Sunday, 9 February 2025

Belated World Masters thoughts

I didn't have the time to put out any thoughts for the quarters onwards with my schedule last week, so I'm going to hold on a new FRH rankings until after we've got Pro Tours 1-2 in the book on Tuesday, and opted to take the time to have a bit of added reflection on what's been a hugely different event, that I think has been widely acknowledged to be a great change, and a generally well received tournament. That said, it's not perfect, but here's my general thoughts:

- On the good side, that the event allowed for a pretty darned wide host of players to play is good. We only had the UK Open that was like that, this is a welcome addition to get all of the 128 (at least those that wanted to/could play) along with a wide selection of players from all over the world. That not as many as we might have liked took the PDC up on their invitation is unfortunate, but we'll come to that in a second.
- Also on the good side, the best of three leg set up worked very well. It has the nice mix of some legs having more drama than others due to added significance, but that the sets are shorter, it still allowed for people to rack up a big lead quite quickly - have a good five leg spell, and you can quite easily put three sets on the board, whereas in regular set play you're really only getting one break of throw in the lead.
- Some good games in the event. The final is the obvious pick and a possible match of the year contender already, but some others like MvG/DvdB, pretty much any of Bunting's games and Clayton/Searle would all look pretty good outside of that, amongst others.
- On the bad side, we did have some issues, this event would have been much better if more people who were invited took up the invite. This seems directly correlated to the prize pool - only getting money at all if you get out of the group stages, and not getting more than a grand unless you get to the last round before the televised stages, makes it pretty darned hard to make a case for someone to come over from half way around the world on a cost:benefit issue. A lot of people did, but maybe more could be done, those who were able to parlay this into the Dutch Open immediately after (did anyone rush off to it?), the Challenge Tour just before, or other events like the Super Series, UK Open qualifiers and so on. I'll come to the specific prize structure in a second, as it kind of relates to another bad point, but more working in conjunction with other events would help all parties. Put on a party bus to Assen for those that are eliminated in the group stages? It's a lot easier to justify coming from Australia or wherever for this, knowing there's a fair chance to get nothing in prize money, if you know you're going to get guaranteed appearance money from Modus or similar.
- The tournament structure was also bad. Granted, it's not the PDC's fault that we had some preliminary groups only running with two players, and I think there's a partial issue in that they had likely made some agreements with the top 24 in terms of them knowing that the Masters was changing format, but also not fucking over any of the top 24 with respect to expected prize money dropping from such, hence why there were quite so many byes. That needs revisiting - only having eight players getting out of the prelim day is too few.
- The prize structure, as mentioned, is bonkers. Having it so that you win £5k for a last 32 game, and then only winning £2.5k for the next match, is backwards - at least according to the Order of Merit page, which lists a different quarter final prize money amount compared to the original press release. I'm guessing that the OOM rules page is just wrong, as the totals there don't add up to the total prize fund quoted, but who knows. The lack of prize money at the bottom end is also a concern. So, pulling this and the tournament structure together, what I would suggest is a revamp like this:

- Only the top 12 in the OOM get a bye through to the last 32. Top 8 are seeded, the remaining four are drawn at random along with 20 coming through from an earlier stage. This restores some possibility of huge last 32 games like you saw in the Grand Prix which you won't see going forward, 
- Previous round has 13-32 in the OOM along with 20 from a previous stage. This is 20 matches - I think that it is feasible that you can fit ten best of five set games into one session, so these could quite easily be played on the Thursday with the last 32 being added to the Friday, just by adding an afternoon session on each day where at the moment there is nothing. Extra televised darts, extra people with bums on seats in the arena, extra exposure for the players, everyone wins.
- These 20 from the previous stage come through prelims like present. If you were to retain a 32 group structure, you can do this by having to win two knockout games to get to the Thursday, so 48 players would be seeded through to skip the group stages (i.e. numbers 33-80 in the order of merit), then the remainder are in the group stages - seeding it so that the remaining 48 players who are tour card holders are split so that there is one in every group, and the remainder can't get places as such that you don't have more than two card holders in any given group.
- As such, you would need 48 players to ensure every group has at least three players. At the moment, they are inviting eight players from each of the Challenge Tour, Development Tour, Women's Series, Nordic and Baltic Tour, Asian Tour, CDC Tour, DPA and DPNZ tours, plus four from the JDC That's a total of 68. Honestly, I think you should try to go big - aim to get every group having four players, so 128 players in the group stages. Be ambitious. How can you do that? I think there's two ways. First, you can look to other avenues. Why not invite the last 8 from Lakeside? Why not invite the last 8 from the World Seniors? Why not add four invite spots to other developing tours like the African and Caribbean ones? Assuming that you had 100% tour card holder take up, you'd be aiming for 80 invites. If you added these, you'd get up to 92 - now you're not going to get all 92 take up an invite, clearly - for example, Jim Long would have got a seniors invite, but he's now a tour card holder, you'd expect that some of the Lakeside players would also have progressed to the tour (although, in what is quite a surprise, there are none this year). Invite more than you need - if you get more than 80, then if a group has to be one of five players, then that's a minor inconvenience, but I think getting 80/92 would be a real surprise. If you get less, use the Challenge and Development Tour lists from the previous year to get up to your quota.
- The prize fund would hen need amending. I do not see it as critical that the winner needs to have quite so huge a cut of it. Whoever's going to win is likely making enormous amounts of money already. With the modified format as I'm suggesting, you could go for the following:


For the old prizes, I'm assuming what is listed in the press release is right, and what is on the OOM page is wrong, but by simply not assuming that every major tournament requires more than half the money to go to the top 8 players, you can flatten out the payouts and guarantee everyone that shows up some money. Sure, you'd do well to get a return flight from NZ for £500, but if it cuts your costs by a decent percentage, it'd identify more players to take the shot. Thoughts?

Friday, 31 January 2025

World Masters last 16

Well that was the counterpart to the good first day, in that it was the shit second day. These things are sent to try us, couple of players we bet against played damn well, that's always a possible outcome given they are good players. This is going to need to be a rapid post, and I'm not going to be able to personally action most of them until the morning, basically given the lack of volumes in the markets at this stage, but this is what I'm looking at in terms of projections:

O'Connor-Noppert - 27/73
Heta-Price - 45/55
Bunting-Wright - 54/46
Humphries-Rock - 55/45
Clayton-Searle - 50/50
Menzies-Aspinall - 48/52
Littler-Wade - 79-21
van Gerwen/van den Bergh - 68/32

As such, what I've done is lumped on Noppert (first bet matched on the market lol), taken Wright for a solid play, and had small fliers on Rock and Menzies. Let's see how these go.

World Masters day 2

Day one was, all in all, pretty good, if you'd gone for any sort of combination of what I was thinking outside of just taking Hempel, you had a solid result, with the sizings I went for, bankroll bumped 20% so will always take that, what of day two though?

Wade/de Decker - First match is between two players straight through to this stage, and one that feels like it should be pretty close intuitively. Mike's probably a tad better, and is a tad better in the markets as well, I can't see any sort of value in this one at all.

Chisnall/Menzies - We've got a relatively recent TV rematch, that last one didn't go well for Menzies at all so hopefully for him, whose quali went well, it'll be better this time around. Market has it fairly close but just favouring Chizzy, I'm thinking maybe it should be a touch more in favour than it is, memories of their previous match up certainly won't harm things.

Clayton/Schindler - Ought to be another one that's fairly competitive, Clayton is the bookies' favourite but not by much. Maybe he should be a couple of ticks better off, I'm seeing very marginal value on the exchanges for Clayton, but it'd be a bit more if we look more form based, it's only a 50/50 sort of split on full year data (counting when Jonny was playing crap in 2024 H1) that's dragging it down to just a small edge.

Aspinall/Gilding - Got to think Nathan, having accepted a Premier League place, is over the injury issues he had, so is probably close to his best. That said, the projections track more and more towards Gilding the more recent you get, which seems counterintuitive but it is what it is, to the point where the weighted predictions say coinflip. There is a tad of a consistency advantage that Nathan has, but I'm thinking that there's enough there to probably take the underdog to pull off the upset.

Dobey/Searle - This is one that feels like it should be a fun watch, and one that the market isn't able to split massively, but is favouring Dobey. You'd think with Chris having pushed on largely in 2024 it might be a bit wider, but it's not and I'm only seeing this as around 55/45, so nothing really worth punting on here.

Littler/Baetens - Good to see Andy hit a bit of a vein of form to get to this stage, but this is obviously a bastard of a draw, I'm only seeing him as having around a 10% chance such is the level of play that Luke's producing, so there's no value in the markets here.

van Gerwen/Brooks - Bradley has made some nice developments of late and is playing well, but again, this is a tough draw, it's not as one sided as what Andy's running in to, but I'd be setting a fair line at around 5/1, which actually gives a tiny bit of value on betting on Michael to do the job we'd expect him to do here.

Anderson/van den Bergh - Gary is continuing to be a pretty solid player, while it turns out that Dimitri's put out a Dutch language interview indicating he's been playing through injury for a while. Maybe he's over it now - it's not going to dissuade me from betting on Anderson, a line of 1.4 seems to be undervaluing him somewhat, but I'll just tone my bet sizing down a touch in case we see a van den Bergh that is better than what we've been seeing of late.

Should get round two proper thoughts out later this evening.

Wednesday, 29 January 2025

World Masters thoughts for day 1

Will try to be brief for round 1, and will just comment on the Thursday games for now. I should note that I don't have this new format coded precisely, but at it's going to go a minimum of six legs (so a best of 11) but a maximum of fifteen legs (so a best of 15), I'm going to split the difference and use a best of 13 as the projection point. It's a short race, that's the important thing.

Rock/Wattimena - Jermaine looked pretty good today, didn't break the ton but didn't drop below 95 either. Which is annoying, as Rock is showing generally better stats throughout, looking at just under a 60/40 sort of split albeit with a bit less consistency. It's only slightly trending towards Jermaine on form, even on the shortest thing it's still only a couple of percentage points below the minimum. I think that's enough to go with Josh, but as it doesn't feel right, I'll just trim the bet sizing down a touch.

Heta/Smith - Two players seeded straight through who had somewhat of a disappointing worlds, looking at the numbers it's generally in favour of Heta throughout, but it spikes hugely towards the more recent data, without which I think it's probably a no play, but with it, I think we can go with a small stab.

Cross/O'Connor - Willie didn't look brilliant today but did what he needed to do, but Rob's picked up an early World Series win so is probably in decent nick. Rob's projecting better, but it's roughly in the same sort of ballpark as the lines I'm seeing, although Willie does do a fair chunk better in the most form based data set, to the point where I'm wondering whether the tiniest of plays on O'Connor ends up being correct. I think I'm going to pass, but this is no Rob gimmie.

Price/Hempel - Florian looked great in the first game, alright in the second and rank average in the third, but got there, Gerwyn we know is somewhat underrated and is off a good worlds, but this doesn't look that one sided, maybe only about 60/40 at worst and that seems tighter on shorter samples. He's going to need to do better than he did against Clemens, but Florian does look like a spot of small value.

Wright/Doets - Peter's just here on legacy value, Kevin was pretty steady and consistent in the low 90's today, this is a bastard to call. Both had pretty good worlds, and Peter projects as a really big favourite, certainly more than the line suggests. I'm not going to go quite so mad as the new model is suggesting, but Wright looks undervalued for sure.

Humphries/Cullen - We all know how annoying Joe is to rate. If we knew he'd play like he did against Price in the worlds, then maybe we could make an argument that he's playing better than the numbers suggest and there might be small value instead of the line being close to perfect. But we don't, so we can't.

Bunting/Borland - Willie's one of the stories of today, being one of just three players to come through the group stage clusterfuck and get all the way to the end game, but I don't think we'll be touching this one. Maybe the line's ever so slightly Bunting mental, but I can't see Borland being able to handle this big a step up in class. If he plays like he did against Dirk, then maybe he keeps it interesting.

Noppert/Smith - Final game for day one and we're back to players in directly, I think this ends up being a relatively easy play, the market can't split the two but Danny is solidly in the high 50's regardless of sample, so I think we can take effectively even money and push this.

Likely will not be back for the Friday stuff until this time tomorrow, maybe a bit earlier.

Monday, 27 January 2025

Tungsten Analysis 2024 Awards

Bit late, but as it looks like they won't actually do the World Masters prelims draw in any sort of time to look into betting/thoughts, if the bookies even stick markets up for it, I'll do this now and not put things off any further.

Best single tournament performance

2017 - Phil Taylor, World Matchplay
2018 - Gary Anderson, World Matchplay
2019 - Peter Wright, World Championship
2020 - Ryan Searle, Players Championship 3
2021 - Peter Wright, Players Championship Finals
2022 - Ross Smith, European Championship
2023 - Andrew Gilding, UK Open

Nominees - Ritchie Edhouse, European Championship, Luke Littler, Grand Slam and World Championship, Wessel Nijman, Grand Slam, Jarno Bottenberg, Dutch Open, Luke Humphries, German Darts Grand Prix/Czech Darts Open

Winner - Mike de Decker, World Grand Prix

To me, this was one of the easier ones to narrow down to two - it had to be one of the two new major winners that we weren't expecting (we were of course expecting that Littler would get one). For me though, the nod has to go to Mike, just based on the strength of opponent - having to go through two clear top five players in Gary Anderson and Luke Humphries, including Humphries in the final, as well as another top ten player in de Decker, a major winner from earlier this season in van den Bergh as well as a super tough veteran in Wade, that was a stronger run than Edhouse, who, while not downplaying his victory in the slightest, certainly had an easier path. Meanwhile Littler has to be in here, his worlds win was not easy in the slightest and if anything his performance at the Slam was better, I'm including Nijman in the latter one as his level of play there was absurd, even if he didn't win a match, while Bottenberg being able to come away one of the hardest opens in the world was huge, and if you overlooked Humphries' level of play in the two Euro Tours he binked, go back and look at them, the performances were obscene.

Match of the season

2017 - Rob Cross v Michael van Gerwen, World Championship
2018 - Gary Anderson v Mensur Suljovic, World Matchplay
2019 - Peter Wright v Noel Malicdem, World Championship
2020 - Michael van Gerwen v Joe Cullen, World Championship
2021 - Michael Smith v Jonny Clayton, World Championship
2022 - Dirk van Duijvenbode v Ryan Searle, Players Championship Finals
2023 - Luke Humphries v Joe Cullen, World Championship

Nominees - Luke Littler v Ryan Searle, Players Championship 1, Ryan Searle v Gary Anderson, Players Championship 3, Damon Heta v Luke Littler, UK Open, Rob Cross v Gian van Veen, World Matchplay, Gerwyn Price v Joe Cullen, World Championship

Winner - Luke Littler v Gary Anderson, Grand Slam

Would not blame anyone for picking Price/Cullen - a last leg decider in a long format match on the biggest stage of all where it was continually in the balance throughout checks every box, but having a game between two of the top three players in the world in a semi final match up which for all intents and purposes decided the title, and having it meet all the hype and go all the way, with both players maintaining an extremely high level of play throughout, that just about pips it for me. Also worth of mention were two of the early PC events, now streamed to everyone - both last leg shootouts where both players were lights out and scoring like maniacs, the Heta/Littler game was an early pace setter for this one, while Cross against van Veen was an overtime game going to a decider with both players averaging over a ton is one that may have slipped under the radar.

Most disappointing season

2017 - Benito van de Pas
2018 - Rob Cross
2019 - Raymond van Barneveld
2020 - Adrian Lewis
2021 - Jeffrey de Zwaan
2022 - Ian White
2023 - Josh Rock

Nominees - Dave Chisnall, Ricardo Pietreczko, Andy Baetens, Boris Krcmar, Gerwyn Price

Winner - Jose de Sousa

This is one that we could have seen coming somewhat, with a gradual drop down the rankings having already started, but while a lot of the players who are getting on in their careers lost their cards as expected, I'm not sure that anyone was expecting de Sousa to miss the worlds completely - the only player in the FRH top 64 as of right now to do so. That's just how bad a season he had, being fairly ineffective on the floor and having a shocker of a loss in the only major event he played. Elsewhere, Chisnall was actually pretty good on the floor in terms of results with two Euro Tours and two Pro Tours, but the floor has never been the problem, it's been TV, where he was completely ineffective. Price, the other huge name on the list, was almost as ineffective on TV (albeit pulled things around somewhat in the worlds) but also did very little on the lower circuits as well. Pietreczko could not build on his Euro Tour win as well and suffered a complete collapse of form for the majority of the season, Andy Baetens didn't have anywhere near the impact that anyone thought he would, while Krcmar had a horrifically disappointing season in terms of results and lost his tour card as a result.

Best young player

2017 - Justin van Tergouw
2018 - Luke Humphries/Leighton Bennett
2019 - Keane Barry
2020 - Callan Rydz
2021 - Rusty-Jake Rodriguez
2022 - Josh Rock
2023 - Luke Littler

Nominees - Beau Greaves, Paige Pauling, Sophie McKinlay, Gian van Veen, Niko Springer, Lex Paeshuyse

Winner - Wessel Nijman

Greaves continues to dominate the women's game while having only just turned 21, although in Pauling and McKinlay, there's a couple of even younger players who may end up giving her trouble for decades to come if they continue to develop as they have been doing (and if the PDC/WDF get their shit together), McKinlay already having shown a very strong run in this year's senior worlds. van Veen has grabbed the PDC world youth (only just) and Springer has looked like an excellent prospect. That said, Lex has garnered an awful lot of attention from his exploits, and may end up being better than any one of these, it's a phenomenal level of play he's putting up given his age.

Most disappointing news of the season

2017 - Phil Taylor still not getting it quietly
2018 - Everything to do with the UK Open
2019 - Everything to do with the BDO
2020 - Kyle McKinstry and Wessel Nijman match fixing
2021 - Everything to do with the European Tour/European Championship
2022 - Retrospective awarding of a World Championship place to the Women's Matchplay winner
2023 - PDC wrecking the European Tour going forward

Nominees - Steve Beaton losing his tour card, PDC/WDF still not having every event on Dart Connect, everything to do with the women's game, Dom Taylor missing major events, Leighton Bennett match fixing, World Seniors altering their age eligibility criteria, PDC changing the Grand Prix seedings

Winner - PDC wrecking the European Tour going forward even more than they did last year

It was going to be hard to mess up the European Tour worse than the PDC did twelve months ago, but their most recent changes fuck things up even further and are solely concerned with the protection of their elite players and ignoring the sport in depth as a whole, which given the opportunities from outside the PDC are now higher than they have ever been, may end up simply making the tour weaker and weaker. They changed the Grand Prix criteria to be identical to the Matchplay at the same time to create yet another samey event, while the loss of two younger players from key periods of the season was not good - one's back after what looks like a fairly lenient ban was announced today, while Bennett's done for years and can only be described as a huge waste of talent. Beaton moving off the pro circuit was known to be coming and while it's a case of don't be sad it's over, be happy it happened, it's still a shame to lose a legend of the game off the pro ranks, particularly as he missed the world. The major organisers still having events that aren't on DC is unbelievable, the WDF I can understand a bit more than the PDC, but surely the former can at least require DC connectivity from, say, the prize money stages of all events, while regardless of what agreements the PDC have with the shite that is sportradar, there can't be anything that doesn't allow them to multicast events to DC as well. Any discussion of the women's game continues to descend into toxicity and will only make it less and less relevant, while the weirdest one of the year was the Seniors Tour cutting their age limit to 45? So they can include that massive draw (checks notes) Vincent van der Voort? When one of the best three players in the world is 54? Come on now.

Personal highlight of the season

2017 - Mensur Suljovic wins the Champions League
2018 - Ian White claims a European Tour title
2019 - The explosion in quality from non-traditional areas
2020 - The PDC's efforts to get some sort of calendar on
2021 - Matt Campbell winning his tour card
2022 - Danny Noppert claiming a major title
2023 - A full return for the Asian Tour

Nominees - Wesley Plaisier getting on tour, Cameron Menzies winning a title, the big split of PDC title winners at all levels, Sweden getting extremely strong all of a sudden, the announced Masters revamp

Winner - Paul Lim making the Lakeside final

Has to be. This was a great story - only making it into the event at the last minute, then rolling back the years to only be defeated at the final hurdle by Shane McGuirk, it seems fitting that such a legend of the game was finally able to get into a big final. In other news, Plaisier's looked really good this season both on and off the PDC circuit, and now that he's got a card for two years should hopefully be able to do some damage, Menzies has been due a win for ages and it was great to see him finally get one, albeit he couldn't really convert it onto TV form, all the big Swedish players having very strong seasons - getting two more onto the main tour, de Graaf having a very nice worlds run, while Ostlund and Harrysson should be very dangerous floaters who we should expect to see on both sides of the divide. The revamp of the Masters into another proper major event that has huge potential if they sort out the prize money was good riddance to a bad tournament and hello to something that looks good and should only improve. Meanwhile, while it looked like a real danger that the only players winning anything in the PDC would be people called Luke, we saw two new major winners, Dimitri nicking one from a bit out of left field, two new European Tour winners and nine different winners overall, while the first fourteen Pro Tours saw fourteen different winners. There's huge strength in depth, despite the PDC thinking otherwise.

Best new tour card holder

2017 - Richard North
2018 - Danny Noppert
2019 - Glen Durrant
2020 - Damon Heta
2021 - Alan Soutar
2022 - Jim Williams
2023 - Gian van Veen

Nominees - James Hurrell, Chris Landman, Thibault Tricole, Darren Beveridge

Winner - Dom Taylor

Of course, he's been a bit of a silly boy, but prior to that he was looking fantastic, scoring way more than anyone else who'd got on to tour and looking like a legitimate contender to win a Pro Tour title. Hopefully this episode can be put behind him, and he can go forward from the issue like Nijman has. Outside of Dom, it's been a quiet year, with there being a decent number of players regaining their card and quite a number not making any sort of significant impact on the tour - this may be partially down to lesser opportunities for the 128 as a whole, it may be partly down to the intake just not being particularly strong this year. Hard to say. Still, the first three nominees all did enough to make the worlds and show some flashes, while Beveridge was putting together numbers over the season that were arguable better than any of those three, just not getting the results to match the performances.

Most improved player

2017 - Daryl Gurney
2018 - Jeffrey de Zwaan
2019 - Nathan Aspinall
2020 - Devon Petersen
2021 - Martin Schindler
2022 - Martin Lukeman
2023 - Radek Szaganski

Nominees - Stephen Bunting, Jermaine Wattimena, Alexis Toylo, Wessel Nijman, Connor Scutt, Jimmy van Schie

Winner - Kai Gotthardt

Quite a few players really pushing on this year. Bunting's gone from that fringes of elite level to worlds semi finalist, TV winner and Premier League competitor, while Jermaine's continued his rise in form back to probably the best he's ever played. Toylo came from pretty much nowhere to win the Asian Tour and not look at all out of place at world championship level. Nijman we knew was good but he's completely dominated the younger levels of play, won a Pro Tour, is easily scoring at a top 16 level and a big TV run is due. Scutt has completely turned around the disappointment of losing a tour card to take his game up to a new level, crushing the Challenge Tour and doing enough on the main circuit to win his card outright, while van Schie was virtually unknown this time last year, but finished up as a winner of multiple WDF events, top ten on the Challenge Tour, was the favourite going into the WDF worlds and is now arguably the best player without a tour card. But I'm giving it to Gotthardt. He's a name we've seen for a few years, but was never really anyone who was thought to be anything other than making up the numbers on the European Tour, if he was even qualifying at all. But this year he's really progressed massively - winning his way through to the worlds, making the World Masters final, doing enough on the Challenge Tour to get into the Pro Tour, and when at the worlds he looked very comfortable against someone with Soutar's quality and kept himself close with Bunting for a while in the second round. The seasonal numbers look extremely steady, he's now also won himself a tour card, and looks to be doing enough that if he continues this way, he'll stand every chance of keeping it. Compared to where he was twelve months ago? That's one hell of a jump.

Player of the year

2017 - Rob Cross
2018 - Gary Anderson
2019 - Michael van Gerwen
2020 - Gerwyn Price
2021 - Jonny Clayton
2022 - Michael van Gerwen
2023 - Luke Humphries

Nominees - Luke Humphries, Gary Anderson

Winner - Luke Littler

There's really only three names in the equation. Nobody else did enough in terms of winning stuff (c/f personal highlights) or level of play to get close to these. Ando had the best numbers, but TV results just weren't there. Humphries had the TV results, with two majors and two more major finals, but that doesn't match up to what Littler's been able to do in his first full senior season. Winning the world title, winning another ranked major, winning another two big televised events including the Premier League, binking all of the first Pro Tour, Euro Tour and World Series events he played, hitting nines for fun - any questions of how he would hold up over the rigours of a full senior season have been more than answered, and 2025 could well be even better than 2024.

I will try and post up some thoughts on the first televised knockout stages of the World Masters on Wednesday evening, but it's going to involve a lot of data entry despite the numbers of players not giving it a shot for understandable reasons. Check back then.

Tuesday, 14 January 2025

What the Grok?

Let's play with AI

Here's a list of ten of the best darts players of all time, based on their achievements, longevity, and impact on the sport:

Phil Taylor - Often considered the greatest of all time, "The Power" has won 16 World Championships (14 PDC, 2 BDO), numerous Premier League titles, and has dominated darts for decades with his record-breaking performances.
Michael van Gerwen - Known as "Mighty Mike," he has won three PDC World Championships, multiple Premier League titles, and is known for his high averages and spectacular performances.
Eric Bristow - "The Crafty Cockney" was a dominant force in the 1980s, winning five World Championships (all BDO) and contributing significantly to the professionalization of darts.
Raymond van Barneveld - "Barney" has won world titles in both the BDO (4 times) and PDC (1 time), showcasing his skill and adaptability across different eras of the sport.
John Lowe - He won three BDO World Championships and was known for his consistency and coolness under pressure. Lowe also threw the first televised nine-dart finish.
Gary Anderson - "The Flying Scotsman" has secured two PDC World Championships and is known for his smooth throwing style and high averages.
Dennis Priestley - "The Menace" won the inaugural PDC World Championship in 1994 and added another in 1996, known for his rivalry with Phil Taylor.
Adrian Lewis - "Jackpot" has two PDC World Championships under his belt and is known for his ability to perform under pressure, including throwing two nine-darters in one match.
Bob Anderson - "The Limestone Cowboy" was a BDO World Champion in 1988 and a key figure in the transition to professional darts, known for his flair and showmanship.
Jocky Wilson - Winning the BDO World Championship twice, Wilson was one of the sport's first real superstars, famous for his unique throwing style and fan interaction.

This list reflects players who have not only won significant titles but also those who have had a profound impact on the game's popularity, style, and development. However, darts is a sport where new stars continually emerge, so this list might evolve with time as more players make their mark on the sport's history.

Should note that I've just copypasta'd straight off Grok, and for whatever reason it didn't copy the numbers over. It is an ordered list. Any major issues? I don't really think so, much as I'm a Bob fan I don't see him ahead of Jocky, but the list is very defendable.

Monday, 13 January 2025

Hold my beer

Can someone tell me the differences between these columns please:


Not seeing a huge amount of difference? That's because there's not a huge amount of difference. The columns are the top 16 in the world at the cutoff points for each of last year's UK Open, Matchplay, World Grand Prix and World Championship. This is pertinent for two very good reasons - firstly, the PDC has announced today that the Grand Prix will now have exactly the same seeding format as the Matchplay - rather than having just the top 8 be seeded, giving you the possibilities of things like Humphries running into Bunting or Price running into Noppert in the first round, it'll be much the same 16 against much the same 16. The level of churn between the two events is minimal given the same general players getting in, the only differences between the two fields last season is that Gilding and Ratajski made the Matchplay while de Decker (lol) and Menzies made the Grand Prix, so it has a very samey nature in the first place, only having the double in format and seeding system to really differentiate between the two. Now it has exactly the same seeding format? Mother of god. Look at the level of churn, or lack of it, through those columns. Humphries is obviously #1 every time. Smith and van Gerwen are in that #2/#3 bracket every time. The only players in the first list that don't appear on every list are Wright (and he was only #17 in the worlds seedings), Dirk (who had his red hot form from 2022 disappear from the main list and then his even hotter early 2023 Pro Tour form disappear from the Pro Tour list), Cullen (who dropped a Euro Tour off his rankings between the Matchplay and Grand Prix) and Smith (who was there for all the first three prior to his major win falling off his rankings. Aspinall is in the 4/5 section of the bracket for three of them before dropping to 12, which is still the same quarter. Price is in the 4/5 for the first half and 7/10 for the second half. Cross and Chisnall share the #6 spot, Cross moving to that 4/5 split for the second half, while Chizzy is in the 7/10 for the first half. Clayton remains in the spots to meet Humphries in the quarters for three of the lists. Heta goes 11, 11, 9, 9. Fact is, it's really, really hard for anyone to move up or down the main Order of Merit, as opposed to the Pro Tour, where one bink, especially if it is a Euro Tour, changes a lot very quickly.

Which is why it is absolutely batshit insane the changes they have made to the Euro Tour. For those who have not seen the announcement, not only have they switched the seedings from the Euro Tour from the top 16 in the Pro Tour OOM to the top 16 to the main OOM, they are also now rigging the first round draw so that those who qualify through the Pro Tour cannot face each other in the first round. So yes, what that means is that a circuit which was already feeling samey week on week and getting a bit of Premier League syndrome about it, is going to be even worse. Looking at the rankings for all of the current OOM, the Matchplay seedings race and the worlds seedings race, we see the following:

1 - Humphries, Humphries, Humphries
2 - Littler, Littler, Littler
3 - van Gerwen, van Gerwen, van Gerwen
4 - Cross, Bunting, Bunting
5 - Bunting, Cross, Dobey
6 - Chisnall, Dobey, Cross
7 - Clayton, Chisnall, Chisnall
8 - Heta, Aspinall, de Decker
9 - Price, Clayton, van den Bergh
10 - Dobey, Heta, Anderson
11 - Aspinall, Wade, R Smith
12 - Wright, Wright, Edhouse
13 - Noppert, Price, Heta
14 - Anderson, Anderson, Clayton
15 - Wade, Noppert, Noppert
16 - Rock, R Smith, Searle

So basically EVERYTHING is looking like a Littler/van Gerwen semi. Huge amounts look like a Cross/Bunting quarter. van Gerwen/Anderson in the last 16 frequently, Littler/Noppert in the last 16 frequently, Wright running into Bunting, Cross, or both, all the time. It is HUGE protection for the biggest names, and the lack of a free draw in the first round gives massive protection to the incumbent top 32 as well. Never mind that we don't get the opportunity to see a bunch of the fun stuff that the European Tour is all about, with random qualifiers running into each other. The following matches from last year all wouldn't have happened under the new rules:

Woodhouse/Hurrell, van Peer/Klose, Wenig/van Put, de Decker/Landman, Roetzsch/Wattimena, de Zwaan/Ehlers, Wenig/Lennon, Mueller/Veenstra, Menzies/de Decker, van der Wal/Edhouse, Menzies/Whitlock, O'Connor/King, Burton/Barry, S Williams/Springer, Merk/Littler, Rydz/Sparidaans, Labanauskas/Razma, Monk/Edhouse, Taylor/Goedl, Nijman/Grbavac, de Zwaan/Sedlacek, Kuivenhoven/Toonders, Hilger/Dennant, Puha/Roetzsch, Zonneveld/Puha, Kist/van Velzen, Razma/de Graaf, O'Connor/Mansell, Baetens/Rafferty, Sedlacek/Dennant, Szaganski/Taylor, Pratnemer/Troppmann, de Sousa/Hopp, Mansell/Ehlers, Kenny/Klaasen, Tobback/Soutar, Wattimena/Raman, Clemens/Lukeman, van der Wal/Bialecki, Schweyen/Doets, Bezjian/Csoka, Jehirszki/Nijman, Beveridge/Barry, Vegso/Dekker, Razma/Fehlmann, Hertig/Meikle, Owen/Zonneveld, Lukeman/Rydz, Wattimena/Kovacs

This is in no way comprehensive, there are probably some I have missed, I have excluded players from the alternate list as I don't really know how that is going to be handled this year, so could have involved more. Are all of those games going to be good? No. Some of them will outright suck. But the point is that there are two things that are boring as fuck in sport - one sided matches, and overdone matches. Would I want to watch Man City against Spurs if they were to meet in the FA Cup for a fourth meeting this season? Probably not. Did I watch Man City against Salford this weekend? Well I tried for 20 minutes before giving it up as a bad job. Would I watch Salford against, say, Newport County? Maybe. It is a competitive match between clubs I don't see that often. Looking at that list of matches we will not see in the Euro Tour this year, I'd be far, far more interested in seeing something like Menzies/de Decker, Labanauskas/Razma or de Zwaan/Sedlacek, or for that matter the game between the two Hungarian qualifiers both averaging sixty-something, than going into Riesa at the start of April for ET3 and getting a semi final between Littler and van Gerwen, a matchup we could have seen in the worlds, World Masters, UK Open, two previous Euro Tours and nine Premier League nights. Yes, by the time we get to Euro Tour 3, we could potentially have seen Littler face off against van Gerwen FOURTEEN FUCKING TIMES (and that's not even counting any times they might be on a Pro Tour stream board), and we're not even at Easter.

Sure, there will be instances where there'll be players in the top 16 of the OOM who opt to give it a miss, I'll give you that. That'll shake things up a bit, but likely not by much - particularly now they know they only have to turn up for the Saturday, as opposed to the Friday where if your Pro Tour rank was shit, you'd end up playing. I get the feeling that Porter has not heard of analogies about shearing sheep, and would prefer just to pull out a bolt gun and cap them, then wondering why he's run out of wool. But hey, we're all just keyboard warriors aren't we.