Day 2 - oh dear. 0/4 to drop 0.85 units, leaving us down three quarters of a unit for the tournament. Any regrets? Not really, think it was mostly just running into players on good form - Noppert hitting just one of the three match darts he had would have turned a total loss into break even for the day, Richardson averaged a ton, Pipe was right with Aspinall through six legs despite Nathan having hit two four visit kills (one to break with Pipe having missed bull for a hold, one for a hold with Pipe on 121 after nine), while Woodhouse won the bull, got a break to lead 3-0, then just had his scoring go away. Oh well. We go again with the last sixteen and there's a few surprising names here, let's look through the matches:
Gurney/Beaton - Touched on both of these games already. Gurney's around a 1/2 favourite, over the season he scores a point more per turn than Steve does, the odd thing is that while I talk about Gurney's consistency a lot making the model underrate him, Beaton's only scoring two points less when losing than winning (Gurney currently at 1.32) - so maybe the model underrates them both, and that it's throwing up Steve as mid to high 40's for the most part should be believed and we should take 2/1. I don't know, in the last three months the model spits Gurney out as a better than 2/1 favourite, so let's pass.
Rosenauer/Durrant - Glen had a solid string of legs against Richardson, which he needed, while Michael got past an uncharacteristically bad Ratajski with the Pole getting three legs in five visits but averaging 78 otherwise. Glen's 1/8, that seems fine.
Aspinall/Evans - Mentioned Nathan's game earlier, excellent all round display. Ricky took out Dimitri 6-4, solid display but some indifferent legs (legs six and eight spring to mind) which he could do with cleaning up. Nathan's 4/7 with Ricky 8/5, there's almost enough there for Evans to consider a bet, he's trending at 42%, 43% or so for most of the season, with the two players having almost identical consistency ratings. I think we can avoid pushing such small edges.
Price/Murnan - Gerwyn needed ten legs to get past Kyle Anderson in a very high quality encounter with both players averaging three figures, Price up at 106, while Murnan was able to punish a woefully under par Jeffrey de Zwaan, eight of the nine legs going longer than fifteen darts and neither player able to crack 90 on the conventional averages. Can't look past Price here, he simply isn't going to let Murnan win five legs in more than fifteen darts as both his opponents have - 1u Price 1/5, he's in the high eighties and touching the 90% mark occasionally across the season so even at this long odds on, it's a strong play and I'm investing accordingly.
Wright/Suljovic - Peter had to come from a bit of a hole against Ritchie Edhouse, only winning 6-4 after being 3-0 down, while Mensur whitewashed Harry Ward in a very confident looknig display with just the one dodgy leg. Market has it close to evens, Wright being slight odds on, I think we can take a stand here, 0.25u Wright 5/6, Peter's in that top tier of four players whose points per turn season long are a cut above the rest, and Mensur isn't, Peter's around the low to mid 60's to win this game so I'll take 5/6 here.
Lewis/Clayton - Adie got past Willie O'Connor, not a pretty game at all and one best dispatched to the archives, Jonny face Steffen Siepmann and played a bit better but was still taken all the way to 4-4 before he got home in ten legs. Market has this one as a flip as well, there might be the tiniest of tiny values on Clayton at evens, but it's not enough to recommend a bet. Over on the legs, or correct scoring 6-5 whoever wins the bull could be worth the shot.
Cullen/Cross - Joe needed all eleven legs to beat van Baelen, one of those odd ones where he's comprehensively outplaying him but Davy kept nicking legs. Stop going bull-bull-D16 with your opponent on 330 though. Cross only lost one leg in a steamrollering of John Henderson, very strong performance from Rob. Cross is 4/9, I think that's in the right ballpark, if you're just looking at the last couple of months worth of form then you might want to consider Joe at 21/10, but I'm not interested.
North/West - Ah, the old compass points derby. North shocked Ian White despite not playing brilliantly, Ian missing four match darts to hand the game to Richard, West meanwhile overcame Jamie Hughes with a very strong finish from 2-0 down, two late breaks in 11 and 12 darts being the difference maker. West is the favourite but not by much, I think this is a very strong play - 0.5u West 4/6, I'd probably still fire at 1/2, I can't see anything on Twitter to indicate there's any bugs, injuries etc, so we'll go with it.
Sunday, 15 September 2019
Saturday, 14 September 2019
Riesa day 1 results, day 2 bets
Hmm. Boris. 5-2 up, given what a mate of mine cashed out for must have been 1/50 in play, then North just god moded from there, that ninth leg was just horrible, starting 140-180 and then North hits six perfect so we don't even get a dart at double... still, at least Danny Noppert got out of jail against Mickey Mansell, and Harry Ward came from behind against Reece Robinson to put us in profit for the day. Not that anyone knows about that second one because dartsdata fucked up yet again and didn't track the match. Fortunately, Anatolij Baburin on Youtube was the hero of the day and put the stream up so I could get the stats.
All in all not a great standard of play - seems like a lot of the qualifiers weren't great and dragged their opponent down to their level, there were some odd exceptions where one player did OK but in general it seems most players underperformed. The Monk/Anderson game was an exception, that one looked decent on the stats, so what do we have today?
Aspinall/Pipe - Justin easily beat the newbie Jentschke 6-3, was 3-3 at some point before Pipe pulled away. Not a great game really, he only averaged 80 in the win. 0.25u Pipe 19/10, seems much more of a live dog than that, tracking in the low to mid 40% range against Nathan over all time periods.
Ratajski/Rosenauer - Michael took out Mike de Decker 6-4 in a slugfest where both averaged 81. Not great. Not much data on Michael, Ratajski's shorter than 1/6 and that seems prohibitive, not confident in the slightest that Rosenauer can pull it out more than what he'd need to in order to go for an underdog swing for the fences.
Durrant/Richardson - James beat the intriguingly named Mike Poge 6-3, will need to up his game from around an 83 average, but Mike's 70 average wouldn't have helped that. We can get better than 3/1 on Richardson, I think that's worth a tiny play - 0.1u Richardson 10/3, he's showing at about a one in three shot all season, and made board finals twice midweek, so might be playing a bit better than season long data.
Cross/Henderson - Another bad game, John beat Claydon 6-4, Brett averaging just 82 and Hendo was lower, not inspiring stuff when facing the Matchplay champion. Rob is 2/7, and that seems about right.
Lewis/O'Connor - Willie didn't play too badly in a 6-4 win over Benito, and is at the level these days where the bookies only install Adie at 4/6. Is that fair? I tend to think so, maybe it could be slightly closer, but there's enough vig on the book that I can't recommend a bet on Willie as there's not enough of an edge. Should be a decent game at least.
Gurney/Noppert - Mentioned Danny's 6-5 with Mansell earlier, another opponent from the isle next. Not going to mention the projections as they always think Gurney sucks, but let's put it like this. Gurney's season long points per turn is 91.95 to Noppert's 91.84. We're being offered a silly price by Betvictor, 0.25u Noppert 9/4.
Beaton/Woodhouse - Luke had little trouble with Bilderl, losing just one leg, Steve's next and on Twitter it seemed like he had a bit of a mission to get to Riesa, so chuck that in with Luke being basically a flip over most stats then 0.25u Woodhouse 13/8 looks nice.
Price/Anderson - Kyle edged Monk 6-5, Price is up next, I thought Kyle might have been a bit more of a live dog than the price offered, but he's shorter than 2/1, so he isn't.
Evans/van den Bergh - Dimitri saw off Adam Hunt yesterday and gets Ricky Evans up next and is actually the favourite. Nothing here, DvdB is 4/6, and while I see it at a 65% game, that doesn't account for Dimitri's wild inconsistency, so I'll avoid the game.
Hughes/West - Steve played OK in seeing off Daniel Larsson, but might have wanted to get the game finished a bit quicker, and he now faces a much tougher test in Jamie Hughes. 13/8 is slightly tempting, but it's not quite enough, it's certainly in the right range of him having chances.
Clayton/Siepmann - Steffen made day 2 after getting an early lead against Andy Boulton and then stepping in when Andy missed shots to clean up the match. Nothing here, Jonny is 1/5 which I think is fair enough.
de Zwaan/Murnan - Joe surprisingly took out Jelle Klaasen yesterday evening and gets another Dutch player up next, he's installed as a big underdog here, and looking at any sort of decent sample, a 4/1 shot appears more or less spot on.
Cullen/van Baelen - Davy bagelled Ole Luckow last game yesterday and gets a much different test this evening against Joe, who at 2/5 looked a tempting lay on full season stats, but cut out the first couple of months of the season and the price appears to correctly predict Davy's winning chances.
White/North - Less said about Richard the better. White's in the low to mid 80's to win this one, 1/4 might be small value, but not really worth pushing things at those odds.
Suljovic/Ward - Talked about Harry's game earlier, Suljovic is on the other end of the spectrum in terms of quality of opponent for Ward, and I think it's almost worth a punt - he's in the low to mid 30's all season until you get to more recent months when it tails off to closer to what the 10/3 line represents. Depends on how you feel about Harry, I'm not sure.
Wright/Edhouse - Ritchie took out Venken just losing a couple of legs, but the run ends here. I can't see any way he pulls this one off, and the value might even be on Peter at 2/11.
Just the four underdog plays then, and they all go early, so get on quick ladies and gentlemen.
All in all not a great standard of play - seems like a lot of the qualifiers weren't great and dragged their opponent down to their level, there were some odd exceptions where one player did OK but in general it seems most players underperformed. The Monk/Anderson game was an exception, that one looked decent on the stats, so what do we have today?
Aspinall/Pipe - Justin easily beat the newbie Jentschke 6-3, was 3-3 at some point before Pipe pulled away. Not a great game really, he only averaged 80 in the win. 0.25u Pipe 19/10, seems much more of a live dog than that, tracking in the low to mid 40% range against Nathan over all time periods.
Ratajski/Rosenauer - Michael took out Mike de Decker 6-4 in a slugfest where both averaged 81. Not great. Not much data on Michael, Ratajski's shorter than 1/6 and that seems prohibitive, not confident in the slightest that Rosenauer can pull it out more than what he'd need to in order to go for an underdog swing for the fences.
Durrant/Richardson - James beat the intriguingly named Mike Poge 6-3, will need to up his game from around an 83 average, but Mike's 70 average wouldn't have helped that. We can get better than 3/1 on Richardson, I think that's worth a tiny play - 0.1u Richardson 10/3, he's showing at about a one in three shot all season, and made board finals twice midweek, so might be playing a bit better than season long data.
Cross/Henderson - Another bad game, John beat Claydon 6-4, Brett averaging just 82 and Hendo was lower, not inspiring stuff when facing the Matchplay champion. Rob is 2/7, and that seems about right.
Lewis/O'Connor - Willie didn't play too badly in a 6-4 win over Benito, and is at the level these days where the bookies only install Adie at 4/6. Is that fair? I tend to think so, maybe it could be slightly closer, but there's enough vig on the book that I can't recommend a bet on Willie as there's not enough of an edge. Should be a decent game at least.
Gurney/Noppert - Mentioned Danny's 6-5 with Mansell earlier, another opponent from the isle next. Not going to mention the projections as they always think Gurney sucks, but let's put it like this. Gurney's season long points per turn is 91.95 to Noppert's 91.84. We're being offered a silly price by Betvictor, 0.25u Noppert 9/4.
Beaton/Woodhouse - Luke had little trouble with Bilderl, losing just one leg, Steve's next and on Twitter it seemed like he had a bit of a mission to get to Riesa, so chuck that in with Luke being basically a flip over most stats then 0.25u Woodhouse 13/8 looks nice.
Price/Anderson - Kyle edged Monk 6-5, Price is up next, I thought Kyle might have been a bit more of a live dog than the price offered, but he's shorter than 2/1, so he isn't.
Evans/van den Bergh - Dimitri saw off Adam Hunt yesterday and gets Ricky Evans up next and is actually the favourite. Nothing here, DvdB is 4/6, and while I see it at a 65% game, that doesn't account for Dimitri's wild inconsistency, so I'll avoid the game.
Hughes/West - Steve played OK in seeing off Daniel Larsson, but might have wanted to get the game finished a bit quicker, and he now faces a much tougher test in Jamie Hughes. 13/8 is slightly tempting, but it's not quite enough, it's certainly in the right range of him having chances.
Clayton/Siepmann - Steffen made day 2 after getting an early lead against Andy Boulton and then stepping in when Andy missed shots to clean up the match. Nothing here, Jonny is 1/5 which I think is fair enough.
de Zwaan/Murnan - Joe surprisingly took out Jelle Klaasen yesterday evening and gets another Dutch player up next, he's installed as a big underdog here, and looking at any sort of decent sample, a 4/1 shot appears more or less spot on.
Cullen/van Baelen - Davy bagelled Ole Luckow last game yesterday and gets a much different test this evening against Joe, who at 2/5 looked a tempting lay on full season stats, but cut out the first couple of months of the season and the price appears to correctly predict Davy's winning chances.
White/North - Less said about Richard the better. White's in the low to mid 80's to win this one, 1/4 might be small value, but not really worth pushing things at those odds.
Suljovic/Ward - Talked about Harry's game earlier, Suljovic is on the other end of the spectrum in terms of quality of opponent for Ward, and I think it's almost worth a punt - he's in the low to mid 30's all season until you get to more recent months when it tails off to closer to what the 10/3 line represents. Depends on how you feel about Harry, I'm not sure.
Wright/Edhouse - Ritchie took out Venken just losing a couple of legs, but the run ends here. I can't see any way he pulls this one off, and the value might even be on Peter at 2/11.
Just the four underdog plays then, and they all go early, so get on quick ladies and gentlemen.
Thursday, 12 September 2019
Riesa round 1 bets
It seems as if the bookies aren't too forthcoming in putting up lines involving the qualifiers, but given that most of the games in question are involving players I know next to nothing about, and will probably feature horribly one-sided lines whereby if there were to be any value, it'd be in one of those value bets on the underdog whereby you know you have to make them even though you're going to lose, I think I can make do with the games that do have lines. So let's see:
0.5u Ward 8/13 vs Robinson - I have no clue whatsoever how this is anywhere near that close. Reece has done next to nothing all year whereas Ward has a title. This looks well into the 70% range for Harry, maybe even a 3-1 favourite. Pile on.
Nothing on the O'Connor game. I was expecting to lump on Willie at the price he is, but the model says no. I can kind of see why, but there's a lot of weird stuff happening and if anything the line seems to be swinging towards Benito, there's enough counter-intuitive things going on here that I think I can ignore it.
Nothing on Monk/Anderson. Kyle's good. Monk's good, but not quite as good. The line appears sound.
Nothing on Henderson/Claydon as I simply don't know enough about Brett to want to charge in on Hendo at 1/3. It's probably a fine move but I really don't want to jump on that line without data.
0.5u Noppert 8/13 vs Mansell - it is basically exactly the same analysis as the Ward game, except at least Mickey has shown at some point in the past he knows what he's doing. Still seems a good edge with Danny ranging at 70%+.
0.5u Koltsov 21/20 vs North - I was on at 11/10 on 365 where it's been backed in to evens, I have no clue why the line is listed as it is. Richard is just playing at such a lower level that this ought to be 1/2 for Boris.
Nothing on Larsson against West, 1/2 for Steve seems decent enough but there's enough nagging doubts to make me back against Daniel given his lack of data.
Dimitri's line at around 1/3 seems fine. Adam's just not shown enough to make me think that he can get home more than 20% of the time, he's got enough talent that random things can happen, so an easy ignore.
Nothing on Murnan/Klaasen either. Jelle's 4/9, which season long appears around right, if you favour recent form then chuck Jelle in, his win chances increase as you get to shorter and shorter samples, but I think there's a danger those samples become too small to rely on.
So three bets which I feel pretty strongly on, fill your boots ladies and gentlemen.
Friday morning edit: Oddschecker doesn't have lines for the games involving the qualifiers yet, but 365 is up, and nothing stands out, so unless another bookie has a significantly different line I can't think of anything else to add, and I'd probably just arb in that spot anyway. Maybe de Decker at just the right side of 1/2 is worth it, but I won't make it a recommended play.
0.5u Ward 8/13 vs Robinson - I have no clue whatsoever how this is anywhere near that close. Reece has done next to nothing all year whereas Ward has a title. This looks well into the 70% range for Harry, maybe even a 3-1 favourite. Pile on.
Nothing on the O'Connor game. I was expecting to lump on Willie at the price he is, but the model says no. I can kind of see why, but there's a lot of weird stuff happening and if anything the line seems to be swinging towards Benito, there's enough counter-intuitive things going on here that I think I can ignore it.
Nothing on Monk/Anderson. Kyle's good. Monk's good, but not quite as good. The line appears sound.
Nothing on Henderson/Claydon as I simply don't know enough about Brett to want to charge in on Hendo at 1/3. It's probably a fine move but I really don't want to jump on that line without data.
0.5u Noppert 8/13 vs Mansell - it is basically exactly the same analysis as the Ward game, except at least Mickey has shown at some point in the past he knows what he's doing. Still seems a good edge with Danny ranging at 70%+.
0.5u Koltsov 21/20 vs North - I was on at 11/10 on 365 where it's been backed in to evens, I have no clue why the line is listed as it is. Richard is just playing at such a lower level that this ought to be 1/2 for Boris.
Nothing on Larsson against West, 1/2 for Steve seems decent enough but there's enough nagging doubts to make me back against Daniel given his lack of data.
Dimitri's line at around 1/3 seems fine. Adam's just not shown enough to make me think that he can get home more than 20% of the time, he's got enough talent that random things can happen, so an easy ignore.
Nothing on Murnan/Klaasen either. Jelle's 4/9, which season long appears around right, if you favour recent form then chuck Jelle in, his win chances increase as you get to shorter and shorter samples, but I think there's a danger those samples become too small to rely on.
So three bets which I feel pretty strongly on, fill your boots ladies and gentlemen.
Friday morning edit: Oddschecker doesn't have lines for the games involving the qualifiers yet, but 365 is up, and nothing stands out, so unless another bookie has a significantly different line I can't think of anything else to add, and I'd probably just arb in that spot anyway. Maybe de Decker at just the right side of 1/2 is worth it, but I won't make it a recommended play.
Riesa preview
Qualifiers are done already! We had six (yes, six!) home nation qualifiers, many of whom I know nothing about, this could be fun, thanks to van Gerwen and Chisnall withdrawing. Dave's an odd one given he appeared in form in midweek, and a second one of these might be needed to make the Grand Slam in some permutations, but hey, here we are. Let's look at the draw:
Gurney v Mansell/Noppert - Beaton v Woodhouse/Bilderl
Tricky section to call. The Gurney side appears clearly stronger, we talked a bit about how Noppert's having a good season a couple of posts ago, Daryl's obviously up there with the best in the world, while if Mansell shows up he certainly has the game to pressure. The other half also looks interesting - Manfred Bilderl isn't a complete unknown, but is making only a second appearance on the European Tour after a first round defeat nearly two years ago to Jonny Clayton. He did at least beat Horvat and Kurz averaging 88 in both games, but Woodhouse, for whom it's an important weekend for worlds qualification, should have too much class, and isn't tha far behind Beaton in terms of quality, although Steve should kick off the favourite.
Ratajski v de Decker/Rosenauer - Durrant v Richardson/Poge
Lot of qualifiers from today here. Two face off for the right to face Ratajski, who ought not to have too much trouble with either - de Decker we know more about as he's come through these qualifiers plenty of time, and ought to have an edge over the veteran Rosenauer, making his third appearance of the season. Michael did at least run Durrant fairly close in one of those. Speaking of Durrant, you'd have to think James Richardson will face him, and off of a good midweek, James might be playing well enough to cause Glen some issues. Mike Poge's a new name to me, he did play Q-School but wasn't anywhere near at all, it's his debut, and not having cracked 80 in today's qualifier I can't see it being a winning debut.
Aspinall v Jentschke/Pipe - Evans v Hunt/van den Bergh
Another debutant here in Christopher Jentschke, so completely unknown he's not even on dartsdatabase, and shows up no results on the internet at all. Got to be some random local Sachsen-based player? In any case, Pipe should have no issues unless Christian can produce the 96 average that he did in his first game today. Pipe's having an understated solid season, and while not quite on Aspinall's level, has certainly shown enough this year that there's glimpses of his best game - which could give Nathan some issues. The other section's full of exciting young talent - Ricky's been doing work in these all year, Dimitri's finally getting the hang of the senior tour, and Adam Hunt is dangerous on his day, he's just not having a great 2019 at all.
Price v Anderson/Monk - de Zwaan v Murnan/Klaasen
The defending champ's now the number 2 seed and does not have a nice draw, whoever he gets. Kyle, as I've said repeatedly, has been playing excellent darts all year and has not got the rewards for it, and certainly has the peak game to challenge Gerwyn, while Monk is having his best season in years, scoring over 90 per turn season long and has got enough results that even one win here could get him very close to sealing a World Championship return. The other half looks like the second round will be an all Dutch showdown - Jelle's been slowly picking his game back up, and doesn't look like an automatic "play well for four legs then fall apart" as he was for a few months. Murnan's not done much of anything since regaining his card and I can't see him preventing Klaasen taking on de Zwaan, who should have enough to take out the former Lakeside champ, but cannot take any liberties at all here.
Wright v Edhouse/Venken - Suljovic v Ward/Robinson
It's a return to the PDC stage for Davyd Venken, having last played in the Netherlands in 2015! His scoring really ramped up in the qualifier, ending with a 103 clip over Wilco Vermeulen to get here - do that and Ritchie Edhouse, who definitely needs a win to help his worlds quest, may not have things all his own way. Peter ought to be strongly favoured and shouldn't make a mess of things, but either opponent does have the peak to make in interesting. Couple of younger players next for the right to play Mensur, Harry Ward's made a name for himself after getting his tour card by winning a Pro Tour event, so should be a solid favourite over Robinson, still only 27 himself despite having been around for a decade or so. Fair to say Reece hasn't had a great season and it's hard to see him getting home here. While Ward has a title, his overall scoring shouldn't be enough to give Suljovic any problems, but he is a bit streaky so if he turns up then anything can happen.
Lewis v O'Connor/van de Pas - Clayton v Boulton/Siepmann
Tough draw for Adie. I think the secret is pretty much out with O'Connor now, their stats are fairly similar, so it could be tight if Willie can get past Benito van de Pas, who hasn't kicked on at all since his World Championship run, which looks like it's only postponed a real knife fight to save his card for twelve months. Clayton doesn't have a bad draw - Siepmann's made it into the field for a second week in a row, he's got an easier opponent than Clemens last week, but not by that much, Boulton's got very respectable season long scoring of 89, which should be enough to get through to face the Ferret, but probably not enough to actually win.
Cullen v van Baelen/Luckow - Cross v Henderson/Claydon
Joe's got a nice start to kick things off in his first event as a Euro Tour winner - Luckow is yet another debutant who was mid-70's in every game, so it's not a bad draw for van Baelen, who's almost certainly losing his card but at least has managed to qualify - he'd failed every time so far. Seems an obvious tour card holder wins then loses to the seed. Cross will be looking to finally win one of these - he's rightly the favourite and should go into every match as such, although against Hendo he might not have a completely straight forward game. Claydon is here for a second weekend in a row, he didn't make much of an impression last week and I can't see John being troubled tomorrow.
White v North/Koltsov - Hughes v Larsson/West
Both sections here seem similar - the seed is having a great season, and they'll play someone who's a card holder having a disappointing season, or a regional qualifier. Can't see White not advancing past either North or Koltsov, Richard's been out of sorts all year and is scoring down in the sub-85 regions, the Russian will be thinking this is one he should win, and I'm thinking the same. West is mostly just disappointing on results, his scoring is still above 90, but turning that into cash money has been the issue and missing the Matchplay must have hurt. Daniel Larsson has been a bit under the radar this year, and ran into an on-fire Durrant in his only prior appearance this season in Prague, and I don't think he has the game to advance assuming West has anything like his B or C games, and doesn't miss clumps of doubles and starts tilting, as sometimes happens.
I wouldn't think it'd take too long for lines to get up, so check back later this evening for recommended plays.
Gurney v Mansell/Noppert - Beaton v Woodhouse/Bilderl
Tricky section to call. The Gurney side appears clearly stronger, we talked a bit about how Noppert's having a good season a couple of posts ago, Daryl's obviously up there with the best in the world, while if Mansell shows up he certainly has the game to pressure. The other half also looks interesting - Manfred Bilderl isn't a complete unknown, but is making only a second appearance on the European Tour after a first round defeat nearly two years ago to Jonny Clayton. He did at least beat Horvat and Kurz averaging 88 in both games, but Woodhouse, for whom it's an important weekend for worlds qualification, should have too much class, and isn't tha far behind Beaton in terms of quality, although Steve should kick off the favourite.
Ratajski v de Decker/Rosenauer - Durrant v Richardson/Poge
Lot of qualifiers from today here. Two face off for the right to face Ratajski, who ought not to have too much trouble with either - de Decker we know more about as he's come through these qualifiers plenty of time, and ought to have an edge over the veteran Rosenauer, making his third appearance of the season. Michael did at least run Durrant fairly close in one of those. Speaking of Durrant, you'd have to think James Richardson will face him, and off of a good midweek, James might be playing well enough to cause Glen some issues. Mike Poge's a new name to me, he did play Q-School but wasn't anywhere near at all, it's his debut, and not having cracked 80 in today's qualifier I can't see it being a winning debut.
Aspinall v Jentschke/Pipe - Evans v Hunt/van den Bergh
Another debutant here in Christopher Jentschke, so completely unknown he's not even on dartsdatabase, and shows up no results on the internet at all. Got to be some random local Sachsen-based player? In any case, Pipe should have no issues unless Christian can produce the 96 average that he did in his first game today. Pipe's having an understated solid season, and while not quite on Aspinall's level, has certainly shown enough this year that there's glimpses of his best game - which could give Nathan some issues. The other section's full of exciting young talent - Ricky's been doing work in these all year, Dimitri's finally getting the hang of the senior tour, and Adam Hunt is dangerous on his day, he's just not having a great 2019 at all.
Price v Anderson/Monk - de Zwaan v Murnan/Klaasen
The defending champ's now the number 2 seed and does not have a nice draw, whoever he gets. Kyle, as I've said repeatedly, has been playing excellent darts all year and has not got the rewards for it, and certainly has the peak game to challenge Gerwyn, while Monk is having his best season in years, scoring over 90 per turn season long and has got enough results that even one win here could get him very close to sealing a World Championship return. The other half looks like the second round will be an all Dutch showdown - Jelle's been slowly picking his game back up, and doesn't look like an automatic "play well for four legs then fall apart" as he was for a few months. Murnan's not done much of anything since regaining his card and I can't see him preventing Klaasen taking on de Zwaan, who should have enough to take out the former Lakeside champ, but cannot take any liberties at all here.
Wright v Edhouse/Venken - Suljovic v Ward/Robinson
It's a return to the PDC stage for Davyd Venken, having last played in the Netherlands in 2015! His scoring really ramped up in the qualifier, ending with a 103 clip over Wilco Vermeulen to get here - do that and Ritchie Edhouse, who definitely needs a win to help his worlds quest, may not have things all his own way. Peter ought to be strongly favoured and shouldn't make a mess of things, but either opponent does have the peak to make in interesting. Couple of younger players next for the right to play Mensur, Harry Ward's made a name for himself after getting his tour card by winning a Pro Tour event, so should be a solid favourite over Robinson, still only 27 himself despite having been around for a decade or so. Fair to say Reece hasn't had a great season and it's hard to see him getting home here. While Ward has a title, his overall scoring shouldn't be enough to give Suljovic any problems, but he is a bit streaky so if he turns up then anything can happen.
Lewis v O'Connor/van de Pas - Clayton v Boulton/Siepmann
Tough draw for Adie. I think the secret is pretty much out with O'Connor now, their stats are fairly similar, so it could be tight if Willie can get past Benito van de Pas, who hasn't kicked on at all since his World Championship run, which looks like it's only postponed a real knife fight to save his card for twelve months. Clayton doesn't have a bad draw - Siepmann's made it into the field for a second week in a row, he's got an easier opponent than Clemens last week, but not by that much, Boulton's got very respectable season long scoring of 89, which should be enough to get through to face the Ferret, but probably not enough to actually win.
Cullen v van Baelen/Luckow - Cross v Henderson/Claydon
Joe's got a nice start to kick things off in his first event as a Euro Tour winner - Luckow is yet another debutant who was mid-70's in every game, so it's not a bad draw for van Baelen, who's almost certainly losing his card but at least has managed to qualify - he'd failed every time so far. Seems an obvious tour card holder wins then loses to the seed. Cross will be looking to finally win one of these - he's rightly the favourite and should go into every match as such, although against Hendo he might not have a completely straight forward game. Claydon is here for a second weekend in a row, he didn't make much of an impression last week and I can't see John being troubled tomorrow.
White v North/Koltsov - Hughes v Larsson/West
Both sections here seem similar - the seed is having a great season, and they'll play someone who's a card holder having a disappointing season, or a regional qualifier. Can't see White not advancing past either North or Koltsov, Richard's been out of sorts all year and is scoring down in the sub-85 regions, the Russian will be thinking this is one he should win, and I'm thinking the same. West is mostly just disappointing on results, his scoring is still above 90, but turning that into cash money has been the issue and missing the Matchplay must have hurt. Daniel Larsson has been a bit under the radar this year, and ran into an on-fire Durrant in his only prior appearance this season in Prague, and I don't think he has the game to advance assuming West has anything like his B or C games, and doesn't miss clumps of doubles and starts tilting, as sometimes happens.
I wouldn't think it'd take too long for lines to get up, so check back later this evening for recommended plays.
Wednesday, 11 September 2019
PC24 - that went well
All that expert analysis turned out to be not worth a great deal after van Gerwen opted to withdraw, which messed with every single seeding and throwing the draw into complete chaos, Clayton and Noppert being thrown onto the same board, and simple general failures as nobody I was on won their board. Oh well, them's the breaks, nobody's going to nail a three figure underdog every tournament. Wade got his 4368th tournament win in the last year, with Chizzy getting the runners up spot. Jamie Hughes had a nice run, as did Scott Taylor, who was apparently the late replacement for MvG, which is surely the best example of taking advantage of a chance we've seen since, ooh, Denmark 92? I think he's up over 11k now, still a good 4k back of the worlds, but if he can force his way into the last few PC events, then who knows? Hendo hit a nine, which was nice, Justin Pipe had another solid event reaching the quarters, and surprise board wins for Devon Petersen (on White and de Sousa's board) and Benito van de Pas (who was on Smith's board, but didn't even have to do a thing as Zoran Lerchbacher did for him).
New FRH rankings:
1 Michael van Gerwen
2 Rob Cross
3 Michael Smith
4 Daryl Gurney
5 James Wade (UP 1)
6 Gary Anderson (DOWN 1)
7 Gerwyn Price
8 Peter Wright (UP 1)
9 Nathan Aspinall (DOWN 1)
10 Ian White
11 Mensur Suljovic
12 Dave Chisnall
13 Simon Whitlock
14 Joe Cullen
15 Jonny Clayton
16 Adrian Lewis
17 Stephen Bunting
18 Jermaine Wattimena (UP 1)
19 Max Hopp (DOWN 1)
20 Mervyn King
Wade knocks Ando out of the top five thanks to his win, and Price is less than 2k behind Gary as well. Wright's semi final yesterday helps him edge above Aspinall (for now), while a pair of quarters for Wattimena sees him above Hopp. Ratajski is within 1200 points of the top 20.
Lower down, Hendo is back above 100k points and edges over Noppert to 29th, Hughes' semi sees him climb a spot to 39, de Sousa is just a couple of hundred points out of the top 60, while Scott Taylor's back in the top 90, but still nearly 15k points from being the highest ranked Taylor in the rankings.
Check back tomorrow for early European Tour analysis as they head to Riesa, the Rotherham of Germany (seriously, they are twinned, although Rotherham comes out worse in that comparison).
New FRH rankings:
1 Michael van Gerwen
2 Rob Cross
3 Michael Smith
4 Daryl Gurney
5 James Wade (UP 1)
6 Gary Anderson (DOWN 1)
7 Gerwyn Price
8 Peter Wright (UP 1)
9 Nathan Aspinall (DOWN 1)
10 Ian White
11 Mensur Suljovic
12 Dave Chisnall
13 Simon Whitlock
14 Joe Cullen
15 Jonny Clayton
16 Adrian Lewis
17 Stephen Bunting
18 Jermaine Wattimena (UP 1)
19 Max Hopp (DOWN 1)
20 Mervyn King
Wade knocks Ando out of the top five thanks to his win, and Price is less than 2k behind Gary as well. Wright's semi final yesterday helps him edge above Aspinall (for now), while a pair of quarters for Wattimena sees him above Hopp. Ratajski is within 1200 points of the top 20.
Lower down, Hendo is back above 100k points and edges over Noppert to 29th, Hughes' semi sees him climb a spot to 39, de Sousa is just a couple of hundred points out of the top 60, while Scott Taylor's back in the top 90, but still nearly 15k points from being the highest ranked Taylor in the rankings.
Check back tomorrow for early European Tour analysis as they head to Riesa, the Rotherham of Germany (seriously, they are twinned, although Rotherham comes out worse in that comparison).
Tuesday, 10 September 2019
PC24 - how do we pick the value
Those of you who follow me on Twitter might have noticed me posting up six names that I'd gone on each way today, which included Gerwyn Price at 25/1 and Jose de Sousa at 150/1, who happened to be the finalists. How do we pin this sort of thing? If you recall just over a couple of months ago, I was able to get both the finalists in the one Ratajski won, so there's got to be some sort of art to it, so let's try and put some sort of science to it. Let's export from my database for the last six months (we'll say after the UK Open) after sorting by points per turn, then let's do the same for the last three months (not that it's in my database, but we'll say after the World Cup). Let's say whoever's top gets 1 point, second gets two, and then we get down to Michael Barnard and Terry Temple at 128 in the lists (hey, Barnard won a game today!). Add the two together, sort by that ascending, copy the odds in (I've just pasted from 365 so better might be available elsewhere), and see what things look like. It's a bit like this for tomorrow:
You can kind of see why I went for Price, obviously his odds have shrunk after today, and then you can definitely see why I went for de Sousa, whose odds have basically halved in the space of a few hours. I'd probably ignore Price tomorrow given the odds have shrunk, and maybe look at White instead at a nice price of 28's, Ratajski's about the same, while de Sousa still has to be tempting even at the new reduced odds. Just look at who has better odds than people around them and go with it - Noppert has to be a tempter, you can see why I went for Clayton and Clemens, maybe I shouldn't have gone for Dobey today but what the heck, Chris is due.
The one other thing that we should try to look for is who's in a decent section of the draw. Looking at Burton on Twitter, MvG is obviously seeded 1, Wright is 6 and Cross is 14. There's then a bit of a drop, but with Wright and Cross in the same quarter of the draw and scheduled to meet at the quarter final stage, if you're looking at picking someone who's seeded, you want to avoid the 3/11/19/22/27/30 like the plague, as they'll have to go through both Wright and Cross, which I'd rather avoid, thank you. So no Price (that makes the quarter even harder to get three of the top four), no Durrant (jesus), Hughes, Dobey, Hopp or DvdB. Let's not go there at all. de Sousa is number 33 - so if anyone withdraws late, he'd slot into the van Gerwen section, so let's not try that.
White? Clemens isn't ideal, Smith or de Zwaan then Gurney/Lewis/Noppert/VvdV, so maybe we should look at the Chisnall section. It's looking like Chizzy/King, Wattimena/Bunting, Wade/Hendo and Clayton/Beaton. That isn't anywhere near as bad. Maybe Jermaine is worth a stab, he's been knocking on the door, 80's isn't horrible, but I think I'd stick with Clayton at a longer price as I did today.
So let's go with:
White (28/1) - I don't particularly envy his run out, but he's very, very good, and if he can punch through to the quarters he's got to be extremely live to make the final.
Ratajski (33/1) - he's got a decent run to the quarters, then he'd need to face MvG but he's definitely live for that, in some ways it's better to face sooner rather than later, MvG could easily come unstuck against Aspinall in any case.
Noppert (80/1) - I don't think he truly needs to fear Adie in a board final, Gurney isn't the worst last 16 opponent, the quarters might be hard with the White section having a few decent names, but he wouldn't need to up his game that much.
Clayton (100/1) - if he can get through Beaton, and then Wade, he'll have his game flowing by that stage, Chizzy could easily be pressured and then who knows.
You can kind of see why I went for Price, obviously his odds have shrunk after today, and then you can definitely see why I went for de Sousa, whose odds have basically halved in the space of a few hours. I'd probably ignore Price tomorrow given the odds have shrunk, and maybe look at White instead at a nice price of 28's, Ratajski's about the same, while de Sousa still has to be tempting even at the new reduced odds. Just look at who has better odds than people around them and go with it - Noppert has to be a tempter, you can see why I went for Clayton and Clemens, maybe I shouldn't have gone for Dobey today but what the heck, Chris is due.
The one other thing that we should try to look for is who's in a decent section of the draw. Looking at Burton on Twitter, MvG is obviously seeded 1, Wright is 6 and Cross is 14. There's then a bit of a drop, but with Wright and Cross in the same quarter of the draw and scheduled to meet at the quarter final stage, if you're looking at picking someone who's seeded, you want to avoid the 3/11/19/22/27/30 like the plague, as they'll have to go through both Wright and Cross, which I'd rather avoid, thank you. So no Price (that makes the quarter even harder to get three of the top four), no Durrant (jesus), Hughes, Dobey, Hopp or DvdB. Let's not go there at all. de Sousa is number 33 - so if anyone withdraws late, he'd slot into the van Gerwen section, so let's not try that.
White? Clemens isn't ideal, Smith or de Zwaan then Gurney/Lewis/Noppert/VvdV, so maybe we should look at the Chisnall section. It's looking like Chizzy/King, Wattimena/Bunting, Wade/Hendo and Clayton/Beaton. That isn't anywhere near as bad. Maybe Jermaine is worth a stab, he's been knocking on the door, 80's isn't horrible, but I think I'd stick with Clayton at a longer price as I did today.
So let's go with:
White (28/1) - I don't particularly envy his run out, but he's very, very good, and if he can punch through to the quarters he's got to be extremely live to make the final.
Ratajski (33/1) - he's got a decent run to the quarters, then he'd need to face MvG but he's definitely live for that, in some ways it's better to face sooner rather than later, MvG could easily come unstuck against Aspinall in any case.
Noppert (80/1) - I don't think he truly needs to fear Adie in a board final, Gurney isn't the worst last 16 opponent, the quarters might be hard with the White section having a few decent names, but he wouldn't need to up his game that much.
Clayton (100/1) - if he can get through Beaton, and then Wade, he'll have his game flowing by that stage, Chizzy could easily be pressured and then who knows.
Monday, 9 September 2019
2020 vision
While we wait to see who's entered Gib, there's actually something to talk about as they've announced the 2020 schedule, and it pretty much sucks. Let's start by looking at the Euro Tour:
It's pretty uninspiring. Down one event from last year, still hugely German-dominated (while nowhere near as bad as the peak-Deutschland we had in 2017, it's still more than half the events), the Netherlands surely warrants a return to two events given the size of darts in the country (I didn't actually notice them drop to one this year to be honest, but still), we still have an event in Gib as opposed to the peninsula in general, seemingly solely to satisfy sponsor demands, what appeared to be well received events in Denmark and the Czech Republic have been binned off to add one in Hungary, home of Janos Vegso and, er, Pal Szekely and, er, er, no wait it's gone. Not the most inspiring of selections, if you're not doing Spain then surely you'd have a poke at Poland or another one of the Scandi countries where there's at least some darting pedigree or great growth. Or Ireland even, I know they have the Grand Prix but there's so much emerging talent over there that giving them one shot wouldn't be a terrible idea?
Sure, they might be able to address something with the as yet undecided twelfth spot, but I won't hold my breath. Elsewhere, they still persist in holding the Masters despite nobody giving a fuck about it, they've abandoned non-Wigan events on the Dev Tour apart from the one weekend in Hildesheim, the Challenge Tour is also always in Wigan apart from one weekend in Milton Keynes, they've expanded the main tour to Europe a little bit more with two pairs of events in Hildesheim, up from one, and one pair in whatever a Leeuwarden is, apparently it's somewhere near Groningen, and in other changes they've brought the World Series finals forward a bit and synchronised the two Q-School events, which makes a lot of sense, at least so there's no clash withLakeside Indigo whatsoever.
Maybe I can get to one of the Euro Tours this year. Leverkusen is nicely poised in the international break, but that looks to be about it logistically unless I tried to pin down the Dutch event. We'll see nearer the time I guess.
It's pretty uninspiring. Down one event from last year, still hugely German-dominated (while nowhere near as bad as the peak-Deutschland we had in 2017, it's still more than half the events), the Netherlands surely warrants a return to two events given the size of darts in the country (I didn't actually notice them drop to one this year to be honest, but still), we still have an event in Gib as opposed to the peninsula in general, seemingly solely to satisfy sponsor demands, what appeared to be well received events in Denmark and the Czech Republic have been binned off to add one in Hungary, home of Janos Vegso and, er, Pal Szekely and, er, er, no wait it's gone. Not the most inspiring of selections, if you're not doing Spain then surely you'd have a poke at Poland or another one of the Scandi countries where there's at least some darting pedigree or great growth. Or Ireland even, I know they have the Grand Prix but there's so much emerging talent over there that giving them one shot wouldn't be a terrible idea?
Sure, they might be able to address something with the as yet undecided twelfth spot, but I won't hold my breath. Elsewhere, they still persist in holding the Masters despite nobody giving a fuck about it, they've abandoned non-Wigan events on the Dev Tour apart from the one weekend in Hildesheim, the Challenge Tour is also always in Wigan apart from one weekend in Milton Keynes, they've expanded the main tour to Europe a little bit more with two pairs of events in Hildesheim, up from one, and one pair in whatever a Leeuwarden is, apparently it's somewhere near Groningen, and in other changes they've brought the World Series finals forward a bit and synchronised the two Q-School events, which makes a lot of sense, at least so there's no clash with
Maybe I can get to one of the Euro Tours this year. Leverkusen is nicely poised in the international break, but that looks to be about it logistically unless I tried to pin down the Dutch event. We'll see nearer the time I guess.
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