubles you’re missing and which routes are costing you legs.

Oche does this automatically: it scores your X01 game, suggests a checkout the moment you’re on a finish, and keeps your doubles stats so you know exactly what to practise next.