Euros round 2

Little bit disappointing to not come out better on the betting. King had three clear at tops for 2-0 that would have been 3-0, sure Nathan gifted the same back, but I think he was playing better and was just a bit unfortunate. Cullen was fine, then for the should have beens, Hempel. Man, nice job. I took 100/30 right before the off once I saw that he won the darts, which either means they haven't adjusted from their base price on that news (we've calculated what winning the bull is worth in the past), or that the 7/2 I was looking for was available previously. Either way, it's good. Jose won, although Lewy played some solid stuff and definitely will be in the conversation for young player of the year (although I think that it'll take some effort to remove Rusty from the front of the pack), then Borland won as well. Oh well, it indicates that the process in them being close to bets is fine, even if we didn't quite pull the trigger. Into the last 16 now and this is a big 10k jump in prize money, so huge for a lot of players.

Borland/Cullen - Joe was just fine against Ted, who wasn't on top form really. Borland was able to take out Whitlock with a steady performance. This is a bit of a step up to take out Joe in a longer format though, I see it as just under a one in for shot for William here. He's around 3/1, so the market's fine.

Dolan/Cross - This ought to be a good one between two players just outside the top 20 of the FRH rankings, both of whom can push in with a win. Brendan looked pretty unstoppable against Huybrechts, while Cross was given an interesting test by Keane Barry, match never really looked close but Rob never really got going. The market has this evens, with Dolan just odds on, I similarly can't separate the players.

de Sousa/Humphries - Another very interesting game on here. Mentioned Jose earlier, he probably played a little bit better than he had done in previous games without never really getting anywhere near top gear, while Humphries was pushed all the way in his game with Rydz and looked pretty ordinary in the legs he lost. Market is thinking Luke has a bit more than a 40% shot, that kind of feels right, although the computer's saying that Jose is a much bigger favourite than that at just over 70%. Got to bet this as a result, 0.25u de Sousa 8/13

Searle/Noppert - Another fine game to close the afternoon session. Searle was pushed extremely hard by Michael Smith who was unlucky to lose in a deciding leg, while Noppert just rolled over Ratajski with a five leg spurt that you rarely see against someone of Krzysztof's calibre. This feels like a flip on paper, the market gives the tiniest of edges to Searle, seems fine to me. Could be a sneaky game of the round, although how sneaky it still is given how they did at the Grand Prix is open for debate.

Aspinall/Heta - Mentioned Nathan above. Heta won last on against Clemens in a pretty decent match with neither player doing much wrong at all and just the opening dodgy leg where Clemens was on a nine to break, but couldn't finish in eighteen. Oops. I think Heta should be the small favourite without looking at anything, it's actually Nathan that is, and the computer says it's yet another flip. Oh well.

Price/Gawlas - Gerwyn swept aside Ritchie Edhouse looking great, while Adam was in a not particularly pretty game which started off horribly for both, but did what he needed to get the win. Price is 1/8, if anything that's value by a tick.

van Gerwen/Wade - Michael didn't need much time to finish off Krcmar, getting the two breaks he needed in the first three legs (finished in just 13 visits) and then not letting go from there. Wade was in a spot of bother against Smith-Neale early before a decent run of legs to get back from a 4-2 hole. Michael looks a little short on paper at 4/11, but checking the computer it's actually OK - Wade's over 30% so maybe the line could shade closer to 4/9 to be fair, but we don't get enough on Wade to bet.

Suljovic/Hempel - Final game, Mensur didn't need to do too much against Hunt who really didn't show up, Hempel's magic over Wright we've already talked about. Main question is whether that victory for Hempel has terminally damaged the value. He is 7/4 to beat Suljovic, and I think we can take that easily, 0.25u Hempel 7/4. The computer actually thinks this is 55/45 in favour of Florian, so getting a line that indicates he has less than a 40% chance is great. The worries are that Mensur's actually scoring slightly higher overall - albeit by less than a point, so Florian's got a bit more inconsistency to be concerned about, but that's not going to swing this to not being a bet. Even if we said as a result it was a flip, then we still take the price.

That's it, will also be keeping an eye on the British Open this weekend. Great to see WDF events getting more involved on Dart Connect.

Well these tournaments are thick and fast

Let's congrats Jonny Clayton on finally winning a major title that counts, and let's laugh at those on Twitter that called the Masters a "big TV title". Guess they're all big. Straight into the FRH rankings before anything else, and these incorporate Euro mincashes (which has the effect of bumping JdS and Whitlock up one but nothing else):

1 Gerwyn Price

2 Peter Wright

3 Michael van Gerwen

4 James Wade

5 Jonny Clayton (UP 7)

6 Jose de Sousa

7 Dimitri van den Bergh (DOWN 2)

8 Gary Anderson (DOWN 1)

9 Krzysztof Ratajski

10 Michael Smith (DOWN 2)

11 Dave Chisnall (DOWN 1)

12 Joe Cullen (DOWN 1)

13 Dirk van Duijvenbode

14 Stephen Bunting (UP 1)

15 Nathan Aspinall (DOWN 1)

16 Mervyn King (UP 1)

17 Danny Noppert (NEW)

18 Luke Humphries

19 Simon Whitlock

20 Devon Petersen (DOWN 4)

Obviously Clayton's the big mover, with Price's final extending his lead over Wright to nearly 300k points. MvG is closer to Wade than he is to Wright. Searle's good run puts him one spot behind Devon and will reach the top 20 if he turns over Smith in the first round, White's now looking a lot safer in the top 25 than he was a bit ago. Gurney's actually down to 25 now, he's the casualty as Noppert hits the top 20, if not for the first time then for the first time in a long time. Not inconceivable that Durrant is out of the top 30 this time next week, could be sooner if Suljovic and Rydz have runs.

Onto Salzburg. This might be the weirdest tournament the PDC has ever held, at least in terms of lineup - stuff like the Championship League and anything to do with quadro boards is clearly more odd. We'll go in draw order:

Price/Edhouse - I like Ritchie's game, but this has the potential to be a bit lol, although given the short race to six in the first round, I can't actually recommend a bet at a best price available of 1/5 on Gerwyn. Ritchie's got a competent enough level to win this maybe one in five.

Gawlas/Murnan - Well this is a big opportunity for both. 16/17 seed match up with the chance to probably face the world champion in round two? Who wouldn't want that. This is a really tough one to call, I'm seeing Adam as a tiny favourite - read 10/11 sort of level. That is close to what we have in the market, Adam's actually available at evens in places. Maybe worth the shot if you think that he has a bit of a better TV game than on the floor, for which there is definitely some evidence. He might actually have more stage experience than Murnan at this point.

van Gerwen/Krcmar - Immediate thought is that this might be a lay MvG spot, Boris is incredibly underrated and has produced plenty of high quality performances that have threatened an awful lot of the top players. We can get 3/1, although checking the master computer, it's saying he wins 25%. Ho hum, on we go.

Wade/Smith-Neale - We clearly don't have a great deal of info on ASN - just the 60 or so legs where he's going at a fairly pedestrian clip, much of which might be not needing to do much more than around 89 in scoring on the Challenge Tour, even in the latter stages. 1/4 on Wade feels right, computer says Adam has a little bit of a better chance than that, but I think that's a sample size thing to be honest, he's likely just happy to be here.

Smith/Searle - This is going to be pretty exciting, Smith is still looking for a first major and Searle has just had a first big breakthrough on TV, which could easily have gone further if things had have fallen slightly differently. Rates to be close, market has Michael as a small 55/45 favourite, I'm thinking it's a bang on coin flip. We're only seeing one or two places offer odds against on Ryan, so let's carry on.

Ratajski/Noppert - Match of the round for me, two players who are still super underrated (I really get the feeling that Ratajski will be another Pipe or White who does enough in terms of results to warrant a PL spot but won't get it unless he completely forces the PDC's hand by binking a big one), and Noppert's value has normalised enough now that he only comes in as a 55/45 dog in the market. That looks about right to me, I'm seeing it as right in the middle of that and a flip. One I'll definitely keep an eye on on Friday night.

Aspinall/King - Here's another one that on paper seems like it should be close, Nathan's a bit off his peak which saw him winning majors, while Mervyn is still quietly going about his business and getting results. Market thinks about 60/40 Nathan (fair bit of vig in this one), I'm seeing 55/45 Mervyn. I'm going to take 0.25u King 13/10, but you may want to wait and see if the market normalises a bit more and you see 11/8 or even 6/4.

Heta/Clemens - The good matchups continue. Heta seems to have had the better 2021 than Clemens, who I don't think has necessarily taken a step backwards, more just stayed a bit stationary while other have progressed. Would think Damon will be a slight favourite over Clemens, market sees this exactly the same as the previous game, I do actually see this one as 60/40 for Heta, maybe slightly more. He's awfully underrated still, probably the best Aussie right now regardless of what rankings say.

Suljovic/Hunt - Into the bottom half, Mensur's a bit of a surprise #2 seed, but here he is, Adam's just crept into the field but this'll all help to solidify a top 64 spot, maybe much higher. I'd guess this looks well in favour of Mensur but possibly worth a bet on Adam without looking at the market, said market is showing 70/30 to Suljovic, I'm, er, actually seeing it as a bit more in favour of Suljovic than that. Nowhere near enough to take 2/5 mind you.

Wright/Hempel - Peter's only the 15 seed, which is a bit of a surprise but he bricked Gib and didn't do a great deal in Hungary either. Florian's had a very solid first season as a card holder, oddschecker is doing weird things but it generally looks like they're all saying Wright takes this 75-80% of the time. I don't think it's that much, and it's more like 65-70%. As such, 10/3 is an awful tempter, but big stage nerves may still come into play for Hempel here.

Whitlock/Borland - Kind of an important one for Simon here, getting through the first round of these sorts of things is what's needed to stabilise your ranking, while Borland getting a win would certainly help in terms of solidifying a top 64 place and retaining his card, which he's looking decent to do already in fairness. Would envisage the market saying 2-1 in favour of Whitlock, it's roughly that (they're actually favouring Borland a little over that), it'd probably need a few more ticks the other way to consider a bet on William here. Just shy of 40%, I'd likely snap 9/4 so if "name player" money moves the market, move in.

Cullen/Evetts - Ted's been appearing on our screens a bit more over the past couple of months after a bit of a lean spell, and this'll be a big test against one of the Pro Tour's best. This looks massively in favour of Cullen, 80/20 for me. Betfair's actually offering us better than 1/3 in this one, I'll take it small, 0.25u Cullen 7/20, wouldn't normally fly with this edge but as it's a long odds on, it's hard to generate more edge than this.

Dolan/Huybrechts - Seems like a decent section for Brendan, who's still a tad under the radar, as is Kim to be honest, who's kind of where Dolan was 2-3 seasons ago in terms of looking to push back into the top 32. Master computer actually has this as a flip, which surprised me, but Kim's a bit inconsistent, when he's winning he's not messing about but his losing legs can be quite bad. Market is 8/11 on Brendan, this seems fine.

Cross/Barry - Similarly, this is a big chance for both these - firstly for Rob to regain confidence and halt a rankings slide, secondly for Keane to make big inroads in a senior major for the first time. Rob should take this about two times in three from what my stats say, the market thinks it's a bit more but it's not enough of an outlier to lay the former world champion.

de Sousa/Williams - Really interested to see what Lewy can do on the TV in this one, although it's a bit of a bastard draw. Still, no pressure as a result and he can take it as a learning experience regardless. Market is actually giving Williams a fair chance at 30% or there abouts, I'm seeing about 25%, maybe slightly under. Probably ought to think about taking Jose the same as I've taken Cullen, but I won't.

Humphries/Rydz - Finally we get what should be a fantastic game between two players who should be clashing on the big stage for a couple of decades to come. Luke's the favourite here, a bit more than 60% but not two in three, which in my mind seems alright, once I stop misclicking on Luke Woodhouse I can actually see that Callan seems to have a little bit of a better chance than that, nowhere near enough to consider a bet though, Rydz isn't exactly inconsistent by any means but Luke's extremely tight in terms of not giving anything away, so I think that'll normalise things close to where the line should be.

So that's it, just the two bets, I'd have expected more given the mishmash nature of the field, but it is what it is. Good luck to us all.

No bet on the final

Didn't have the time to look at the semis in detail, but when you don't see anything in the quarters, you're generally of the opinion that the market is in the same place you are in terms of valuing players. Same for the final - they're seeing Price as a 60/40 favourite. That seems pretty much right, maybe the pressure on Clayton to win a first ranking major will be a factor, who knows.

Grand Prix quarters

Let's take a very quick look:

Noppert/White - Thought there might have been value on Ian in this one when I saw Noppie priced up at 4/6, second round match and the quality of the win not withstanding, White's been meh but he's done enough that he shouldn't be too far behind Danny, if behind at all. Then I shove the figures into the master computer and it's 60/40. Oh well.

Ratajski/Clayton - Incredibly tasty matchup, which sees Clayton come in as a near 2/1 on favourite, which is surely prohibitive regardless of how good Clayton has been, simply on account of how good Ratajski is. The master computer backs this up - Clayton's a favourite, but it's only slightly over 55%. That indicates enough quality differential that we can't be tipping Krzysztof unfortunately, although I may have a look at the handicaps for shits and giggles.

Price/Chisnall - Could we see Dave pull the upset here, and get the 95th iteration of "this'll be the best chance Chisnall will ever have to win a major"? Quite possibly. We're not getting an awful price either - 5/2 is indicative of slightly under a 30% chance of winning, whereas I'm thinking it's in the mid to high 30's. It's close but it's not enough when you additionally factor in how convincing each player has been in the tournament to date which surely favours Gerwyn.

Bunting/Searle - Wow, Ryan's the 60/40 favourite. Searle betting party time surely completely gone now. That does actually look fair enough, and there may actually be marginal value in Searle here, but Bunting's done just about enough this year to steer me away from it. The stage has got to be a factor as well - this is by far the biggest game of Searle's career, whereas Bunting has won Lakeside and gone deep at Ally Pally on multiple occasions.

So no bets.

Well, no perfect tournament

We don't expect King to beat Price that often. It just looked like value, few little things one way as opposed to the other and maybe he gets it to 2-2 in sets, then who knows. Quickly on the remaining last 16 games:

White/Labanauskas - Darius seems to have shortened from when I had a look at this yesterday, given Derrick wanted to bet that way. It actually projects a bit closer than I thought it would, and the line of Labanauskas 11/8 actually looks fair enough.

Cross/Ratajski - This should be a good one after Rob got a result that will surely restore some confidence. That said, he still comes in as an underdog, albeit a very small one. Again, the line looks fair enough, this feels about 55/45 in favour of Ratajski.

Noppert/van der Voort - Danny's not going to get a better chance to get to a ranking quarter final than this, and the market sees it as bang on 60/40. This looks about right to me as well, sadly, I was wondering if Vincent was under the radar enough in 2021 and Danny might have finally got a big boost to his perceived value that we could have snuck in a VVDV bet. Alas not.

de Sousa/Clayton - This is a real spicy one and whoever wins this will surely be a huge favourite to reach a major ranking final, the bookies have Clayton as the slight favourite. I'm not sure why Jose is 11/10, he is scoring a tiny bit better, and I'm wondering if I have the edge to bet on de Sousa here. It's incredibly close. If it was 5/4 I'd probably punt without hesitation. Heck, seeing Jose as about a 56-57% favourite is close to enough with the line we have, especially given Jonny's up and down recent form. I think the first round performances are just enough for me to say sit on the fence and enjoy a match between two of the top five players in the world. I guess if you have an odds boost then use it?

4/4, beautiful

Well, that went better than expected, much much better. Plenty of players dropping out that you wouldn't have expected, the bottom half of the draw in particular has been blown completely wide open with Wright and van Gerwen dropping out, not got time to wait for a de Sousa/Clayton line to appear (although you'd have to think it's evens?), so will just take a look at tomorrow and come back for the remainder of the last sixteen tomorrow evening.

Chisnall/Smith - Starting off, irritatingly, with a line that looks just fine. The market is seeing this as ever so slightly better than 60/40 in favour of Chizzy, which is maybe two or three points too much in favour of Dave, maybe even a little bit more given the relative performances in the first round, but it's not enough. Chisnall favourite but Ross being a very live dog seems fair to me.

Wade/Bunting - Line seems more or less the same, except with more vig, as the previous game - Wade being favoured as you would expect. Just with the way the additional vig is working makes this a no bet at this time - Bunting probably has a little more than a 40% chance, and 6/4 is all we can get. Bunting looked good though, maybe if his line drifts more to the best price of 8/15 we have for Wade we can think about it, but there is bizarre agreement as to the exact line amongst almost all bookmakers here.

Price/King - Price looked real good in the first round, any time you can average over 100 in double in, you've got to be feeling confident, while King's average was way down, can't really tell why given how much of a dumpster fire dartsdata is to use nowadays, but it's a bit of a concern. 4/1 is a pretty huge price though so I'll have a small nibble, 0.1u King 4/1, he has been playing well enough in 2021 that he shouldn't be that much of a dog in anything apart from the longest of events, I've got a feeling that Gerwyn will just roll, but we'll see.

Searle/Humphries - Bookies have these even, and this should be incredibly spicy between two players very much on the rise. Gun to the head and I'd take Searle, but fortunately there isn't, I'm only seeing it as 55/45 which isn't really enough to take a shot here.

Bottom half tips tomorrow evening, actually in the office then probably not back until later.

Grand Prix bets

Always a difficult thing to judge, as it's so reliant on doubling percentage which will throw off my projections a bit, but not that much, I think you can bump the good doublers ever so slightly, but not by a massive amount, and it's pretty hard to get any sort of useful data. You can't actually use DartConnect for this either - sure, you can work out if it says the player's taken out 40 in 1, 60 in 2 or 156 in 3 what double they've taken and how many darts they've used with either complete certainty or some level of it - but what if it says 40 in 3? Sure, they're likely 1 in 3 attempts, but what if they shank into the 5 with the first dart and they've only actually had two darts? Or, with a more realistic example, 76 in 3? Is it T20-miss-D8, or is it 20-whatever-double? You just don't know.

So, bets:

0.25u King 4/6 - I'm primarily going to use a best of 11 guide here. That's kind of the same length of match in the quick first to two here, at which Mervyn would be 70%+ against Kleermaker. Seems decent enough.

DvD/Humphries line looks close enough. Probably shaded a bit in favour of a bet towards Dirk, but the double stats I've seen aren't favourable so pass.

Close to a Bunting bet. Getting 6/4 seemed a bit of an outlier, but Gurney is actually favoured, although 5/4 would be about where I have it so not so much of an edge. Gurney has course and distance as well, so the format ought to favour him slightly.

0.25u Smith 8/5, Ross is super underrated, and I'm not sure where we're at in terms of Cullen, whether the #1 Pro Tour ranking is overrating him in comparison to what he's done on TV. Projection calls it a flip so we take that price.

Chisnall is really close to a bet, 3/4 seems nice when he's around the 65% mark. Suljovic, however, is really solid doubling and is upticking following his final, Dave historically had some doubling issues and the format multiplies the chance it is an issue, so I can just about talk myself of it.

I wish we could get slightly better on Heta (ooh, that rhymes). 11/8 is real close to a match I see as a pure coinflip. Stylistically however Wade is an awful matchup and Wade's doubling is as solid as it gets.

The line looks round about right in Price/Smith. 9/4 is maybe underrating Smith a tough, I'd say 7/4 would be a fairer spot, but it's really hard to bet against someone who's won the two Euro Tours without any real trouble at all. If Smith doesn't do anything daft like lead off with 3+ missed doubles throughout the game, which is always in his locker, maybe he pulls it out.

I was expecting Dimitri and Ryan to be matched up a little bit closer and hence we could take Searle at 13/8 - but Dimitri is actually projecting in the 55-60% range, which doesn't give us enough of an edge. I was talking to someone earlier and saying that this is a real good section for Ryan, this might be the hardest game before the semi finals, and he's not without a chance.

Labanauskas/Dolan - Looks like the market has adapted to Dolan. Maybe over-adapted slightly, I see this as bang on 60/40 in favour of Brendan, and he's 4/7. No real value.

Was thinking that maybe this'd be a spot to jam on Callan Rydz at 2/1 against Jonny Clayton. But it isn't - the line is actually perfect. Oh well. Maybe it's worth a tiny spot given Jonny has a little bit of waivering form, but I can't possibly recommend it.

Vinny up against Gabriel is a really intriguing one. I want to shoot on van der Voort here. He's 5/4, and the line in my view should be the other way around. One to monitor, if it shifts to even 11/8 or so then I think it is worth a stab. The games from Dolan onwards are Monday so I can jump in if the line does move.

The market can't separate Aspinall and Ratajski. Kryzsytof is very close to taking a shot, it looks like a 55/45 game same as last time, but Nathan looking better in the last month, coupled with the projections not being enough in favour as needed, makes it a pass.

0.25u White 9/5 - we've not seen anything real decent from either player in 2021. Anderson didn't show anything threatening in Copenhagen, and the Matchplay wasn't brilliant either. Stats say White is actually playing better so we'll take the shot, knowing full well this could go wrong given how flaky both have been in getting results.

If we could get a bit longer on Cross, I'd gamble against Wright. Over this short a format a recent world champion shouldn't be quite so long as he is. But there's not quite enough here, I'm seeing 65/35 in favour of Peter, and I doubt the line would ever drift enough to take even a small gamble.

0.1u Noppert 7/2, this is basically the same sort of punt we've taken numerous times before, the analysis hasn't changed. I'm going small again like last time even though we have the advantage for a quarter unit, but there is enough of a chance in such a short race with the format that van Gerwen plays well enough that Noppert has no shot, or that Danny makes one error and puts himself into the same situation.

I feel sad for Glen. He's longer than 5/1, and it's perfectly justified.

That's the lot. Congrats to Thibault Tricole for getting the cake in Denmark, looks like Veenstra has a decent shot of getting a win today.