PC Finals round one projections

Same format as usual, four numbers, first three are form based going from more recent to fuller datasets, last one is the main composite value.

Price - Hopp: 81/79/83/81

Nijman - Veenstra: 71/71/71/71

Heta - Hood: 45/60/62/56

R Smith - Springer: 63/63/62/63

Dobey - Barry: 87/81/81/83

Wattimena - Plaisier: 53/56/62/57

van Veen - Humphries: 53/44/49/49

Bunting - Edhouse: 87/85/79/84

Menzies - Lipscombe: 61/69/69/66

Rock - Clemens: 86/87/78/84

Searle - Beveridge: 68/72/76/72

Clayton - Hurrell: 73/71/70/71

O'Connor - Pietreczko: 64/61/61/62

Cullen - Wright: 57/53/46/52

Noppert - Evans: 53/59/61/58

Schindler - M Smith: 55/49/50/51

Zonneveld - Kenny: 57/66/59/61

van Duijvenbode - Razma: 76/77/71/75

Wade - Mansell: 55/71/66/64

Anderson - Vandenbogaerde: 69/65/75/70

Woodhouse - Soutar: 69/66/59/65

Doets - Rydz: 55/56/39/50

S Williams - White: 51/66/55/57

Brooks - Lukeman: 82/80/76/79

Dolan - Gurney: 38/39/44/40

Ratajski - van Barneveld: 55/52/60/56

Chisnall - Joyce: 56/57/52/55

de Decker - Crabtree: 69/61/63/64

de Graaf - Littler: 16/11/12/13

Gilding - Taylor: 36/55/53/48

Sedlacek - Aspinall: 20/29/36/28

Cross - Bialecki: 80/78/80/79

Fair few games that appear value at current exchange prices. Favourites not going off as short as they should mostly.

Is Littler value

Now this might be a bit of a counter-intuitive post given my previous post was saying betting on Littler to beat Humphries was maybe the best bet I've seen since January, but people who I respect are basically suggesting that Littler should be odds on to bink the worlds. That is in no way an unreasonable assessment, we have seen it before when MvG was at his peak, we've almost certainly seen it before when Taylor was at his peak, but is it realistic now? Let's run the numbers.

I'm going to try to work out a worst possible run, and then a best possible run. So much is down to the draw that it seems prudent to try to do this. Clearly this is going to be subjective, and clearly things will change in terms of draw brackets once Minehead is done, but we should be able to get some kind of base level. I'm using dartsrankings.com in terms of working out the bracket. Any mistake I make is mine for not double checking their work, but I trust them to be reliable enough. At least for the purposes of this post. What I'll do is post the players that Littler can, as of right now (I think they work in PC Finals guaranteed money) face in each round, and their year long scoring per turn. I'll then try to give him the god run, and then the bastard run. Let's go, but I will list in order of least options first, even if that makes no sense in order.

R3 - Cullen (92.07)

R4 - Cross (93.04), de Decker (91.72)

R5 - van Veen (95.09), Dobey (94.06), Joyce (90.65), Woodhouse (90.56)

SF - Bunting (95.19), van Duijvenbode (93.95), Clayton (93.61), R Smith (93.51), Wattimena (92.84), Aspinall (92.67), Schindler (91.39), M Smith (90.64)

F - Humphries (95.91), Rock (95.65), Anderson (94.93), Price (94.87), van Gerwen (94.56), Nijman (93.10) Searle (92.97), Wade (92.24), Heta (92.02), Noppert (92.01), Gurney (90.83), Wright (90.55), Menzies (90.09), Chisnall (89.45), Edhouse (88.70), van den Bergh (87.78)

Any round except 1 - Taylor (92.52), Rydz (92.20), Ratajski (91.69), Springer (91.65), O'Connot (91.29), Gilding (91.20), Scutt (90.91), Zonneveld (90.75), S Williams (90.08), Suljovic (90.01), Evans (89.68), Doers (89.61), Vandenbogaerde (89.58),.Razma (89.56), Hurrell (89.47), Clemens (89.43), Dolan (89.11), Wenig (89.05), Pietreczko (88.99), van Barneveld (88.99), Kenny (88.97), Mansell (88.78), Soutar (88.71), de Graaf (88.68), Huybrechts (88.68), Campbell (88.60), White (88.56), Veenstra (88.41), Meikle (88.20), Barry (87.82), Lukeman (87.81), Tricole (86.82)

Any round - Brooks (91.68), Greaves (90.62), Hood (90.51), Plaisier (90.30), Sedlacek (89.84), Crabtree (89.69), Baetens (89.67), Manby (89.66), Lennon (89.49), Bates (88.87), Dennant (88.83), Beveridge (88.63), van den Herik (88.48), Gruellich (88.44), Hopp (88.31), van der Velde (87.96), King (87.96), Harrysson (87.95), Landman (87.92), Buntz (87.61), Bialecki (87.49), Lipscombe (87.38), Evetts (87.27), Labanauskas (87.23), Harju (87.23), Dekker (87.21), Davies (86.76), Toylo (86.08), Cameron (86.02), Ilagan (86.00), Bellmont (85.97), Leung (85.88), Sevada (85.87), Nebrida (85.51), Sakai (84.86), Lukasiak (84.81), Gates (84.76), Spellman (84.55), Comito (83.92), Lim (83.87), Azemoto (83.71), Pusey (83.09), Krcmar (94.31*), Tatsunami (87.87*), van Leuven (86.56*), Gawlas (84.33*), Zong (83.00*), Ashton (82.96*), Kumar (81.06*), Merk (79.75*), Sherrock (79.05*), Kovacs (76.17*), Hayter (0.00*), Reyes (0.00*), Tata (0.00*), Kciuk (0.00*), Salate (0.00*), Munyua (0.00*)

Here note that an * indicates I do not have 50 winning legs on someone (and if they're at 0.00, I don't have any legs whatsoever on them) and as such I'm not confident in the sample size to consider them in the equation. So now we can start to create the bastard run and the god run. As you might expect, it starts with Brooks (it could be the case that in reality, the bastard draw is Krcmar), but we'll just go with Brooks, if only because I have each way money on him and want to hype. We'll then go into Ratajski round two (think the tested veteran who's actually won stuff might play out better than the younger players who haven't, and might play at a pace that's more conducive to Littler. Can consider qualifiers in round 3 but Cullen looks to have enough numbers, Cross and van Veen are the obvious next two choices, then for the semi I think maybe there's someone in better form than Bunting, but we'll trust the numbers, and then go Humphries in the PDC's dream final. This gives us a Littler winning chance of:

0.8225 * 0.9053 * 0.9359 * 0.8277 * 0.8003 * 0.8106 * 0.8287 = 31.01% binking chance

That is quite remarkable in that if you construct the hardest possible draw, the bookmakers couldn't even price Littler at 5/2 and be profitable.

What about the god draw though? Here I'm going to try to be reasonable and avoid bUT kIrK ShePHeRd mADe tHe fINaL oNCe permutations, I doubt that ever happens again, at least in terms of basically coming out of nowhere. We should all know who Mitchell Lawrie is by now, should a non seed get pretty deep, it's probably going to b e one we know. So let's go sensible. First round I'm taking Pusey, if only because he'll be demoralised at having to change his nickname. I could pick an unseeded player for round two as well and say someone will pull an upset, but Tricole's numbers look weak enough that it's less controversial just to go with him. Round three we want someone to knock Cullen out. I'm going to look at who's knocked him out of European Tours at the first round and use that as a "reasonable" yardstick. Ryan Meikle gave him a 6-1 shoeing and is in the bottom few names for who'll be in the 33-64 list so that seems as reasonable as any (plus we get the rematch knowledge that even when Meikle was looking really good, he couldn't really do much at all). Round 4 we need to have someone reasonably good to knock out Cross. de Decker would fit that bill in a 16 v 17 seeding match, there's ptobably someone weaker who could reasonably take both of them out, but MdD seems the most reasonable. Into the quarters and I think we realistically need to pick a seed. Here I'm going to go with Joyce - he has hit some form, has course and distance for this stage, and would it be that unreasonable to say something like van Veen ran into someone like Springer or O'Connor in the early stages, went out, then Joyce turns over Dobey and whoever took out GvV? I don't think that's TOO much of a stretch. Semi final I'll just take Aspinall, again in decent form, think it's a reasonable argument that he could turn over any of the names ahead of him right now. Then in the final, we'll take Price, going for the Nijman upsetting Humphries early to open up the section and have MvG, Ando and Rock beat seven bells out of each other softening them all up. This god run would give you:

0.9940 * 0.9780 * 0.9817 * 0.8885 * 0.9686 * 0.9372 * 0.8294 = 63.82% binking chance

Now that's not a huge percentage. It'd probably allow the bookies to ptivr him up at 1/2, but if you want to come up with some realistic path that's even weaker, then be my guest. We've already got four matches in the slate that are over 95% for Littler, and another that isn't too far off. Maybe you can get it a tad shorter if you want to make an argument that a non seed would clear out both Cross and de Decker, but factor in the scoring numbers - Mike isn't exacrly lighting it up, so who out of the non-seeds is both significantly worse than de Decker yet could realistically take them both out (or, perhaps, get an assist by someone knocking one or both out before they would ordinarily face them). You're pushing it. I don't think you can realistically make an argument that you can get a weaker finalist - you'd probably indeed need to go back to that Part/Shepherd final before you got a real surprise finalist, at least in the lastt decade the only name you could say wasn't hugely known the year before they got to the final was Cross, but he was certainly known at the time, then you're looking back further at maybe the likes of when Hamilton or Whitlock made the final, but neither was random (and I've skipped the first Wright final where MvG won as well, as I was on him each way to bink at the time and hence known).

Naturally, the draw is probably not going to be one of these two polar opposites, and is probably going to come down somewhere in the middle - although leaning a bit towards the bastard draw. If you gave him something like Beveridge, Suljovic, Cullen, de Decker, van Veen, van Duijvenbode then Rock in the final, that comes to about 38%. Let's call a typical path 40% - that seems a long way off saying he should be shorter than evens, especially if you consider that I have been MORE optimistic about Littler's chances against elite players - looking back I took Littler only on three occasions, the semi and final of the worlds and the Slam final just now, and all for relatively speaking large amounts. If I'm right, then these numbers are fine. If I'm wrong, and I'm actually overestimating Littler's chances, then it seems even less reasonable to say Littler should be odds on for the title, barring any arguments people might like to make in that he's only so short already because of bookmaker liabilities - although that wouldn't explain that the exchange has him at 2.3-2.4 depending which perspective you want to take.

tl;dr - no i'm not backing littler at 11/10 outright i'll just wait for the latter stages thanks

That was the tournament that was

Those of you that saw my X posts straight after the semi finals would have seen me in disbelief at the lines for the final. Littler being available at 4/6? Really? Normally, be it either some combination of expected public money, lack of belief that the opponent can get close, or both, he's unbackable. He was 1/10 against Noppert for crying out loud (not that I thought Noppert had more than a 10% chance anyway, bue we still can't bet Littler obviously). So when I see that sort of line, and the projections have, regardless of data size, Humphries below 30% and averaging out at 25%, it becomes a case of how much money I can get on it, with the last time I've seen this sort of thing being right before Littler became world champion, and we all saw what happened there. Still, not complaining. The top two being Luke means there's not wholesale changes to the FRH rankings:

1 Luke Littler

2 Luke Humphries

3 Michael van Gerwen (UP 2)

4 Gian van Veen (UP 2)

5 Stephen Bunting (DOWN 2)

6 Jonny Clayton (DOWN 2)

7 Danny Noppert (UP 1)

8 James Wade (DOWN 1)

9 Gerwyn Price (UP 1)

10 Josh Rock (DOWN 1)

11 Chris Dobey

12 Ross Smith

13 Damon Heta

14 Martin Schindler (UP 1)

15 Nathan Aspinall (DOWN 1)

16 Jermaine Wattimena (UP 1)

17 Mike de Decker (DOWN 1)

18 Gary Anderson

19 Wessel Nijman (NEW)

20 Ryan Searle (DOWN 1)

Menzies slides out and also falls behind Luke Woodhouse who's one spot away from the top 20 for what I assume would be the first time. Michael Smith is very close to being back in the top 32, Ricky Evans is safely back in the top 50, with Lukas Wenig threatening that spot as well. Should be noted that positions 3 through 8 are all separated by less than 10,000 points, and this does not include first round money for the PC Finals, so van Gerwen will see a significant ranking drop prior to the worlds in all likelthood.

Some huge names got into the worlds this weekend. Baetens finally made it, Gawlas and Kciuk return (might even be Krzysztof's debut, not sure), Critso Reyes is back from nowhere which is great to see, and Boris Krcmar is another fantastic addition.

I'll get projections for Minehead out later this week, may only be the day before, bur before then I've got a new stupid tournament format I want to suggest, so I'll get that up.

Slam quarters

Now on to the super long games with super dumb scheduling, I've gone on about this in the past so I won't reiterate my thoughts, which given they're supposedly going to 48 players next year (please god don't be 16 groups of 3) is going to be horribly moot in any case. Nice couple of pick ups on Evans and Rock, although they both cut it a tad too fine for my liking, fortunately the edge on MvG wasn't enough to actually bet so a small bullet was dodged there. This is also at the incredibly dumb stage where we get Littler/Rock, which should be dynamite, and then three rematches, which shouldn't. You could keep all the games on the same day but draw the last 16 as A1-D2, B1-C2, C1-B2, D1-A2 which'd have pushed the only rematch possibility to the semi final, but we can't always have nice things.

Humphries/Smith - 83/80/76/80

Evans/Price - 27/19/15/20

Littler/Rock - 72/73/73/73

Noppert/Wenig - 83/83/79/82

So yeah, all four quarters are looking like they should be very one sided, fortunately the schedule is such that I can just go to sleep for a day and a bit and get someone to wake me up when Littler is on. Noppert being the biggest favourite is maybe a tad surprising and that you can get 1.3 on the exchanges easily enough represents a good bit of value to me, I'm not sure what Danny can do to not be underrated ever.

WDF worlds thoughts

Oh boy, this is going to be super happy fun times given the PDC took out an additional 32 players from circulation, yes half the additions will be from their own structure and not available to play WDF anyway, but this isn't nice. Numbers are year long legs won/lost in database and yearly scoring accordingly.

Jimmy van Schie (163-131, 89.30) v Alex Williams (13-19, 76.31) or Romeo Grbavac (2-9, 96.00) - Not really seen much of anything out of Romeo since what was a decent worlds showing last year, albeit in convincing defeat, maybe Alex has a bit less ring rust (got to guess Grbavac got in on events not on Dart Connect) but I think there's probably a decent differential in quality here. Both in the first round game, and the second, where Jimmy should have few problems.

Paul Krohne (14-27, 86.61) v Marko Kantele (89-86, 82.33) or Dalibor Smolik (3-6, 88.52) - Few familiar names here. Dalibor I assume popped up from getting through an ET qualifier, those aren't awful numbers so got to assume he's got something about him. Marko has been around forever and knows what he's doing, while Paul's a moderately new name but mainly through getting a card, giving it back, and it actually working for him. This is a really hard section to call.

Corne Groeneveld (31-17, 83.33) v Ryan Hogarth (17-23, 81.90) or Jonas Masalin (39-32, 86.98) - Interesting one. Corne's been showing up in quite a few WDF events over the past couple of years, but the numbers don't seen convincing, but there's some value in having got wins on the board. Hogarth showed up a few years back for having got deep in some events but never really kicked on, while Masalin is someone we've seen on the SDC circuit with respectable results, and may well be better than Hogarth as of right now, and could well have the game to push Corne - should he get there.

Stefan Schroder (no data) v Shane McGuirk (80-42, 88.78) or Petri Rasmus (0-5, 79.43) - Such a silly section where the defending champ enters in the preliminary round. Rasmus isn't a completely unknown name but certainly not a big name from the area, while Schroder getting the ninth seed is extremely bizarre, can only assume he binked something big that wasn't on DC. Still, got to look at Shane to get through here regardless of Schroder's pedigree.

James Beeton (72-77, 84.87) v Dennis Nilsson (26-34, 79.33) or Shane Sakchekapo (no data) - Now we get to the first player I have never heard of. Know nothing about Shane. As such, can't look past Dennis, then we get a real interesting one between a young player we've been tracking for a while, and a veteran who can up his game on this sort of stage. Would think James would have the edge, but it not be a trivial game.

Liam Maendl-Lawrance (51-66, 80.25) v Caleb Hope (no data) or Darren Johnson (13-19, 78.03) - And we go two for two in consecutive sections. No idea who Hope is. Johnson has all the experience in the world but how much he still has in the tank at this stage is in question. How much he will need is also in question. Liam we've seen for a couple of years, this year seems quieter but is still clearly a competent if deliberate operator, and ought to have the quality to require Darren to up his game to get through.

Benjamin Pratnemer (27-32, 84.95) v Karl Schaefer (26-28, 81.48) or Daniel Bauerdick (10-11, 79.81) - Don't know a great deal about either of these first round players. Karl's numbers seem a tad better although over a limited sample, and I think that he's probably playing a higher standard of player in general which might give him the edge, but I can't look past Pratnemer, clearly doing enough at a decent level to get the seeding and with decent results in the past.

Dave Pallett (55-61, 83.58) v Kevin Luke (19-21, 78.92) or Sybren Gijbels (26-31, 80.24) - Back to players we know stuff about. Kevin's been around on the US circuit for a while, albeit being more or less a player making up the numbers when it gets to the higher levels of that circuit, ahile Gijbels has shown flashes on the Euro Tour and in the WDF events so is probably the round one pick. Pallett's done a nice job of reshaping his career after being in the PDC for quite some time and still has the quality to put aside either of these, at least you'd think so.

Jason Brandon (116-128, 84.04) v Mitchell Lawrie (38-19, 94.15) or Tomoya Maruyama (3-4, 87.03) - Much as it was the Australians last year who were severely overseeded, this year it might be the Americans. Not that Jason is a bad player, but he's not a number 2 quality player (seeding, not that sort of number 2). This seems quite trivial to call, Maruyama I've never heard of despite him being in my database, Lawrie is the next big thing, and barring any sort of big stage meltdown this should be the exciting young Scot's to take.

Andy Davidson (13-11, 84.86) v Bradley Kirk (7-11, 78.21) or Jeff Springer (unclear) - I really don't know if Jeff Springer and Jeff Springer Jr are distinct players. It's really something I should get to the bottom of. Whichever way we look at Jeff, he'll likely have just enough to see off Kirk, who's a name we've seen around for a while but nothing more than just a name we've seen around for a while, and Davidson, who again seems somewhat unspectacular, might just be that bit better again.

Matt Clark (7-17, 81.03) v Vince Tipple (9-3, 81.86) or Haruki Muramatsu (21-24, 85.19) - Can't really look past Haruki here, who has a wealth of experience and will be perfectly comfortable with either of these. Tipple must have binked a silver event somewhere to get that won-loss record, but while not an unfamiliar name has a feel of making up the numbers, while Clark has a huge amount of experience but whether it can translate into wins at this level is very much in question.

Francois Schweyen (64-62, 83.77) v Brian Raman (48-36, 86.99) or Jeffrey Sparidaans (97-91, 86.37) - This is a super interesting section of the draw featuring a bunch of good European players. That first round match could legitimately have been a quarter final, Raman and Sparidaans both being ex card holders with legitimate WDF credentials that'll be too hard to call. Schweyen completes the section and is certainly no bad player but I think is a clear third best here, although with more than enough game that whoever wins the opener will have to work to make the last sixteen.

Neil Duff (60-46, 83.56) v Ben Robb (78-83, 84.55) or Johan Engstrom (110-115, 86.34_ = Really fun mini section. You could make a reasonable argument that any one of these three possible matches would not look out of place in the last 16, if not further into the event. Robb I'm a little surprised to see here, I would have thought that even though Jonny Tata got the main NZ spot for Ally Pally that Ben could have got there as well with the expansion but I guess not, known really solid competitor who's never quite cracked it at the PDC worlds level but here could be a dangerous opponent. Johan's been around the SDC circuit and we know plenty about him and has to be taken seriously at this level, while Duff has course and distance and is doing enough on the circuit to secure the number 3 seed, so is another one who clearly can't be dismissed. Would not be surprised to see any of these three get out of this section, it ranks very closely for me.

Thomas Junghans (38-38, 81.57) v Jim McEwan (9-1, 91.00) or Stephen Rosney (4-6, 80.42) - A somewhat less interesting section now. McEwan has been around the block and knows how to play, while Rosney was a new name to me only very recently on account of good runs in Killarney, and then clearly in the qualifier to get here in the first place, so while Jim has the experience, Stephen might have the form and be hitting this event at the right time. Junghans isn't bad by any stretch but is one of the weaker seeds for sure, and while he'll make them work it really souldn't surprise me if whoever won the first round game turned him over here as well.

David Fatum (32-36, 82.34) v Jenson Walker (73-78, 84.96) or Jiri Brejcha (0-6, 78.21) - Few different things going on here. Walker seems like someone who is definitely just passing through the WDF system and will eventually end up with a tour card and might already be the best player of the bunch. Jiri's from a rising area who I assume from that record we did see on the Euro Tour last year, albeit briefly, and I get not awful but just making up the numbers vibes. Fatum on the other hand is the veteran who's had maybe the best run of his life with the Dutch Open final and can't be taken lightly. Think Jenson will squeeze home but it could be a close one.

Raymond Smith (156-75, 85.46) v Cliff Prior (36-33, 79.63) or Clint Clarkson (9-4, 76.94) - Pretty trivial section compared to most. Clint I know nothing about, but is at least in the database, wile Cliff I know not that too much about but is at least a familiar name and doing better numbers so the home player I think should be fine, while Raymond (who's another from his area that I'm surprised couldn't get a PDC worlds spot) is one of the known good players in the field, even if the numbers quoted look a bit pedestrian, and should easily defeat whoever does actually come through round one.

From there? I think it's a case of identifying the known "good" players (and I'm not trying to be disparaging by implying the rest of the field is shit, by good I'm basically meaning wouldn't look out of place on the PDC circuit) and identifying if and when they might be stopped. van Schie is one of them, should have no problems in the last sixteen, but then McGuirk or maybe someone like a Groenefeld might ask some questions at the quarter final stage. Second quarter I don't think has anyone - Pallett may have been there in the past, Beeton might be there in the future, but for 2025 I'm not seeing anyone. I think it's all the seeds coming through to the last 16, and those two I list facing off in the quarters, and that one should be close but the finalist will come from the top quarter. Third quarter is just a question of how good Mitchell Lawrie is already. If he beats Brandon I can't see him not making the quarters, where I think whoever comes through the Schweyen section  Those three are all real good, if whoever plays Haruki beats Haruki (which won't be trivial but I would expect them to do it), then I think they have enough to play the Veenstra role and kill the hype train just as Richard did to Littler back when. Then in Q4 the known good name is Smith - think the only player who could realistically stop him before the quarters is Walker, and I think he'd have the edge on whoever he plays there, and I get the feeling it'd be whoever gets out of the Duff section with the Junghans section looking ordinary in comparison. As for a final? Let's go van Schie > Sparidaans. Why not.

So we didn't post group stage projections

There's a few reasons for this, mainly lack of time, but:

a) The games come so quickly and trying to make minor updates after each set of games would just be too much to manage

b) With it only being best of nine, it increases the damage that is done if you don't win the bull, so you probably need even more edge than you would do ordinarily to ensure that your bet is still +EV if you don't win in the backroom

c) The usual dangers of dead rubbers, players having limited or no data, players mailing it in if they only need one leg

In retrospect this might have been a shame, as it'd probably have told us to lay Wade twice and it work for once. Still, it is what it is, and we will look at the last sixteen. I'll post the ones we know now then edit once we've got the data in from tonight, which I'll hopefully do tonight but I think realistically it'll be Wednesday (although when, given I want to watch the Running Man remake then will be in the pub in the evening, I don't know). Going short-medium-long-composite as usual.

Humphries - van der Velde - 92/93/92/92

Dobey - Smith - 84/75/70/76

Woodhouse - Evans - 44/54/55/51

Price - Schindler - 71/73/71/72

Littler - Nijman - 76/81/81/79

Rock - Scutt - 82/86/70/79

van Gerwen - Noppert - 67/63/64/65

Wenig - Springer - 36/32/32/33

So I'll take a bit of the in form Evans at the price he's available at, and then check on the Thursday games later.

Some things I want to do - look at if Littler outright for the worlds is in any way value, a WDF worlds preview, but I'll wait for the latter until next week once there's been quite a few more qualifiers this weekend, so maybe I do the WDF thing on Thursday.

Wednesday afternoon edit - not a great night sleep or morning so binned off the film until tomorrow. Bottom half projections listed above.

Grand Slam draw

Have a bit of time and it's out, so may as well have a quick post about it:

Group A - Moderately boring. If it was peak Smith then this would be quite exciting, but Humphries and Aspinall look too good at the moment. Spellman's always going to be a wildcard but it seems as if we've heard less of him than we did a couple of years back where he did look very dangerous, if he is playing back close to that then who knows.

Group B - This one also looks fairly obvious. Dobey and Heta are a class apart with Chris playing the better stuff, Martin has been kind of anonymous this year and hard to gauge where it's at, but doesn't seem in the same ballpark as the first two. Jurjen's shown a decent bit of form so that probable match for third might not be too bad.

Group C - This looks like it's a two horse race for second to me. Bunting is clearly the best player, but maybe not quite so good as he was maybe six months ago. Toylo is one that might throw up something dangerous in any of the games but is probably a favourite not to do it in any of them, while Schindler and Woodhouse are probably closer than you think in terms of raw playing strength, Martin's just turned it into results. Probably one of the few groups where anyone can turn over anyone.

Group D - Price is the pick here, not Wade. Gerwyn's good in pretty much any format, while I don't think this short race format in the group stage is the best for Wade. Evans is hitting some nice form so it wouldn't surprise me in the slightest if he was able to nick second - although it'd be less of a surprise than Wade winning the group given how much I've undersold him. Bellmont will be competent but I don't think there is enough in the game yet to be a serious threat to any of these, even in a short format.

Group E - OK, Littler is going to win, but after that, who knows? Gurney is the known name, Scutt was going through a pretty bad slump but looks to be kicking out of it at the right time, while Sedlacek is a dangerous player (just started getting seeded for the last couple of Pro Tours) and has looked that way for a while now. Probably the group with the easiest pick for winner but you can throw a blanket over the other three, could be a 3-1-1-1 group coming down to who gets the smallest kicking off Littler and can either avoid a bad defeat in the other loss, or put a hurting on someone in the win.

Group F - For the love of god. Ashton producing the game of her life to beat Nijman and we see him average 105 in all three games and lose the lot again would be the funniest thing, but Ashton going 0-3 is probably orders of magnitude more likely than Littler going 3-0 in the previous group. van Veen and Rock are extremely close to me, Nijman is behind but he is not far behind, but a clear third favourite. Could certainly spring an upset and navigate to second or some kind of 2-2-2-0 clusterfuck for sure.

Group G - This one seems like the group of death. van Gerwen is probably not quite the MvG of the past, but is certainly still a danger. Anderson might have tailed off a bit in the last few months but is still mighty threatening. Greaves is probably already at a top 64 level, while Springer might already be at a top 32 level. This one probably favours experience over youth as to who qualifies, but you really can't be too certain about any match in this group. Only other fourth seed you might have said that about is Sedlacek but he got chucked in the Littler group so meh.

Group H - I mean this one seems quite bland really. Wenig and Crabtree will get a lot of good stage experience here, but they're both some way off of Clayton and Noppert. Is there that much between the top two? Not really. Is there that much between the bottom two? Not really. Is there that much of a chasm between those two pairs? For me, yep, probably the easiest group to call a reverse forecast on, but that's only because Lukeman has course and distance (any more racing metaphors I can squeeze in?) and maybe a bit closer to the top two in that group even if JvdV isn't.

I've got other stuff to write about plus I might get some numbers out for this so it might be a busy week here, even after the fact this is the second post. In one day!