501 Checkout Chart: Printable Finishes for Every Number

A checkout chart tells you the fastest way to finish a leg of 501. You subtract every dart from your score, and the last dart has to land in a double or the bullseye to win. Once you drop under 170 you’re in checkout territory, and knowing the route on sight is what separates players who finish from players who freeze on 81 and throw three darts at nothing in particular. Legs are won and lost in that last stretch, so the finish is the part of your game worth the most attention.

The chart below is the complete reference: every finishable score, its recommended three-dart route, and the bogey numbers you can’t take out at all. The routes are generated and arithmetically checked, every one sums correctly and ends on a double, and cross-referenced against the standard darts501 checkout combinations. If you want the theory behind why a route is chosen, read our 501 checkout strategy guide. If you want the data on how routes shift after a missed dart, see the checkout route data. This page is the thing you pin to the wall.

The Full 501 Checkout Chart (170 to 2)

Read it top to bottom, left to right. The score is on the left, the recommended finish on the right. Highlighted rows are the finishes worth committing to memory first, more on those below. Where you see “score down,” you’re on a bogey number and there’s no legal three-dart out, so you throw to leave yourself a clean finish for the next visit.

How to Read and Use This Chart

Every route is written in throwing order. “T20 › T19 › Bull” means treble 20 first, treble 19 second, bullseye to finish. T is treble, D is double, S is single, and Bull is the inner bullseye, which scores 50 and counts as a double. So a route that ends on Bull, D16 or D20 is a legal finish; a route that ends on a single is not.

The chart lists one recommended route per score, and it’s built to leave you on a comfortable finishing double, usually D20 or D16, wherever a choice exists. That matters because most scores have several valid routes. On 90 you could finish T18 then D18, or T20 then D15, or 20, T20, D5, all three land on zero legally. The chart picks the cleanest line so you’re not memorising three options for one number. When you miss, though, the picture changes fast: a single stray dart can turn a tidy 90 into an awkward 50, and the best route recalculates. That’s exactly what our checkout calculator does live, dart by dart.

The Checkouts You Should Memorise First

You do not need the whole chart in your head to win legs. You need the finishes that show up on almost every visit, the two-dart and three-dart outs under 100, plus a handful of landmarks. Drill this shortlist first and you’ll finish far more often than a player who’s still doing mental arithmetic on 68.

The pros make this look automatic because it is. Across the 2024 PDC tour, tour-card holders finished roughly 37.5% of their checkouts in two darts, with more taken on the third. The top finishers in 2025/26 pushed past 50%. None of that comes from talent alone, it comes from knowing the route before the dart leaves the hand. For the practice side of turning these into muscle memory, see our guide on how to hit doubles.

Bogey Numbers: The Scores You Can’t Finish

Seven scores have no three-dart checkout: 169, 168, 166, 165, 163, 162, and 159. The maths simply doesn’t allow a combination of three darts that lands on a double and totals those numbers. If you’re left on one of them, stop trying to finish and start scoring down to a number you can take out.

The classic trap is sitting on a bogey number and hammering treble 20 out of habit. The smarter play is to throw a deliberate single to leave a round, finishable number. On 162, a single 12 leaves 150, a clean T20, T18, D18. On 159, a single 19 leaves 140, then T20, T20, D10. Think one visit ahead and a bogey number costs you nothing.

If You Prefer a Different Finishing Double

This chart routes toward D20 and D16 because they’re the two doubles most players are most confident on, and because D16 has the best “halving” line: miss inside it and you’re left on 16, which halves cleanly to D8, then D4, then D2, then D1. You can stay on that side of the board through four misses. D20 is the most-thrown double on the professional tour and many elite players post their highest success rate there, but its halving line breaks quickly, 20 goes to 10, then 5, and 5 is odd.

If your money double is somewhere else, plenty of players swear by D10 or D8, you can re-route the setup darts to leave it. The trick is to aim your last-but-one dart at whatever leaves your favourite double: if D10 is the one you trust, work back to leaving 20 rather than 32. The chart gives you a sound default; your own consistency should decide the last dart. The checkout strategy guide walks through how to choose your preferred double and build your setups around it.

How to Practise Your Checkouts

A chart on the wall only helps if the routes are in your head by the time you’re standing at the oche. The fastest way to get them there is to practise finishing, not just scoring. Most players spend their whole session throwing at treble 20 and almost none of it on the doubles that actually close legs. Flip that ratio. Give the back half of every session to checkouts and your finishing percentage climbs within weeks.

Start with a simple drill. Put yourself on a score between 40 and 100, glance at the chart for the route once, then throw it for real. If you miss the setup, take the new number and finish from there without looking. The goal is to stop needing the chart for the everyday finishes, so that 68 instantly reads as treble 16 then double 10 and your eyes are already on the treble. Rotate through a spread of scores rather than hammering the same one, because in a game you never get the same leave twice.

Once the routes are automatic, the limiting factor becomes your double, not your memory. That’s a throwing problem, not a knowledge problem, and it’s worth training on its own. Our guide on how to practise darts alone lays out solo drills with scoring targets, and building a consistent dart throw covers the mechanics that make a double repeatable under pressure. Learn the chart, then groove the finish.

Frequently Asked Questions