The Winmau World Masters is a four-day showpiece on the PDC calendar, bringing together 32 players in Milton Keynes for one of darts’ most traditional-looking tests: set play. Twenty-four players are pre-qualified, with the final eight places decided in the Preliminary Rounds the day before the main draw begins.

What really defines the style of the World Masters is the classic “best of three legs per set” format — quick, intense sets where momentum can flip fast and there’s very little time to settle. Crucially, there are no tie-breaks in any set, so every leg has extra weight from the first dart.


The Winmau World Masters will be played on the Winmau Blade dartboard — the official match board of the PDC.

How the tournament is structured (at a glance):

Preliminary Rounds (Wed 28 Jan): starts with a round-robin phase of 32 groups, then moves into a knockout phase to produce the eight qualifiers for the main event.

Main Event (Thu 29 Jan – Sun 1 Feb): 32-player bracket, with the top 16 seeded into the Round One draw. Match lengths increase as the tournament progresses (e.g., best of five sets in Round One up to best of 11 sets in the Final).