In his latest column, PDC Stats Analyst Christopher Kempf analyses how pressure from opponents can impact a player's ability to convert ton-plus checkouts.
Finishes requiring at least one treble and guaranteeing no more than one dart at double comprise 10% of all checkouts in the PDC, making them three to four times more rare (per leg played) than a 180.
No player would choose to be in a situation in which a three-dart combination involving only one double attempt stands between them and defeat in the leg, but some players make the most of it.
The majority of players' completion percentages of three-dart combination finishes increase slightly when their opponents are all but guaranteed two or three darts at a double.
Excluding all finishes attempted and completed with an opponent not on a finish, the PDC checkout rate of these finishes increases by 0.2%, from 10.4 to 10.6%, when under pressure.
This is in part because players tend to attempt somewhat lower ton-plus finishes when their opponents are also on lower scores, so we cannot conclude that pressure is the deciding factor in this marginal increase.
On the individual level, however, there is more evidence to suggest that a psychological effect caused by an opponent's pressure changes their ton-plus checkout percentage, though it is not always a favourable effect.
The score of 60 (remaining) makes for a convenient dividing line between checkouts of which the average PDC player would complete a majority (2-60) and scores which a player is unlikely to finish.
Even if a player cannot do anything in his visit to the board to win the leg, they can assume that they will be returning to the board if that opponent is on a score of 61 or higher, and that they will not be otherwise, and be right a majority of the time.
So when a player is on a ton-plus finish, only 1 in 10 attempts of which are completed in the PDC, they know that not completing it will, more likely than not, mean losing the leg. How are players affected by this pressure?
There is a slight correlation between a player's age and his ton-plus checkout rate (in all opponent scenarios). Two of the best finishers of 2025 have already celebrated their 50th birthdays - Jonny Clayton (18.2% of high finishes completed) and Brendan Dolan (22% completed under pressure).
The two most recent World Youth Champions, Luke Littler and Gian van Veen, are exceptional for defying this trend. Both players are not only in the top 10% of Tour Card Holders for big combination checkouts, but improve their percentages even further when seriously contemplating losing the leg.
Van Veen is the only other player besides Dolan to defy expectations 20% of the time in these scenarios.
The correlation turns against the PDC's elder statesmen, however, when it comes to the likelihood that they will improve their ton-plus checkout rate under pressure.
Thus far in 2025, the player with the biggest improvement under pressure is 25-year-old Nathan Rafferty, whose probability of completing a big finish more than doubles when his opponent is likely to return to the board to attempt multiple doubles.
The player with the worst track record in these scenarios is 43-year-old Richard Veenstra, who completes 9% of ton-plus finishes but only 2% when under maximum pressure.
It could be that established players with the most to lose face more anxiety in these situations, while Tour Card debutants and young upstarts relish the challenge.
In the middle of these two extremes sits Stephen Bunting, whose ton-plus checkout rate of 13.6% is almost completely unaffected by his opponent's score.
Within the Premier League, Michael van Gerwen is only half as likely as his other seven rivals to complete a high-pressure ton-plus finish, having done so only four times in 59 attempts, contributing to the seven-time champion winning only 51% of his matches thus far in 2025.
Littler, having fired in a 106 finish to defeat Luke Humphries (waiting on 40) in his most recent Premier League leg, has completed 12 other such finishes and won nearly 80% of his matches.
Though Rob Cross memorably checked out 170 to defeat Gerwyn Price the week before, it is actually Price who has the edge when it comes to all ton-plus checkouts - he leads the Premier League with 16.0% completion to Cross' 15.3%.
No player can hope to compensate for weak scoring with a high proportion of ton-plus checkouts completed, but the fact that many of the same players known for throwing lots of 180s - Price, Littler, van Veen especially - are also excellent when it comes to high finishes only adds to the challenge of defeating them.
These three players have already combined to throw 127 finishes of 99 and 101-170 in 2025.
If the champions of years past cannot match today's leading players in either domain of darts expertise, they may never earn the title of 'champion' again.
Follow Christopher on Twitter @ochepedia