In your opinion does playing Soft-tips hurt your steel tip game?

[*Saber*]

I say it can if you let it. I play soft- tips on Thursday night, recently going back to steel I was really off. My first night shooting soft-tip my game avg was 115 lol. No way in hell have I ever avg 115 in steel. So I practice steel at home to keep my steel game up and it helps my soft-tip game.
What say you guys who play both? I love playing both btw and I have high regard for the soft- tip players. Guests cannot see images in the messages. Please register at the forum by clicking here to see images.

[puddin]

I'd say it really depends on the darts you use for both. If they are very similar than it never really bothered me too much. My first few throws from switching between the 2 need to be adjusted but after about 5 min I'm usually good to go and sometimes switching to soft tip is a good idea as it makes you feel better with those massive trebles

[ranger86]

I keep the difference to a minimum by using the same darts for both. Using Target Phil Taylor 9Zero's now in 18 gm and just switch the points. When I do this, it makes the slightly different oche distance almost negligible. There is still some adjustment, though, but a good warm up seems to take care of it.

Of course it helps to use both boards at home. I have both set up, but am always drawn to the steel tip board. Then, when I am out at the local bars I am stuck with soft tip. Ahhh. Life in the States!

[GOLGO-13]

Luckily my soft tip league plays at the same oche length as steel. That helps a lot to me to avoid the differences. Then it comes down to the dart. Since I play 90% soft tip I use my soft tips for both. I use L-Style hard lippoints to avoid a shift in balance (thus affecting where I grip the dart).

I have 20 gram steel tip version of my soft tip darts (which are 18 grams). They seem to work quite well and I really like them. But I figure since I play soft more I should stick with the same darts.

The downside of our league playing at the steel length is if you go somewhere that they have the length at 8 feet, It would take a bit of adjusting. While it's only a few inches I do find it makes quite a difference in my game at least.

[Dmott]

Maybe it is my throw, but I don't really notice the 3" difference at all. Honestly by the time Im at the bar playing darts, I don't even remember that they are at a different distance. Guests cannot see images in the messages. Please register at the forum by clicking here to see images. Guests cannot see images in the messages. Please register at the forum by clicking here to see images. 

The one thing that I think would bother me is going back and forth between two different sets of darts. I really only play on Dartslive boards if I am playing soft tip, so I don't need to worry about weight, but I still wanted to use light darts just in case I ended up playing on a different soft tip board. So at this point I am using 17g soft tip barrels, then throwing on a target titanium conversion when playing steel tip. Since I only play on Dartslive boards, I am thinking of going back to my 20g dragon soft tips, also with a target titanium point if I play steel. So in my opinion, it would only hurt you if you played so often you became unfamiliar with your steel tip darts.

[Lord Strange]

For me, I think practice on any board helps. I think the slight distance/weight change is good and makes my body aware of subtle changes. Not all pub boards/oches are going to be equal (though I wish as much as anyone that they would), and changing distance surely helps with adaptation.