ET6 quarters

Last 16 not great. Nowhere near as bad as the last 32, but still a small loss. Huybrechts hitting his match dart would have made it pretty solid, but Springer hitting his match dart would have been orders of magnitude worse, so can't be too annoyed. Last eight:

Doets/Woodhouse - 54/54/54/54

Gilding/Cross - 52/55/49/52

Reyes/Rock - 35/34/28/32

Schindler/Gurney - 57/60/55/57

Kind of surprised Woodhouse is so close to Doets, and that Schindler is actually favoured, but that's what the numbers say...

ET6 day 3 - fine margins

My god that was brutal. Data suggested strong bets on Soutar and van Veen. Soutar - has throw in decider, misses three match darts, loses. van Veen - has throw in decider, has eighteen darts to finish it, doesn't even get dart at a double. Seems kind of brutal, but it is what it is, Heta not playing great (grats to Reyes on hitting the nine though) didn't help earlier, and if Huybrechts hadn't pulled the win out of the bag we'd have been looking at an enormous loss. Can we rebuild tomorrow? Let's see:

Doets/Joyce - 77/76/68/74

Wade/Woodhouse - 48/47/54/50

Huybrechts/Gilding - 59/54/45/53

van Gerwen/Cross - 63/65/60/63

Noppert/Reyes - 50/56/58/55

Rock/Springer - 67/70/72/70

Smith/Schindler - 70/70/66/69

Razma/Gurney - 54/56/47/52

Don't think I see a huge amount of surprising data there, other than the last one. Madars projecting as the favourite seems a bit weird, but looking at the mid range data where he is favoured the most, there is a bit of an inconsistency thing going on, but it's not enormous. Will we be able to retrieve anything tomorrow? I'm going to guess not, but we'll see.

ET6 day 2

Meh day. Hurrell had his chances which would have made it a nice day, but it wasn't a bad day. Whatever. We move on, we lost nothing. Let's pile into day 2, I'm not expecting to see much value but maybe something comes in.

Wattimena/Gilding - 60/56/56/57

de Decker/Joyce - 62/61/63/62

Cross/O'Connor - 47/45/53/48

Searle/Doets - 47/50/54/50

Smith/Zonneveld - 57/57/56/57

Heta/Reyes - 63/61/61/62

Woodhouse/Owen - 64/60/62/62

Dobey/Huybrechts - 57/57/68/61

Gurney/White - 55/62/66/61

Rock/Kovacs - insufficient data on Kovacs

Wade/Suljovic - 64/61/62/62

van Gerwen/Ratajski - 51/51/61/54

Noppert/Soutar - 37/42/58/46

van Veen/Razma - 79/81/79/80

Schindler/Wright - 74/75/70/73

Nijman/Springer - 71/74/68/71

I suppose the one that stands out hugely is the Noppert/Soutar projection. Looking at it, there is a fairly decent consistency differential between the two (in Alan's favour obv), and given the timing in the year, the difference between the short and medium samples will likely just catch a small number of majors and nothing really else. But other than that, nothing seems out of the ordinary really.

ET6 day 1 plus bonus next new event winners content

Jesus, I know Rusty's in bad form, but losing in the first round of the quali? Sheeeeeeeeit. Well, the draw is out, the only other Austrian card holder is Suljovic, he's in and would be HNQ4 so I'll project assuming he's through, nobody else Austrian has enough legs to do a projection, so let's go - will be short/medium/long/composite as usual.

Joyce/Clemens - 49/46/56/50

Pietreczko/Kovacs - insufficient data on Kovacs

Zonneveld/Hurrell - 49/50/54/51

Gilding/whoever - insufficient/no data on whoever

O'Connor/Ostlund - insufficient data on Ostlund

Ratajski/whoever - insufficient/no data on whoever

Springer/Kenny - 67/67/63/66

Doets/Landman - 86/85/79/83

Chisnall/Reyes - 44/41/48/44

Cullen/Owen - 62/58/58/59

Sedlacek/Huybrechts - 37/38/48/41

Wright/whoever - insufficient/no data on whoever

van Barneveld/Soutar - 18/17/39/25

Menzies/Suljovic - 47/49/53/50

van Duijvenbode/Razma - 74/72/75/74

Smith/White - 59/68/68/65

So, with Doets picking up a first title this week, and Greaves grabbing one as well, it's time to do the periodic "who do we think will be the next winner at each level" post. Except this time, I won't do it for the majors, because frankly, who's even close right now? I would say maybe Rock, but given how far he's been off the pace in the Premier League, I don't know really. Frankly it might be Mitchell Lawrie. At least with the Euro Tour and Pro Tour, you've got a fair chance of not running into Littler to need to win one, so let's go with those two.

Euro Tour (excludes Littler, Humphries, van Veen, van Gerwen, Clayton, Anderson, Bunting, Rock, Noppert, Wade, Price, Aspinall, Schindler, R Smith, Heta, de Decker, Cross, Chisnall, Gurney, van den Bergh, Edhouse, Ratajski, Nijman, Wright, M Smith, Gilding, Pietreczko, Cullen, van Barneveld, White, Springer, Suljovic, Huybrechts, Hopp, King):

1 - Chris Dobey - It's still pretty darned insane that he has not won one of these yet, and even more insane that he's still only been to one final, and that was back in 2019! He's still playing at an elite level, still being seeded through to the second round (although he's been given a bit of a stinker of a draw today), and still winning titles at the Pro Tour level. We've been saying when rather than if for Chris for quite some time now, and it's still true.

2 - Ryan Searle - May not be playing at quite as high a level as Dobey is, but due to that worlds semi he's going to be in the seeds for quite some time, and has shown enough on the stage that if he keeps plugging away, it'll click eventually.

3 - Dirk van Duijvenbode - Seems like he's been quiet for a bit, and doesn't have the advantage of the other two above as he'll have to go through an additional round each time, but in terms of pure statistics he is very much up there in terms of having a shot. He's not too dissimilar to Nijman and he's winning fucking everything right now, he's been to multiple stage finals, and it really wouldn't surprise anyone.

4 - Kevin Doets - Now that the first title is in the bank, is this going to take the brakes off him? I'd suggest it might. As of right now he's only getting the first round automatic call ups, but with no Matchplay or Grand Prix money to defend, he might start going up the rankings pretty quickly (he's currently in the low 20's in terms of a WC seed projection) and get there, particularly if he can bink a second Pro Tour or get through an opening round. We've seen him win some pretty big stage games in the past, so it could translate to this level pretty easily.

5 - Luke Woodhouse - After those four, I think there's a pretty big gap and no really obvious number five. So I'll just take the highest ranked player who has not got a title of any description, the numbers in my database are basically adjacent to Searle who we've got there already, so I'll use him to round out the group.

Pro Tour (additionally excludes Searle, Dobey, Wattimena, Joyce, Menzies, van Duijvenbode, Doets, Rydz, Dolan, O'Connor, Williams, Mansell, de Graaf, Soutar, Brooks, Plaisier, Bialecki, Greaves, de Zwaan):

1 - Niels Zonneveld - I've said a few times on various things in the past that his career has somewhat mirrored Doets', so it would make perfect sense for him to be the next player to step up. Numbers are more than competent, he's been close a few times, converting one seems to be something that'll happen sooner rather than later.

2 - Cristo Reyes - It might surprise a few that he didn't win a tournament in his first PDC run, but he didn't. That said, we know what his peak is and he's looked pretty darned good so far. He's not helped by starting from fresh, but if he keeps chugging away, he may bink one regardless, but could pretty easily get into a spot where he'd have a seed or be close to it by the end of the year.

3 - Justin Hood - To be honest, I'd have expected a bit more out of Justin in 2026, who's been extremely quiet after his worlds breakout party. However, he did reach a final last month, and we know he can put together a string of really good performances, the seasonal numbers aren't too dissimilar to Zonneveld's. He does have kind of the same problem that Reyes does in that he won't be getting too many kind draws, but also like Reyes he is good enough to play through those.

4 - James Hurrell - I've frequently picked players on these that have had a history of doing well in BDO/WDF type events, as I think those sorts of events are the sort where if you've had some success, it shows the type of schedule you need to come through to get a Pro Tour. He had a good worlds and is now firmly situated within the top 64, so has shown he absolutely belongs at this level.

5 - Karel Sedlacek - Think this is the last player that's got seasonal scoring of over 90 that has a tour card (note that, for these lists, I only consider players with a card) but doesn't have a title. That's not for lack of trying, as he's got himself up into the top 32 on the Pro Tour order of merit. Has a very nice peak game, getting deep on a few occasions in the last twelve months, wouldn't take much more to take it all the way to the hoop.

6 - Charlie Manby - Oh wait, I forgot one guy who's scoring over 90. Worlds was a lot of fun, and we've seen very good levels of play on the secondary tours, it's not quite happened for him yet on the Pro Tour, but the ceiling is so high for him that once he's used to the full time schedule, he can absolutely get there.

7 - Jimmy van Schie - We've known he's a classy operator for quite a lot of time, van Schie's another one that might need a little time to get to grips with the PDC schedule, but once he's done so, he's another where the sky is the limit.

8 - Richard Veenstra - He's been in these lists before, but is back on here after a turn up in form over the last few months. There's not a lot to say that wouldn't be just replicating what's been said for a few players already, he's on the fringes of the top 32 on the Pro Tour so will absolutely get the chances.

9 - Tom Bissell - Who thought we'd be saying this twelve months ago? Pretty much unknown when he won his card, he has absolutely improved a ton in year two and has seasonal scoring a lot better than a lot of long established names, and he's converted this into decent results with multiple Pro Tour semi finals already this year. He's less than five grand off of making the Grand Prix as things stand - get a little bit of a run going in Riesa and he's right up there.

10 - Keane Barry - With so many youngsters coming through and making huge names for themselves, Keane can often get a bit overlooked, however Keane's looking like he's starting to put things together at the senior level, with a solid enough record in the last twelve months in terms of progression of results, if he just keeps his head down and keeps working, he'll likely get a shot in the near future.

There's a few others I could have mentioned. Clemens still hasn't won one which is still a surprise, Ricky Evans has been very close multiple times, then we've got a few players like Scutt, Meikle, Gawlas etc who are all still fairly young and have shown enough of a flash that would make you think that it's not unreasonable they have everything go right on one day.

Anyhow that Austrian qualifier is still going on and showing no signs of ending any time soon so I'm off to the pub.

Post-Sindelfingen FRH update

ET5 is in the books and Price has claimed another title, here's what it does to the FRH rankings:

1 Luke Littler

2 Gian van Veen

3 Luke Humphries

4 Gerwyn Price (UP 1)

5 Jonny Clayton (DOWN 1)

6 James Wade

7 Ryan Searle (UP 2)

8 Gary Anderson (DOWN 1)

9 Danny Noppert (UP 1)

10 Josh Rock (DOWN 2)

11 Nathan Aspinall (UP 3)

12 Stephen Bunting (DOWN 1)

13 Chris Dobey

14 Michael van Gerwen (DOWN 2)

15 Wessel Nijman

16 Jermaine Wattimena

17 Ross Smith

18 Krzysztof Ratajski (NEW)

19 Luke Woodhouse

20 Martin Schindler (DOWN 2)

Heta slides out of the top 20, but is still within a Pro Tour final of getting back in and has a good 25,000 point buffer to the next player down. Price binking has opened up more than a Pro Tour win gap over Clayton, while Searle through to Rock remain extremely close, but have a sizable gap above Aspinall, who's also pretty close to the next three guys down. Nijman's form is mostly trying to see him bridge a gap from Wattimena up to the MvG group, he's more than half way there but still has work to do, and is getting pretty close to the point where he can't get realistically higher without some work on TV.

Lower down since the last update, a bit of a resurgence for Gilding and Cullen sees the latter safely into the top 30 again while Andrew looks to get back to the top 25. Doets is on the brink of the top 30 (and if it wasn't for Joe playing well, he'd likely already be there), while fellow rising Dutchman Zonneveld is 35th with a few struggling players ahead of him. Hood's Pro Tour final is basically keeping him standing still, Sedlacek continues a Matchplay run and is well into the top 50 now, Soutar and Barry are not too far off joining him there while Dimitri's recently dropped out. Two good runs for Greaves sees her into the top 80, and Jim Long isn't far off the top 100 now. Tom Bissell's already got there.

We've got a week off now, and then some steady action as the Matchplay race hots up. Two PC's in the last week of April, another two the week after that before we decamp to Austria, then the cycle basically repeats before Riesa and then Kiel to round out May. This weekend also sees Dev and Nordic Tour action, weekend after that sees Challenge and Asian Tour events, while in the WDF they've got a gold event in Denmark so someone else can print a Lakeside ticket there. There's a couple of things I might look at before the next Euro Tour, so stay posted.

Quarter finals

Small pickup, but it is a pickup. Pity that the Schindler punt didn't project as much larger than basically the absolute minimum. Onto the quarters:

Ratajski/Noppert - 58/43/43/48

Aspinall/Smith - 51/55/53/53

van Gerwen/Nijman - 39/48/49/42

Schindler/Price - 19/18/27/21

Couple of surprising things there. Firstly, I don't know if Krzysztof is playing better than expected, or whether Danny is playing worse, but that's one heck of a deviation in the recent stats. Yep Noppie is super consistent, but Ratajski is only at 1.5 compared to Danny's 0.76, both of those numbers being super super small - the database average is 5. If you've not seen me use this number before, it's what you get when you subtract the points per turn in the legs you've lost away from the same in the legs you've won. A low number typically indicates you're playing better than your actual results suggest if you think about it.

Secondly, I thought Price would be favoured over Schindler, but that much is a bit eye opening, only Martin playing a bit better in the middle of last year even getting the composite number into the 20% range. Couple of markets are up, I'll place my actual punts when the others are and there's a bit more liquidity, nothing is jumping out as value at this stage anyway.

In terms of the semis, the first two are close, so whoever comes through ought to be similar in terms of quality of opposition. Aspinall's projecting a touch better than 60/40 overall against Noppert, just to pick two of them. Then Nijman/Price is oddly about the same - with Price being the one that's favoured. van Gerwen would be a bit more of a dog again, going at about a one in three shot, with the form based (last three full months including what's in April) dragging him down to that mark. Looking at the MvG/Nijman numbers in comparison, it's either consistent that MvG is not having a great 2026, or both Nijman and Price are both kicking ass at the same time. Frankly, it could be both. Although looking at the consistency numbers for van Gerwen, he's actually scoring MORE in the legs he's lost than those he's won. Which is frankly absurd. Only Rob Cross is also showing that, at least in terms of card holders (Derek Coulson also has a pretty big sample size in 2026, but is Challenge Tour). Just something to bear in mind in that the overall numbers may be understating van Gerwen ever so slightly.

And that was a shitshow, but for other reasons

Day 2 is in the books and day 3 is close upon us, and for the second time in two tournaments Gian van Veen crashes out at the first hurdle and undoes a lot of our good work. Now Friday was so good (mainly the afternoon, and mainly thanks to Mickey Mansell) we're still up for the tournament, but it's not the hugely up it could have been. Still, could have been worse, Danny Noppert nearly completely shitting the bed could have been disastrous. Let's look at the last sixteen:

Cullen/Ratajski - 48/46/47/47

Noppert/Springer - 54/68/59/60

Wade/Aspinall - 40/34/40/38

Rock/Smith - 50/54/59/54

van Gerwen/Wattimena - 56/61/59/59

Bunting/Nijman - 29/41/52/41

Clayton/Schindler - 60/63/63/62

Price/Dobey - 67/63/60/63

Even the non-seeds that didn't get through are pretty much well known names, so we're probably not seeing much in terms of value. Mostly even form throughout the board, but mother of god that recent Bunting/Nijman form number. Noppert/Springer being this close in the short form is also a touch surprising. There's really not much in terms of value, I'm taking small plays on Ratajski, Aspinall, Schindler and Price but that's about it.