Austria round one

Apologies if this is brief, but it's late and I have no confidence in being able to be awake before the off, so I'm going to rapid through the games not involving the HNQ's, for one I can't see lines on oddschecker, for two the performances are such that I don't want to touch it. Lerchbacher was awful. Haberl had flashes but meh. Schnier did nothing, and while Goedl was probably the best, it wasn't great, I'll check (if I'm awake) for any sort of outlier lines putting him hugely odds against versus Dom Taylor, but other than that it's just a waste of four games.

Nijman/Grbavac - not enough information, line seems relatively sensible.

de Zwaan/Sedlacek - Karel being slightly favoured doesn't seem silly. If he's on, he's better right now. If he's not, he's worse. In the middle, it's tight. No real interest here.

Lauby/Joyce - 0.5u Joyce 4/9, he's just playing so, so much better right now with a win chance looking more like 1/5 than this line that I'm happy to push the boat out a tad here.

Veenstra/Evans - this is a flip, simple as. Veenstra at 6/5 is the side you want to aim at, it's kind of close to a play but it's not quite there. Ricky has got better of late in fairness.

Labanauskas/Razma - lol this draw, the line seems kind of fine on a very quick glance having decent enough data on Darius still, which is good as I don't want to have to consider this one too much.

Monk/Edhouse - Monk might have slightly more chances than the odds suggest, market may be getting slightly ahead of itself but not by much.

Lukeman/Gurney - getting into the evening session where we have a lot of bigger names against each other and have good data, sadly so do the bookies. Maybe Lukeman is fractionally undervalued, but it's incredibly fractional.

de Sousa/van Veen - Jose still has enough about him to rate to get about 40% of the wins here. That's where the line is at, so no bet.

Hall/Dobey - line looks just about right. Hall has enough to nick this in the low 20% range. With the market as it is, that's of no interest.

Schindler/Wade - 0.25u Schindler 8/13 on Coralbrokes right now looks a damn good bet. He's over 70% for me. Nick it while you can.

van Barneveld/de Decker - this is tight. I'm seeing Mike as slightly better, as is the market, I'm seeing it as slightly more in favour of de Decker but it's too marginal to punt.

van den Bergh/Clemens - standard flip, market can't really separate, if anything I've got Gabriel as a tad better whereas the market has it the other way around so taking Clemens I guess is no worse than neutral EV.

So not much here, I may throw up a one line post if I see Taylor/Goedl lines that look comical tomorrow afternoon but don't bank on it.

Ando takes it

Don't think there can be a more popular winner than that, as he stated it's been a while since he's won a stage title, and there can't be any doubt that he's at a level right now where he can still add a bigger one than that. Fair play to Ross for getting to the final, if things drop a bit differently maybe he nicks a first title, but it does at least solidify a top 16 position as we get closer and closer to the Matchplay. New FRH rankings:

1 Luke Humphries

2 Michael van Gerwen

3 Michael Smith

4 Rob Cross

5 Gerwyn Price

6 Nathan Aspinall

7 Damon Heta

8 Dave Chisnall (UP 1)

9 Peter Wright (DOWN 1)

10 Jonny Clayton

11 Dimitri van den Bergh

12 Stephen Bunting

13 Chris Dobey

14 Luke Littler

15 Gary Anderson (UP 5)

16 Joe Cullen (DOWN 1)

17 Danny Noppert (DOWN 1)

18 Ryan Searle (DOWN 1)

19 James Wade (DOWN 1)

20 Ross Smith (DOWN 1)

Elsewhere, it was a pretty good weekend for Brandon Weening, picking up a brace of WDF titles, while on the Asian Tour it was a great weekend for Ryusei Azemoto, while Alexis Toylo is continuing to run away with the overall lead having got a win and a final this weekend, Azemoto got two titles and is looking pretty good to make the worlds as of right now. But it's no rest on the main circuit as we head to Graz for another Euro Tour - there's a few fun names that came through the qualifier, man of the moment Edhouse will look to continue his streak of form, Wessel Nijman and Dom Taylor should be interesting young threats, Danny Lauby, Madars Razma and Karel Sedlacek add good international feel to the event, Romeo Grbavac will get another shot at this level while we see Darius Labanauskas for the first time in a while. We don't know who the home nation qualifiers will be yet, but maybe we see Rusty in the field as well? Who knows. Back Thursday, not sure when as it's a bit of a funny night for me but should have some bets up at some point as we look to continue what's been two pretty good weekends of late.

QF bets

Not taking Ando, 8/15 I suppose isn't bad, but I'd just need fractionally more before going for the bet.

0.1u Cross 12/5 on 365, here I think he has just enough quality to get there often enough more than the line with the frequency that's worth a small stab.

0.1u Smith 5/4 on Ladbrokes, Heta's quality of play and Ross making heavy work of the last sixteen is a natural concern, but I do think Smith is the better player right now, and all the concerns are really doing is tempering my sizing.

0.1u Clemens 11/5 on 365, Gabriel looked very good earlier today, van Gerwen wasn't bad but was forced to work by Clayton, the numbers give this more of a high 30% chance than the low 30% chance the line suggests so I'll go with the flier here again.

ET4 quarters

OK, we got lucky with that Smith/Edhouse game, so I think our overall ups and downs are more or less level now. The last sixteen is still going on but I want to head out for the Cup game, so let's have a quick look at projections for the three that are finalised:

Rock/Anderson - 71/29 Anderson

Cross/Humphries - 61/39 Humphries

Smith/Heta - 57/43 Smith

Then in the last one, and these are without any sort of data on the last sixteen, MvG would be 55% against Chizzy and 61% against Clemens, while Clayton would be 37% against Clemens and 32% against Chisnall, so might be a case of betting whoever comes through the second game? Will post bets if any probably at half time or there abouts.

ET4 round 3

What an incredible display that was from everyone yesterday. I'm just looking at the numbers, I was watching El Crapico and didn't actually see any of it personally, but that's got to be close to, if not the best, days of European Tour ever, especially notable since it was only the Saturday, and we've got a great lineup today. On the betting I think we were a tad unlucky, Clemens winning got us out for relatively minor damage, but a combination of Clayton playing the best he has done in ages to even put Dobey into a position where he can miss three clear at double for a leg, including in the decider, is an unfortunate combination, Mansell did not play badly at all, it's just that Heta was playing so well he would have beaten anyone with that display, then Barney was able to take things all the way, if never looking like actually winning the match, although he had left himself on a two darter after twelve, so to ask the question of the other player in that spot I guess I'll take. Eight games today, what do we like?

Rock/Smith - Josh really wasn't in top gear against Sparidaans but didn't really need to be, Smith was pretty good but couldn't really put Barney away, my data literally cannot split the two (they're so close that a world final would be 50% to two decimal places), so if I lean either way I lean Rock, given a small consistency edge and the odds against tag, although he'll need to up his game from yesterday I feel. If it was any longer I'd probably take a small stab.

Anderson/Price - Two players who played back to back and both looked equally dangerous meet up for the latest encounter of a fabled series of matches. Market is having real trouble separating the two, but is perhaps surprisingly putting Price as the marginal favourite. I think there's close to a bet here - if you have Sporting Index and can get the 11/10 go with it, if anyone offered 6/5 then I think that's enough to go larger, but for now I'll just go 0.1u Anderson 21/20 on Coralbrokes/Betfred for a game that looks 55/45 in Gary's favour.

Noppert/Cross - Danny had another very solid game against Gurney, not really putting a step wrong at any point, while Rob needed all eleven legs to see off Schindler, coming from 3-1 down to fire in three twelve dart or better legs in a spell of four then holding out. Looks to be Cross for me, slap bang in the middle of 60% and two in three chances, which I think is enough chances at the prices to go small, 0.1u Cross 3/4 again on Coralbrokes, 8/11 is probably also fine but 4/6 isn't enough.

Humphries/Bunting - Luke came through a great 6-5 game against Littler, while Bunting dodged a bullet (see what I did there) against Ryan Searle to also come through in a decider. Stephen's doing enough to get just over 35% win chances, there's only really the spread companies that are offering better than 2/1 and that's only just, I'd probably need north of 9/4 before I could really start going against Humphries in this one.

Edhouse/Smith - Ritchie continues a push towards what looked like an optimistic Matchplay slot but is now looking more realistic with a steady win over a bit of a below par DvD, but 6-1 is still no joke, while Ross was another comfortable early winner, having 2-3 poor legs but not really being threatened seriously by Luke Woodhouse. Edhouse is full of confidence but Smith is no joke and I'm seeing him as right in the middle of the 70% to 75% range, which gives us a fairly easy bet, 0.25u Smith 8/13 on Betfred, 4/7 I think is just about close to enough as well, anything the right side of 1/2 I think is alright.

Williams/Heta - Scott had a very solid game, just the slow first leg in the first game of the day but otherwise barely slipped at all against Ratajski, while Heta was unplayable against Mansell in maybe the performance of the day where there were a LOT of contenders. Heta looks about a 65/35 shot here, so with the relative level of play yesterday, Damon generally being just a touch shorter than 1/2 at best seems fine to me.

van Gerwen/Clayton - Michael did a more than professional job in seeing off Johan Engstrom for the loss of just the one leg, while Clayton nicked a decider against Dobey in, as stated, maybe the best game he's played all year. MvG is obviously much the better player at this stage, looks like a 70% to 75% punt again, so 4/11 appears close to a perfect line.

Chisnall/Clemens - Dave was fairly sluggish but came through a equally mediocre Keane Barry in possibly the only real damp squib of a game yesterday, while Clemens beat Pietreczko 6-2, a poor first two legs aside he was completely on it. Chizzy only looks about a 55/45 favourite here, so with the German crowd, the 6/4 we're getting offered on Clemens is extremely close to being worth it. I'd probably only need one more tick, 13/8 would be a go.

ET4 rapid round 2 stuff

Bunting won as expected, it's really rare that I pick someone that odds on, but it looked good, we will take our ten percent, lol cullen lol wright lol us not pushing margins more, this is going to be a ready money round and we're going to be bang bang bang and if I post more than one word it's because the game in question is not close to the line. Vamos.

Ratajski/Williams - close on Ratajski but no

Smith/Woodhouse - no

Searle/Bunting - no

van Duijvenbode/Edhouse - weird one this in that Carl questioned what this one might look like. I had a guess at what the line would look like. Paddy Power is replicating my line right now. People are paid to do this shit

Noppert/Gurney - no

Clayton/Dobey - 0.25u Dobey 8/13 on 365 at least, line should be the other side of 1/2

Chisnall/Barry - no

Rock/Sparidaans - maybe Rock isn't short enough but can't see the edge

Anderson/Perez - maybe Ando isn't short enough but can't see the edge

Price/Dolan - no

Smith/van Barneveld - 0.1u van Barneveld 11/5, still not overly convinced Smith is consistent enough, Barney in form, numbers place this a lot closer to 60/40 in Smith's favour than him being better than a 2-1 favourite

Heta/Mansell - 0.1u Mansell 11/4, yes Wright is much worse than Heta right now but Mansell is legitimately playing fine and has much, much more than a one in four shot, this is easily more than 65/35, 11/4 is great so we go with it

Cross/Schindler - that this is evens isn't them taking the Schindi kool-aid, it's legit

van Gerwen/Engstrom - not touching after missing the Johan boat, that sort of price might have worked against Cullen but not against MvG

Humphries/Littler - pure flip so no

Pietreczko/Clemens - 0.25u Clemens 10/11, this is projecting better than 60/40, Ricardo is a tad more consistent, but Clemens has just come off a real easy win, Ricardo is maybe not in the best form, we'll take the price

ET4 bets

Rydz/Sparidaans - line looks fine.

Burton/Barry - line might be favouring Barry too much but only fractionally.

Williams/Springer - if Niko had shown us something recently I might have had a flier, but lack of recent data makes it hard to be confident about his level of play.

Gilding/Dolan - line seems accurate enough.

Woodhouse/Lukeman - line's in close enough of a ballpark, if Woodhouse drifted a tick or two we might go for a small stab but that seems unlikely to happen.

Engstrom/Cullen - 15/2 seems like a big number, might be a bit too big, wouldn't hate the tiniest of tiny stabs at it.

Zonneveld/Perez - market might be underestimating Zonneveld, but it's only marginal at best.

de Sousa/Gurney - might be the closest we have to a bet here. While the projections say it's a coinflip, I get the sense Daryl is playing better. As such, while 11/8 on Jose might be at worst neutral EV, I won't recommend it officially.

Edhouse/Wade - market's caught up to Ritchie and we can only get 13/10. That's just not enough.

Bunting/Grbavac - 0.5u Bunting 1/10 on 365, this is long odds on but I really do not see how Romeo can even get close in this one.

Roetzsch/van Barneveld - I guess the line is close enough to correct. I like Franz's game but would need a bit more than 9/2 against someone with a recent Pro Tour title to think about it.

Dobey/White - Chris might be ever so slightly undervalued here, but we're only talking about him being 4/11 when he should be maybe 1/3, 3/10 or there abouts, not enough confidence to chase that sort of edge.

Merk/Littler - LOL.

Schindler/van Veen - Martin's 4/5 which represents exactly the 55% we see him having, next.

Wright/Mansell - maybe there's the tiniest of value on Mickey. 11/8 isn't a bad play but I'd probably need 6/4 to open up with a tenth of a unit. And after Wright dropped a 70-something average yesterday, I hardly see the public money flying in on him.

Clemens/Eidams - hard to tell on this one really. Best guess would be that 4/1 is being slightly harsh on Eidams, but not truly out of line so I'll ignore this.

So nothing really of interest, understandable if you don't want to invest heavy in getting a 10% return in the only one we suggest.