FRH update

When I say FRH update later tonight, I mean now, got done with entering all the data but then hit the wall and just needed to come back to this the next day. So here we go:

1 Luke Littler

2 Luke Humphries

3 Michael van Gerwen

4 Stephen Bunting

5 Jonny Clayton (UP 1)

6 Chris Dobey (DOWN 1)

7 James Wade

8 Josh Rock (UP 1)

9 Damon Heta (UP 2)

10 Rob Cross (DOWN 2)

11 Mike de Decker (DOWN 1)

12 Ross Smith (UP 4)

13 Gerwyn Price (DOWN 1)

14 Dave Chisnall (DOWN 1)

15 Martin Schindler (NEW)

16 Danny Noppert (DOWN 1)

17 Gary Anderson (DOWN 3)

18 Peter Wright (DOWN 1)

19 Nathan Aspinall (UP 1)

20 Ryan Searle (DOWN 2)

Dimitri's the player to drop out, having had a pretty quiet year so far and he's not even 21st, van Veen is the last player out right now and he's fallen below Edhouse. Joyce is up to the top 25, while if Nijman wasn't top 40 before, he is now.

Probably nothing before Sindelfingen so check back on Thursday.

Graz quarters

Tad irritating that. Wattimena basically not showing up is fine, it happens, Cullen losing from 5-3 up is a bit more annoying as that swaps the entirety of the book really. Can't complain too hard though as we really dodged a bullet with Schindler being down. On to the quarters and it looks like we have a half decent chance of a new winner - is this when Dobey or Dirk finally step up? Does Joyce go one better than his previous final this year? Ross Smith has a major but he's not actually won one at this level. We could very easily have a final between two players who have never won a Euro Tour, which'd be a lot of fun. But for now, some projections:

Gurney/Rock - 26/74

Schindler/Dobey - 40/60

van Duijvenbode/Smith - 53/47

Heta/Joyce - 59/41

New FRH rankings later tonight once the event is done.

Graz round 3

Little bit of a recovery. Looked unlikely once Searle lost to Joyce, but Campbell pulling off the upset put us into the black for the day, so we'll take that. Eight games tomorrow, and our projections are this:

Wattimena/Gurney - 65/35

Noppert/Rock - 41/59

Doets/Schindler - 31/69

Dobey/Nijman - 54/46

Campbell/van Duijvenbode - 26/74

Wright/Smith - 41/59

Heta/Cullen - 58/42

Chisnall/Joyce - 48/52

Graz round 2

Not the ideal set of results yesterday. Big one was the Razma game, while Madars did well to get things back to a decider, Ian (who's quietly having an alright season) wasn't missing anything on the outer ring, and while they both did their job in leg 11 leaving a double after twelve, White having first shot was more than enough. Elsewhere, Bissell could maybe have got into an early lead and asked questions of Pietreczko but didn't, while van Peer wasn't really close to Doets. Nijman did his job and so did Woodhouse (although that one was a bit close for comfort) so it wasn't a critical loss, but gives us work to do today.

Smith/Landman - 74/26

Searle/Joyce - 63/37

Noppert/Springer - 55/45

van Veen/van Duijvenbode - 51/49

Cullen/Tricole - 70/30

Rock/Ratajski - 61/39

Gurney/Suljovic - 51/49

de Decker/Nijman - 47/53

Heta/Sedlacek - 67/33

Wright/Woodhouse - 59/41

Clayton/Wattimena - 55/45

Aspinall/Doets - 64/36

Dobey/Pietreczko - 72/28

Bunting/Campbell - 68/32

Schindler/Dennant - 66/34

Chisnall/White - 56/44

As such, there's only a couple of places where I'm seeing real true value, and I've taken decent chunks of Ryan Searle and Joe Cullen. There's a few where I've had a small stab, but these are only like 1% shots, you can work these out yourself. Should be back this evening with round three projections.

Graz

So today I learned there was a new rule for the HNQ's in that a card holder can apparently opt to go for one home nation qualifier over the course of the year as opposed to the tour card holder qualifier. Hence why Suljovic got in. This clearly seems like a reaction to the Czech event last year where I believe both Sedlacek and Gawlas didn't get in and the home contingent was not marketable, clearly this is just a bit of a marketing gimmick in the newer areas as for Germany/Netherlands this seems irrelevant as the card holder qualifier seems possibly easier, but hey, it's a new thing. The upshot is we've got Mensur, Rowby, Zoran and Goedl all in, so all known quantities, let's quickly scan through round 1 and just give probabilities, I have the NFL draft in less than two hours so I'll try to be brief:

Geeraets/Campbell - 48/52

Ratajski/Mansell - 67/33

Razma/White - 62/38

Gilding/Landman  62/38

Tricole/Goedl - no data

Joyce/Harju - not sufficient data on Harju to be confident

Pietreczko/Bissell - 60/40

Dennant/Rowby - 65/35 (no short data on Rowby)

Wenig/Springer - 36/64

van Duijvenbode/Jehirszki - no data

Nijman/O'Connor - 60/40

van Barneveld/Sedlacek - 50/50

Edhouse/Suljovic - 52/48

Doets/van Peer - 51/49

Wattimena/Lerchbacher - no data

Woodhouse/Rafferty - 78/22

Where I'm saying there's no data, there might be a handful of legs, but we're dealing in one or two matches so it is nowhere near representative. Hence what I post on the Rowby game, we have basically nothing this season. The Harju game I could probably put something up, but it would fall into sample size issues pretty quickly and I feel it'd just say lump Joyce regardless and as he's going to be big odds on, I'll just leave it alone.

What did we learn from Munich?

This is just going to be a brief one, and I'm going to hold on new FRH rankings until after Austria, but I think one thing is clear - that is the best we have seen van Gerwen in a long, long time. That may be close to his best. van Gerwen at his best is a huge addition to the sport, and if he keeps playing like that for the next three months it will make the Matchplay an extremely interesting proposition. van Veen is continuing to play great stuff, it really is a case of when and not if he binks one of these, he was one of the five we posted up in a very Dutch list as to who would be the next one to win at this level (Bunting, as one for a major, was not included), and he'd probably be higher on the list now than he was then (just before the UK Open). Rock is really looking back to his best as well, Ratajski is continuing a phenomenal start to 2025, and aside from Nijman dropping the ball in the opening round, we were close to flawless as to who we actually bet on.

Should be back Thursday evening. It'll be a late night with the NFL draft so I should be able to have the time to get everything sorted the day before.

Munich round 3

Today was a very good day. Only Dirk let us down, which when I ended up on more than half the matches, can't be complained about. Yes, some of these were small plays to be sure, but a win is a win and after a rough start to the year it's good to get some numbers in the black. Onto the last sixteen:

Price/Rock - 52/48

Cross/Ratajski - 55/45

Joyce/Zonneveld - 54/46

van Gerwen/Searle - 54/46

Chisnall/Smith - 34/66

Schindler/van Veen - 36/64

Wright/Razma - 55/45

Littler/Cullen - 78/22