Tuesday 30 May 2017

BDO World Trophy

Lest anyone begins to think this is a PDC blog, let's look at the BDO major that took place the last four days. The standard was, shall we say, not great. 300+ legs in the men's, and the combined players couldn't get 20 twelve dart legs between them, and the fifteen dart percentage of the tournament was at a fairly weak 41%. Comparable PDC players would be the likes of Justin Pipe, Zoran Lerchbacher, Keegan Brown - so not exactly the A list. Machin, your winner, did manage four of the 19 twelve dart legs of the weekend, but was allowed to win all of his matches while getting half the legs needed in 16 darts or more (except the Adams match, where he finished 4/7 in fifteen or less).

Probably the most impressive result was from Harms, slotting in two twelves and a further three fifteen dart legs against Durrant, rallying from 4-0 down to win 7-4. Durrant didn't let up - he averaged over 100 in the last seven legs of the match, so Harms had very little room for error, and was arguably the best player in the event. Was disappointed with McGeeney, for all the talk of him being the form player (and the #2 seed) he sure didn't play like it. Mitchell wasn't that impressive either, winning just 3/9 legs in less than fifteen darts and averaging just 86 in losing legs. There was plenty of comedy - Labanauskas missing more darts to win the critical leg than I take to finish any leg, Gulliver having 10 world titles and still not knowing that going for 19's with one dart in hand and 184 left isn't the greatest of ideas (although, as she averaged 63 in that game, maybe she thought she wasn't checking out regardless, so who cares).

Was good to see the event get TV time, although the concept of TV is close to a dead one in the internet age, and that they were streaming it in multiple places was good to see (that said, don't leave the comms mike open when you're on adverts...) and hopefully they can keep this going moving forward.

Saturday 27 May 2017

Matchplay winners and losers and introducing the 15 Dart Bot

Quiet few weeks in the PDC, with the unranked Dubai tournament that Anderson won which holds little interest, and the unranked World Cup which does little better in terms of interest, although it does have some value in looking at players from far flung territories who might get a look in as a World Championship international qualifier. It also has pairs, which I still think would be an interesting one-off event. So let's look forward to the Matchplay and do some level one analysis of who could be the big winners and losers.

Potential big losers:

1) James Wade. Now we all love to laugh at Wade, but two years ago he made the final following a semi final win over Phil Taylor, but he's not likely to do that this time. It's borderline where he ends up being seeded, being in a race for the 5/6 seed with Dave Chisnall, but neither is good - the five seed could get Ian White in round 2 followed by a quarter against Adrian Lewis, with MvG likely in the semi final, and if anything the six seed is worse - Michael Smith being probable in round 2, then Peter Wright. Not looking good.

2) Gerwyn Price. While Price is playing a lot better now than he was then, he did make the quarter final. While it wouldn't be too ridiculous for him to do that again, beating two seeds to do so may be a tough ask, and there's many first round draws where he would be a substantial dog.

3) Jamie Lewis, Andrew Gilding, Andy Hamilton and Keegan Brown. All in a tie, all won one game at Blackpool two years ago, all nowhere near qualifying.

Potential big winners:

1) Adrian Lewis. Fell to Price in round 2 two years ago, while a current second round opponent of Kim Huybrechts is very much a banana skin, the draw looks fairly kind to be able to blast his way into the semi final.

2) Raymond van Barneveld. Lost in round 1 two years ago, but has less upside than Lewis in that his second round opponent is looking like Phil Taylor, and MvG would then follow.

3) Jelle Klaasen. Drew Whitlock two years ago in the first round and lost, his current round 2 opponent would be Suljovic, which isn't as hard as others might get, Anderson could be trickier but should be able to at least climb the rankings a bit.

4) Michael Smith. Lost to Price in round 1 in comedy fashion, he should do better here and if Wade stays where he is, Smith should have very good chances for at least a quarter final run.

5) Daryl Gurney. Didn't qualify two years ago, and has the game to threaten many of the seeds.

Now I mention 15 Dart Bot. Someone lower down the circuit mentioned in a blog post a few years ago (I think it was Kevin Dowling, but I can't find the post) that the game is at a level these days that you need to play as if your opponent is going to finish in 15 darts all of the time. Well, what if they do? Let's add our bot to the Premier League, and project how he would fare against each opponent. It's pretty simple to calculate - our real life players only break in 12 darts or less, and they only get broken if they can't finish in 15 darts. So I'll take the 12 dart percentage and subtract the 16 or more dart percentage. A positive figure and our real life player is the favourite - a negative figure, and they're an underdog.

Michael van Gerwen: 30.52 - 22.10 = 8.42
Gary Anderson: 23.81 - 25.60 = -1.79
Adrian Lewis: 18.60 - 29.07 = -10.47
Raymond van Barneveld: 18.89 - 29.49 = -10.60
Kim Huybrechts: 18.89 - 30.41 = -11.52
Peter Wright: 15.38 - 29.37 = -13.99
Phil Taylor: 15.84 - 31.68 = -15.84
Dave Chisnall: 16.22 - 34.23 = -18.01
Jelle Klaasen: 12.89 - 40.00 = -27.11
James Wade: 7.66 - 44.68 = -37.02

So 15 Dart Bot is a favourite to beat any player in the world that isn't Michael van Gerwen.

Sunday 21 May 2017

Players Championship 11/12 aftermath

I think that most of this weekend's awards should be fairly controversial, not that any controversy can be made if nobody reads things anyway, but here we go:

Performance of the weekend - This is easily Rob Cross. A second Pro Tour title, coupled with a semi final and qualification for one of the European Tour events is easily the best performance. Such is his start for the season, it's incredibly likely that he won't need to qualify for another European event again - Burton's spreadsheet indicates he's currently at #17 on the relevant rankings. There's other contenders - Wright managed to win the other event, Whitlock had two quarters, as did Jonny Clayton, who was close to making both European events which were played for on Friday, losing out in one to a resurgent Mickey Mansell who had a great run today. Lower down the rankings, Andy Boulton did alright but I'll mention him later, Mansell did little wrong, Steve Lennon ran well along with Richard North, also Bryan de Hoog showed briefly why he was close to winning a tour card with two cashes, one for a last 16 run.

Best tournament performance - Andy Boulton for me. A Pro Tour semi final is a tricky thing to make, and he beat Cullen in round 1, Meulenkamp, Hine and de Hoog are no mugs, and then he turned over Suljovic before running into Daryl Gurney. Elsewhere, Ian White's final run is a contender, de Graaf had a nice Saturday as well.

Best single match perfomance - I have to give something to Peter Wright, and I'll give it for the semi final against Rob Cross, it seems as if he managed to win five out of the six legs he won in twelve darts or less, which is phenomenal throwing, regardless of how good you are. To do that two days after one of the most gutting events in your professional career makes it all the more special. Some people I'll mention in dispatches are Vincent van der Voort, who crushed Bunting 6-0, while he's not playing great, neither is Vincent, Mickey Mansell also managed a 6-1 win over Adrian Lewis, which can never be easy.

Worst weekend long performance - Adrian Lewis only winning £500 over the two Pro Tour events is close, although he did make both European Tour events. Whether he later withdraws is another question. I'll give it to Steve West though - messing up the one European Tour qualifier he was in, losing to Lee Bryant as the number 2 seed, then losing in the first round twice to Keegan Brown in the Pro Tour events. Caven deserves a mention, winning 1 leg in the two European Tour qualifiers, but at least he beat Stuart Kellett.

Worst single tournament performance - Wade losing to Searle seems like a good shout if we're not going to give it to Lewis for either of the fails mentioned above.

Current adjusted top 20:

1 Michael van Gerwen
2 Peter Wright
3 Gary Anderson
4 Dave Chisnall
5 James Wade
6 Raymond van Barneveld
7 Mensur Suljovic
8 Adrian Lewis
9 Jelle Klaasen
10 Simon Whitlock (UP 4)
11 Michael Smith (UP 1)
12 Benito van de Pas (DOWN 2)
13 Kim Huybrechts
14 Phil Taylor (DOWN 3)
15 Ian White
16 Daryl Gurney (UP 1)
17 Gerwyn Price (DOWN 1)
18 Alan Norris
19 Joe Cullen
20 Robert Thornton

Outside of the top 20, Terry Jenkins has now slipped to 27, Cross is now within the top 40, Clayton is within the top 45, and plenty of new names like Richard North, Peter Jacques and Steve Lennon are now solidly within the top 100.

Saturday 20 May 2017

MvG versus the field

With Michael van Gerwen managing to win the Premier League from a lost position, and with the Matchplay being just around the corner, the question has to be can he be stopped, and can we not just print money by going for him to win it outright? Let's see.

The event isn't up on oddschecker yet, but checking on the sponsor's website, van Gerwen is an 8/11 favourite. I wouldn't imagine that others would have him that far off, but let's use that as a marker. If we want to have an edge betting van Gerwen at this price, we really need to know he'll win at least 60% of the time. Will he? I've taken the stats of all of the current Matchplay competitors and shoved them into the master computer and extrapolated the chances that the other 31 beat him at each stage of the tournament.

As far as the hardest run goes? The opening match (against a non-seed) would be against Kyle Anderson, where van Gerwen is projected to win 91.21% of the time. The only player who could drop out of the top 16 and be a tougher challenge is Whitlock, but we'll keep him as the last 16 opponent. Here, van Gerwen wins 90.9% of the time. Now we're into the quarter finals. There's a clutch of very good players who could reasonably get the 8/9 seed, but we'll go with van Barneveld, who's currently in one of those slots. van Gerwen wins this 81.35% of the time though and we plow forward to the semi finals. Here, the toughest opponent is Adrian Lewis, but van Gerwen still wins this match 83.45% of the time. In the final, Anderson is the clear toughest opponent, but van Gerwen still projects to win that tie 69.42% of the time.

Multiply all of these percentages together, and you have van Gerwen taking the title slightly less than two times out of five. Thus it's a horrible bet. But what if we have the easiest run possible? Here we've got to be a bit more realistic in terms of projecting opponents - let's say that, at most, a seed can advance one round further than than expected, and we only play against a non-seed in round 1. We open up with Ronny Huybrechts where van Gerwen has a 98.35% shot of advancing. In round 2, we'll say that Robert Thornton continues to drop down the rankings and is overtaken by Whitlock, putting Thornton at the #16 seed (dartsdatabase right now puts Whitlock five grand down on Thornton, which has been cut by a third already today thanks to Thornton's first round exit and Whitlock is still alive in the last 16). Thornton goes out 94.34% of the time. Now to the quarter finals, for which it becomes a touch trickier, as we've got to use an 8 or 9 seed. Klaasen isn't that far behind Suljovic, it'd only take a Pro Tour win or a European Tour final to be within a couple of grand of overhauling him, so not unrealistic. van Gerwen takes this one on 95.67% of occasions (for reference, if you think that Klaasen can't catch Suljovic, Suljovic wouldn't even win 10% of games). To the semi finals, and we have number 5 seed James Wade, who van Gerwen defeats at an unbelievable 98.67% clip. Then, in the final, he'll play Peter Wright - who van Gerwen beats 86.95% of the time.

Multiply all those up and you get van Gerwen binking more than three times out of four. That looks like a much better bet, but that even with the easiest reasonable draw, it's nowhere near the automatic win that some people might think.

Will round up Milton Keynes tomorrow night - big weekend already for Chris Dobey in terms of Matchplay qualification by getting the European Tour qualification double, Clayton got one and is in the last 16 today, Henderson also qualified twice and added on another grand earlier today.

Monday 15 May 2017

Gibraltar aftermath

Well, I don't think anyone predicted Michael Smith claiming a fourth European Tour victory, but there you go - certainly rode his luck in some spots, but got over the line each time and gets a nice boost up the rankings to within a grand of my adjusted top 10. Good runs for Suljovic, getting back to his best form, Gurney with another deep run, and of course Magnus Caris making the final session from nowhere.

Best player performance: I'm giving this to Magnus Caris, while Smith is a good shout obviously, Caris was able to take out a Premier League player and a potential Premier League player, both in the adjusted top 10 as of today, a regional qualifier making the evening Sunday session is great work.

Best single match performance: Going to give it to Michael Smith against Rob Cross, three legs in under twelve, and he needed to do that with Cross averaging 106 in the legs he lost, an impressive standard.

Worst player performance: Could easily be Klaasen, but Caris did hit two twelves and a further two fifteens in their match, so it was going to take something quite good to prevent the Swede from winning, as such I'll give it to Wade - nobody else particularly stands out.

Worst single match performance: Mario Robbe could only get a 75 average in being whitewashed, but that was a big skill differential. Will go Bunting, while he should lose to Wright, he shouldn't get whitewashed.

New adjusted rankings:

1 Michael van Gerwen
2 Peter Wright
3 Gary Anderson
4 Dave Chisnall
5 James Wade
6 Raymond van Barneveld
7 Mensur Suljovic (UP 1)
8 Adrian Lewis (DOWN 1)
9 Jelle Klaasen
10 Benito van de Pas (UP 1)
11 Phil Taylor (DOWN 1)
12 Michael Smith (UP 6)
13 Kim Huybrechts (DOWN 1)
14 Simon Whitlock (DOWN 1)
15 Ian White (DOWN 1)
16 Gerwyn Price (DOWN 1)
17 Daryl Gurney
18 Alan Norris (DOWN 2)
19 Joe Cullen (UP 1)
20 Robert Thornton (DOWN 1)

Lower down, Terry Jenkins will be out of the top 25 soon, maybe even before those just below potentially add cash next weekend, James Wilson cracks the top 30, Dimitri van den Bergh is now in the top 45, Rob Cross is in the top 50 now. Darren Johnson is closing in on the top 60, Magnus Caris enters the top 70, while Martin Schindler enters the top 100 with Ratajski just a few hundred quid off that marker.

Sunday 14 May 2017

Gibraltar quarter finals and how good is Rob Cross

Nice win for Cross putting us close to a whole unit up for the tournament. This evening's quarter finals are as follows:

Wright/Johnson - Johnson's estimated at having less than a 12% chance of winning, I get him up to 11% to win before a deciding leg (these figures are from a new, fresh, up to the second table including this afternoon), with about 18% of legs getting to a decider. If he'd managed to beat Norris in more convincing fashion (Norris could have won any of the legs he lost just by finishing in fifteen darts) I might have a micro play, but he didn't, so I won't.

Smith/Cross - bookies have this evens for all intents and purposes. We're starting to get a decent sample on Cross now (more of which later), I'm up to over 60 legs won (by contrast Smith has twice as many) so I'm feeling confident enough on sample size. The calculator gives Smith as a good favourite - winning 44% before a last leg to Cross' 29%. Bearing in mind that all of the data on Cross comes from the UK Open and earlier, this seems representative of his current form, Smith I think is certainly playing well enough for this to be, if anything, an underestimate of his quality, so I think the Cross run ends here enough to bet - 0.5u Smith evs

Suljovic/Caris - Mensur is listed as an 80/20 favourite. Huge sample size problem for Caris in that we have this tournament and this tournament only, but I get Mensur at nearly 79% to win before we look at last leg wins. Caris is also really, really bad in the legs he doesn't win - averaging only 76. Suljovic is looking as good this weekend as he has done for a while so I think he continues a run here - 1u Suljovic 1/4

Wilson/Gurney - Daryl's about a 2/1 favourite, I have Wilson at 24% before a decider and Gurney at 50%. That's pretty much straight down the line, if it gets to a decider and they win the bull equally then there might be enough there for Wilson to be tiny value, but I'll leave this one.

So, Rob Cross. Already in my live top 50 after his victory over Chisnall, with the potential to climb another two places with just one win, he's taken the PDC by storm winning a title already and looking a cert for the Matchplay and all other major events in his first season. As mentioned, I now have over 60 legs of data when he is winning, and over 40 when he's losing. His stats are as follows:

Legs in 12 darts or less: 4.69%
Legs in 15 darts or less: 59.38%
Legs in 18 darts or less: 92.19%
Average when losing: 92.05

Straight off the bat, apart from being 0.03% behind on twelve darters, he beats Glen Durrant in every single category. The twelve dart finish is actually quite a low stat, but not necessarily a terminal one, there's plenty of high class players in single digits including Kyle Anderson (9.68%), Benito van de Pas (8.65%), James Wade (7.66%) and Alan Norris (6.54%), but nobody of note below 5%. There's only two players in the entire top 32 that are below that figure, Brendan Dolan (on 4.29%) and Justin Pipe (down on 1.49%). This could become an issue when running into a good player and he absolutely needs to break and the opponent will be killing in fifteen darts.

On the 15 dart percentage, this is a lot better, at just short of 60% he's easily in the top 20 in the database that has a good sample size, within 1% of Michael Smith, Jelle Klaasen, Daryl Gurney, Gerwyn Price and Joe Cullen, not a bad group of players to be among.

On the 18 dart percentage, he's not messing up too many legs at all, this is a better figure than Wade, van de Pas, Lewis, White etc, but it's the losing average which is really outstanding - this is in the top 10 of the whole database of players who've lost at least 20 legs, behind only the four that are at the O2 this Thursday (who are ranked 1-4 on this stat), Barney, Chisnall, Lewis and Suljovic. This indicates that he will be pushing opponents hard consistently - and in terms of consistency, it is within a tenth of a point of what he is doing when he wins the leg. If he can just convert one of every ten legs he finishes in five visits into one he finishes in four, then we're talking Premier League quality. Not easy to do, but the potential is there.

Gibraltar round 3

Klaasen should roll Caris, whoops. Still, a good day, nicely in profit thanks to Darren Johnson mostly, that more than covered the losing bets leaving White to add bonus money. Of the losses, Clark took it to a deciding leg so I'm absolutely fine with that, Clayton also did better than the line suggests but wasn't able to get the one extra hold or break that he needed. The less said about Beaton the better but it looks like Whitlock did some good stuff on the other end so I think even if Beaton doesn't average 86 and miss a stack of doubles he still loses.

Today:

Bunting's less than a 20% shot against Wright, this seems fine, in all the legs he lost yesterday he had the opportunity to win them in 15 darts, Wright will not be allowing those opportunities and will not be allowing Bunting to win 3/4 of his first won legs in over 15. If he plays like he finished, then maybe there's a chance?

Johnson's shorter today against Norris, understandable given that Price is playing better than Norris right now (and I have him ranked ahead, I guess the official rankings don't yet). I think it's slightly too short to bet Johnson, he's a live dog but I don't think it's enough to want to take a bit at 7/4.

Dimitri van den Bergh is in the same spot price wise against Michael Smith, Smith played fantastic in the first half of the Kist match, and didn't drop off too much later on, it was more Kist coming back and playing better. Dimitri edged out Wade having survived match darts, but I think he'd need to step up or Smith drop off to win here, both can happen but I wouldn't bet on it.

Rob Cross on the other hand shouldn't be more than 2/1 against anyone that isn't a top 3 player over a short race right now. Chisnall's at number 4 as I see it, and his low average yesterday was down to two things - some legs where he missed multiple doubles (standard), and others where he lost his scoring completely. Clayton was able to punish most of them but wasn't good enough to step up in the extra leg he needed where Chisnall wasn't chucking nails, Cross probably is - 0.25u Cross 9/4

Reyes had a cracking comeback win over Richardson yesterday and is a 2/1 dog against Suljovic in a match where the winner could easily go on to reach the final. Reyes wasn't playing badly in going 4-0 down, although he did miscount badly once and miss doubles in another, but powered back strongly. Suljovic was a fifteen dart machine yesterday in a performance which looked pretty by first level statistics, play like that and Reyes doesn't stand a chance.

Caris produced the shock of the round by knocking out Klaasen, and looking good doing so with two twelve dart legs, and being left on double in every leg he lost. Benito easily dealt with Schindler without really getting out of first gear, the first leg was a comedy double missing fest, and he was allowed more than fifteen darts to win three further legs. It's almost long enough to consider betting Caris, but not quite. 7/2 no, if it was 9/2 probably.

Wilson/White is around 65/35 in favour of White, who got gifted a break yesterday to lead 3-1, couldn't clean off for 4-1 having left 121 after 9 darts, then held out from there, slotting in a break at 4-3 for insurance. Wilson took down Huybrechts winning four straight legs having been broken at 2-2 and then had an 11 darter chucked at him on throw, apart from that one leg he was never threatened on throw, but was gifted the break back he needed and the insurance break to close the game out. White shouldn't allow those chances, but may not be able to pressure enough to challenge the Wilson throw as much as needed to bet.

Whitlock/Gurney has the Aussie installed as a marginal favourite, Gurney was playing well through to about 3-3, then didn't need to do anything as well he took his foot off the gas, Webster applied the handbrake. Whitlock we mentioned above, I think this will be as close as advertised and a great paced match to end the session.

Saturday 13 May 2017

Gibraltar day 2

Day 1 is in the books, let's see what I like on day 2:

- The Reyes and Gurney lines look close enough to right to not consider
- Clark at 7/2 vs Norris is an interesting one, he wasn't bad when he ran into Chisnall in god mode last weekend, and had some good legs mixed in with some bad legs in winning yesterday. I think there might be value given Norris hasn't exactly been setting the tour on fire, especially in Europe. We only need 23% to bet here and I think we have enough, so 0.25u Clark 7/2
- Benito should be fine against Schindler, there were just way too many long legs from Martin yesterday to consider betting
- Quantock, while he's looked alright when I have seen him, didn't do enough yesterday to make me think he's on top form, which I think against Bunting I think he'll need, if he did a bit more I'd probably bet Quantock as Bunting's been incredibly unconvincing for a while now
- Klaasen should roll Caris
- Kist's a strange one, he got some good holds but then allowed Huybrechts to break with relative ease in others, very inconsistent. I don't think that he can pull together enough good legs to win enough against Smith
- Cullen/Cross is a pick'em game, which looks about right
- Johnson had some good fifteen dart legs against Vilerio, should have had another in the one leg that he lost, Price is a step up but we're being spotted decent odds, I think he can get there enough so 0.25u Johnson 13/5
- Huge opportunity for Suljovic this weekend, so I can't see him messing up against Tabern, who I don't think played well enough for long enough to truly threaten
- Chisnall, as mentioned a few times, is on great form, but 1/5 against Clayton? If Clayton misses doubles like he did yesterday then I think that it could be accurate, but I'm not sure that he does that again, and Chisnall was a bit of a clown show in the Premier League, at least until Wade got to match point and he remembered how to play. Very small bet here, 0.1u Clayton 5/1
- Ratajski at 9/1 vs Wright is nearly tempting, but I can't see Wright tripping up here
- Wade's over a 75% favourite against van den Bergh, who was pretty sloppy in round one but still won 6-2, Dimitri could turn up and cause the upset, but I doubt it's enough to bet
- Wilson didn't really start yesterday until he was 2-1 up, if he does that today he's probably 3-0 down instead, 89 average with no help from his opponent isn't as bad as it sounds but Wilson did hit 6/10 doubles, I think he can't win enough times here.
- Hendo only had two good legs yesterday - a fifteen darter which he rescued with a 170 kill, and a twelve darter to break and lead 5-3. White's been playing well over the past month and should capitalise on the up and down game of the Scot - 1u White 4/11
- Whitlock/Beaton has, if Beaton plays like he did yesterday, the potential to be closer than the linemakers suggest, this looks like a decent value play against the Aussie who was bad on the last Pro Tour weekend, and looked OK last week when running into Cross but nothing like peak Whitlock - 0.25u Beaton 9/4

Friday 12 May 2017

121 out, early Gibraltar thoughts

Another weekend, another European Tour event. With the severely depleted field (no MvG, Anderson, Taylor or van Barneveld we knew about, Lewis dropped out yesterday) it's open season for this title. Obviously Wright is a big favourite, but he's in the same half as both Chisnall and Wade (although neither is in Wright's quarter), so there's great opportunities in the other half - Suljovic and Klaasen being the only players in the adjusted top 10 to be in that side of the draw (although numbers 11 through 14 are as well). Come to think of it, why the hell is it being held in Gibraltar? Surely Spain would be a much better bet when it comes to both growing the game and in terms of quality of player making it through - Reyes is seeded here but Alcinas and Rodriguez have both shown they can compete at a much higher level than any Gibraltan has ever done, Barbero's no mug either, giving them a shot would surely be better. Of course, the PDC is sponsored entirely by bookmakers, most of which fled to the Rock once the internet became a thing, so it's probably just an excuse for the PDC to nice them up or something.

Saw no bets I liked this morning. Keep an eye out tomorrow morning or later today for round 2.

So, a 121 out. Should we go treble first or bull first? Let's assign similar probabilities as we did when analysing the 135 - no bounceouts, no missed big numbers, hit trebles 1 out of 3, doubles 2 out of 5, and when shooting at bull we hit 1 in 5 and also miss completely 1 in 5.

Warning - lots of maths follows

Going treble first - a third of the time we leave 61 by hitting treble 20. Here, if we hit treble 11, we are either out or leave a shot at double. If we hit single eleven, we are out if we hit bull, or leave single for double most of the time, either by hitting 25, or hitting any other single number that isn't a large enough even number to get below 40. This gives:

Out: 2/45 (T20/T11/D14) plus 2/45 (T20/11/bull) = 4/45
On a double: 3/45 (T20/T11/miss) plus 1/75 (T20/11/even miss 10 or over) = 2/25
On single for double: 37/225 (T20/11/anything that isn't bull, 10, 12 etc)

The other two thirds of the time we leave 101, and go treble 17. Here, we either hit and have the same bull scenarios listed above, or miss and then go back upstairs and leave either a double or something in the 61-80 range (can go 16's to try to leave 36 if blocked, it doesn't change the equation). This gives:

Out: 2/45 (20/T17/bull)
On a double: 1/75 (20/T17/large even number) plus 4/27 (20, 17, T20) = 109/675
On single for double: 37/225 (20/T17/anything that isn't bull, 10, 12 etc)
On 61-80: 8/27 (20/17/20)

So in total, going treble first:

Out: 13.33%
On a double: 24.15%
On single for double: 32.89%
On 61-80: 29.63%

Now let's go bull first. If we hit the bull, we are either:

Out: 2/75 (bull/T13/D16)
On a double: 13/75 (bull/any other two dart combo)

If we hit 25, we are either:

Out: 2/25 (25/T20/D18)
On a double: 3/25 (25/T20/miss) plus 2/15 (25/20/T20) = 19/75
On single for double: 4/15 (25/20/20)

If we miss completely, it gets quite sketchy as there become lots of permutations, so let's be careful. Four misses don't actually kill us as they leave 101, 104, 107 or 110 so if we hit one of those we have:

Out: 1/375 (20, 17 etc/Tsomething/bull)
On a double: 1/1250 (20, 17 etc/Tsomething/big even number) plus 2/225 (20, 17 etc/miss treble/hit treble) = 109/11250
On single for double: 37/3750 (20, 17 etc/Tsomething/anything that isn't bull, 10, 12 etc)
On 61-80: 4/225 (20, 17 etc/miss treble/miss treble)

If we hit 2 to leave 119, this is the only shot which doesn't leave a fat number to leave a double if we hit a treble, assuming we go 19 first, so this leaves:

On a double: 1/900 (2/T19/T10) plus 2/900 (2/19/T20) = 1/300
On single for double: 2/900 (2/T19/10)
On 61-80: 4/900 (2/19/20)

The rest of the permutations don't give us a shot, but all give us a dart at a double with exactly one treble. Thus we have:

61-80: 1/15 (random big number/miss treble/miss treble)
On a double: 1/12 (random big number/hit one treble in two darts)

Sum all that wall of figured together, and we get:

Out: 10.93%
On a double: 52.30%
On single for double: 27.88%
On 61-80: 8.89%

Cliffs: going bull first goes out 2.4% less often, or 1 in 40 legs, but leaves us on a double more than twice as often if we don't, giving us an extra dart next visit much, much more frequently.

Monday 8 May 2017

Euro Tour 4 aftermath

Congrats to Peter Wright on yet another win this year, and in amazing style with the whitewash over Michael van Gerwen. But what awards will we give?

Best player performance: I'm going to give this to Dave Chisnall. Four twelve darters in his opening game, another two in round three over Adrian Lewis, another over Cross and another against van Gerwen, who he only just lost 6-5 to, with MvG averaging over 110 in the legs Chisnall won, so great pressuring there. Pity he couldn't finish the second leg in the eighteen darts van Gerwen let him have, or hold the decider in fifteen, as I think he'd have given Wright a great game.

Best single match performance: Going to be hard to beat Wright in the final. Dekker against Wilson played some good stuff with two twelves, all but one leg in under fifteen and over 100 average when losing legs, van Gerwen in the semi final was also excellent as mentioned above. Don't want to give two things to Chisnall, his opening game would probably have taken it if he hadn't got quite so far in the tournament in such a consistent manner.

Worst player performance: I'll go for Reyes here. Ceder isn't a complete bunny, but to only win three legs (only one being in fifteen or less) and average 82 in the ones you lose? That's not good for a seed. When, on throw, your opponent starts with a 3 and you still lose the leg... Wade is close, he really should finish Webster off from the position he had, given Mark was really sluggish in the opening round.

Worst single match performance: There's only the one 6-0 all tournament, but van Gerwen didn't exactly play badly. Beaton against Ceder probably, Clemens was statistically worse but probably would expect to lose.

Looking to the majors, Dekker's done himself no harm but probably needs one more big run to be in real Matchplay contention, Ratajski's also looking solid for the European Championship with another grand in the bag. The current lineup for the latter has a great range of players in terms of countries represented, but there's an awful lot of time for that to change.

New adjusted rankings, and a big change:

1 Michael van Gerwen
2 Peter Wright (UP 1)
3 Gary Anderson (DOWN 1)
4 Dave Chisnall
5 James Wade
6 Raymond van Barneveld
7 Adrian Lewis
8 Mensur Suljovic
9 Jelle Klaasen
10 Phil Taylor
11 Benito van de Pas (UP 1)
12 Kim Huybrechts (DOWN 1)
13 Simon Whitlock
14 Ian White
15 Gerwyn Price
16 Alan Norris
17 Daryl Gurney
18 Michael Smith
19 Robert Thornton
20 Joe Cullen

For reference, Rob Cross is within four grand of the top 50.

Sunday 7 May 2017

Things can only get Dekker

Well that was embarrassing, after Dekker got us off to a great start, Benito nearly cocked it up then both Wade and Smith got the breaks they needed and threw them away, each losing 6-5 in a decider. van den Bergh and van Duijvenbode couldn't really get close but that's well within the range of expected results, Ratajski was able to keep it on throw up to 4-3 so I'm fine with that. End result is that all the gains from round 1 have been given back already, sigh. Today:

Suljovic is a 60/40 favourite over Cullen, who looked very good against Clayton. Suljovic did what he needed to, he's the better player and while I wouldn't be surprised with him getting turned over, I think that it doesn't quite happen often enough to bet.

Klaasen-Webster is around the same line, Webster really wasn't firing that great yesterday, it's more that Wade was worse and missed his shots. Klaasen faced a sub-75 average van Duijvenbode, and won 6-2 while only winning one leg in under 15 darts, so wasn't exactly on top form either. Leaving it alone.

Huybrechts-Dekker sees Kim around a 70% favourite, Dekker didn't need to throw too many good legs to overcome Norris, while Huybrechts was clicking late. Think this may be a game too far for Jan.

Wright is 75/25 against Gurney, Gurney had some good legs against Henderson but I don't think he produces enough of them that it's worth a bet either way - Wright should win but it's a bit short against a competent opponent.

Cross is a small favourite over West, this seems fine, could see this going either way.

Chisnall is similar against Lewis - Chizzy was lights out yesterday with four (!) twelve darters, while Lewis got through in a close one against White, dropping an 11 darter to break at 4-4 and following it up with solid play. Think that Chizzy wins a close one, as the market has it close I'll leave it alone.

Benito is only a small favourite against Price, and wasn't too convincing against Murnan, surviving a match dart and not throwing well at all for the first half of the game. Price was a mix of fifteens and over fifteens, just getting the one break in six visits which was enough. Can't see overwhelming value.

van Gerwen ends Ceder's run, end of.

Bets before the final session seem unlikely with me prioritising United/Arsenal, so that's it for the weekend, but I should be back later with a roundup.

Saturday 6 May 2017

Euro Tour 4 round 2

Ahhhhh, that's much better. Doesn't always work out as well as that, as we've seen previously, but it is very nice when it happens. Round 2 starting within the hour so let's get going:

Norris/Dekker - Norris hasn't really done a huge deal since the UK Open, but he's still installed as around a 65/35 favourite. There might be small Dekker value here, he was really on point yesterday, I'll punt it - 0.25u Dekker 15/8

Reyes/Ceder - Ulf pulled out a huge shock and is much shorter odds today against a better player, although that may be lack of information - Ceder won most of his legs in fifteen darts, which is a solid showing. There's enough here to think Reyes isn't an auto win, so no bet.

Klaasen/van Duijvenbode - Dirk's looked alright this year, and we're getting very good odds. More importantly, he seems to have solidified mentally, previously if he had blown a 4-0 lead like yesterday he would lose the match, but he got over the line. Small value here - 0.25u van Duijvenbode 27/10

Whitlock/Cross - Cross looked solid yesterday, and Whitlock had a bad weekend last time out. Can't blame any Cross bettors at 6/4, but I'll look at form over more than one weekend and leave it alone.

Chisnall/Clark - Chizzy way too short and I don't see Clark doing enough to bet at 7/1.

Cullen/Clayton - I know Cullen's been a bit hit and miss recently, but Clayton wouldn't be 6/4 if it wasn't for recent form. If Cullen had been a touch more solid over the past few weeks I'd fire on him, but he hasn't, so I can't really bet.

van de Pas/Murnan - Murnan opened up with a couple of fifteen darters then dragged himself over the line averaging only 85, that's not great form and Benito is off the back of one of the tournaments of his life. I like his chances even given the big odds on here - 1u van de Pas 3/8

Huybrechts/Hopp - Max was very hit and miss yesterday, finishing off with two four visit legs to seal the game, but missing clumps of doubles. Kim should punish that but is too short and Hopp may well throw enough good legs to creep home.

Wade/Webster - Webster didn't look good yesterday, uncharacteristic bad finishing, scoring not really there to compensate. Wade is a good price here - 1u Wade 2/5

Price/van den Bergh - Dimitri had a good comeback win and seems to be playing well, Price isn't that much of a step up from King, not enough for me to think that Dimitri can't grab this one time in three - 0.25u van den Bergh 2/1

Smith/West - West wasn't missing a thing on doubles but still only averaged 90, he's too short here against a Smith who made a tour semi just last weekend. Smith, even if he misses some doubles, should get enough of them to get home anyway - 1u Smith 4/6

Gurney/Henderson - Hendo started OK but then let Meulenkamp get into the match way too easily, a fifteen darter (on double 1 lol) on throw in the decider was good, but I think Gurney will be clinical enough. Not so much to bet at 2/5 though.

Suljovic/Ratajski - Is this really an 80/20 game? Ratajski really put the afterburners on after a sluggish opening and ended with an average just shy of the ton, seems much closer than the odds suggest - 0.25u Ratajski 39/10

Wright/Richardson - James doesn't have enough to win but Wright is too short to really consider betting.

van Gerwen/Brown - MvG is 1/20 and Brown averaged 86, no prizes for guessing what happens here.

White/Lewis - probably the most intriguing game of the night, Lewis rolled Bunting easily and should be better today, White won't be without chances but I'm not sure if 2/1 is enough to punt.

Friday 5 May 2017

Euro Tour 4 round 1

Have a few minutes before work to look at the odds. Max Hopp qualified, wow

0.25u Ratajski 10/11 vs Lennon, I'm not all that convinced about Lennon at this stage, Ratajski was playing well enough to do the triple qualification from Eastern Europe last weekend and we have enough on the Pole at this stage to know he's competent.

0.5u Richardson 8/15 vs Rowley, I was bigging Rowley up a couple of posts ago for having a good weekend, but Richardson should be too good here enough of the time if he has the slightest bit of consistency.

0.5u Clark 8/11 vs Berndt, Clark's hanging around in my live top 90 and has plenty of experience and this seems too long against a domestic qualifier.

0.25u Clayton 10/11 vs Kist, Clayton was white hot last weekend, while I think this is close normally I'm thinking the form differential is enough that the Welshman gets home enough to make it a bet.

0.25u Dekker 11/10 vs Wilson, Dekker reached a Pro Tour semi final last weekend, while Wilson has had quite the poor start to the year. Dekker should win this one at least half the time.

Considering Lerchbacher and Lewis, if it weren't for Lewis travelling having played last night I'd probably fire on him for sure.

Thursday 4 May 2017

Matchplay Qualification Race

Going to try to project the qualifiers. Would say that all of the top 16 seeds as of right now (which is the 1-14 from the adjusted rankings in the previous post plus Smith and Thornton) are safe, either mathematically as a seed or because they easily have enough in the bank from the Pro Tour to qualify if they slip out of the top 16. Will also say that the top 8 on the Pro Tour right now (Norris, Price, Gurney, Cullen, King, Bunting, Reyes and West) are safe as well - there's over a seven grand drop from West to Wilson who's currently ninth, and West is nearly fifteen grand above the current cutoff value. Which leaves eight spots. I've considered everyone who is within 10k of the current cutoff point (excepting Terry Jenkins, as he's seemingly retired, anyone more than a whole Pro Tour win behind already isn't catching up barring miracles) and extrapolated what their winnings should be as follows:

- Taking their current data from Burton's standings (https://twitter.com/bsd987/status/858724094791081986), which include mincashes from the Euro Tour 4/5 if they've made it

- From the Pro Tour (six events remaining), I've taken their average winnings from the Pro Tour so far this year, and averaged it with the average winnings from the UK Open Qualifiers, assuming they paid out the same amounts, weighting it 2:1 in favour of the Pro Tour as it's more recent and a larger sample size.

- From the European Tour (five events remaining), I've looked at how many games on average a player wins once they get in from their last five events, then looked at how often they have qualified and used that as a marker. Work out how many they get in to on average going forwards, then multiply that by how much they win - so if they've won a total of three games in their last five appearances, I'd credit them with £1,600 for each time they make it. For the Euros, this extrapolates across the five remaining events as they haven't had any of the qualifiers for them yet (one is tonight), for the UK based players, I've scored for ET4/5 separately based on how often they win, but only if they've qualified for it, otherwise they obviously get zero, for ET6-8 I've projected the same as the European players.

Two quick notes - for Rob Cross, I've used an average of winning 1.5 games each time he makes a European Tour event - I'm not using a sample size of one event where he won three games, getting through the first round then beating a seed half the time seems like a reasonable adjustment. For Dimitri van den Bergh, as he missed one of the Euro qualifiers (not sure why as it was on the same night as another one he did play in - would guess the main event clashed with a Development Tour weekend or something), I've said that one he didn't take part in would be a loss, so he's qualified for 2/3. He might easily prioritise other events again and not take part in all of them, plus saying he'll definitely qualify for all five remaining events may skew the data.

So who are the last eight:

Rob Cross 46750
James Wilson 41083
Steve Beaton 38757
Kyle Anderson 36540
Christian Kist 35210
Ronny Huybrechts 35084
Darren Webster 32327
Chris Dobey 32220
----------------------
John Henderson 31623
Jonny Clayton 31193
Justin Pipe 30927
Robbie Green 30463
Jermaine Wattimena 28000
Mark Webster 27523
James Richardson 26393
Jan Dekker 25916
Dimitri van den Bergh 24334
Jeffrey de Graaf 23784
Vincent van der Voort 23700
Kevin Painter 21260
Rowby John Rodriguez 21262

So it is, er, the exact same eight making it that are listed in Burton's tweet that I link to above. What a pointless exercise. But it should give you an idea on form who's closing the gap on form better than others.

Getting bets up for round 1 of Sindelfingen seems unlikely. Round 2 seems more realistic, watch on Friday evening/Saturday morning for plays.

Monday 1 May 2017

Players Championship 9/10, Euro qualifiers

Seems like somewhat of a standard weekend with the world numbers 1 and 2 picking up the titles, but there's a fair bit underneath to have a look at underneath, so let's go:

Performance of the weekend - There's an awful lot of contenders for this. I'll mention Ratajski before I start as he's qualified for another three of the European Tour events, adding three grand guaranteed to the five he already has in the book means he doesn't need to do too much to qualify for the European Championship - it only took £8,500 to make it last year, although there are a couple of extra events this time around, slightly offset by seeds not getting ranking points if they bust in round 2. One win or another qualification should do it. Over here, Robbie Green made a semi final and backed it up with a last 16 run, but busted the two Euro qualifiers. Jonny Clayton made a quarter and the last 16, and was able to qualify for both of the Euro events, which is a bit better if you ask me. Nicholson picked up 1500 quid and qualified for one event, Hudson picked up a grand in each Pro Tour event, which was bettered by Jon Worsley, getting a last 32 and a quarter final. Simon Preston had a last 16 run and cashed the other event, Paul Rowley also managed to cash both events (including a win over Peter Wright) and see off Robert Thornton to qualify for Sindelfingen. Matt Clark did the qualifying double and got 1500 quid including a win over Whitlock, so deserves some credit as well. With nobody up top putting together two really deep runs I'm looking deeper, and I'll go for Jonny Clayton. 6-0 in both of the Euro qualifier finals and picking up nearly four grand before running into Adrian Lewis and Gary Anderson is a great return and sees him solidify his spot in my live adjusted top 50, gaining a couple of spots in the process with the potential to get more over the next two weekend, Josh Payne being very much in his sights to hit the top 45.

Best tournament performance - Thornton from nowhere to reach a final is an obvious choice, as he's played so bad over the last 18 months, but his level of opposition wasn't the greatest, as it's all kind of dangerous players, but ones he should beat - Steve Lennon and Ryan Searle leading the new card holder charge, Bowles can occasionally be a threat, Gilding is equally out of form, and de Decker isn't anything special. If the highest ranked player you beat is Robbie Green, then I'll look to alternatives. Green's semi final run wasn't too hot, he beat Suljovic in round 2 but aside from that, at least on current form, the best he beat was Darren Johnson. Mike de Decker probably had the best Saturday run, dropping no legs before round 3 where he beat Gurney and then won 6-2 over Edhouse. Let's look at Sunday - Steve West might be close, Jamie Lewis isn't the easiest round 1 opponent, Henderson isn't the easiest round 2 opponent, then you had Michael/Green/Norris before he ran into Anderson. I think it has to go to one of the tournament winners - Anderson beat both of the other two in the top 3 and dropped just five legs in the other five matches, while van Gerwen beat Lewis and Anderson, dropping seven legs in the other five games. I'll go for Anderson here.

Best single match performance - Darren Johnson 6-1 over Chisnall is a contender, Worsley managed to turn over Whitlock, Rowley over Wright is also a good shout. I think the Rowley win over Wright just takes it, with none of the top 3 losing to anyone outside of it other than this game, I think that's good enough.

Worst weekend long performance - Looking down the rankings, Barney took the weekend off (that I'm going to play everything didn't last too long), Taylor did as well, in the top 10 Wade had a shocker, beating Rob Hewson before losing 6-1 to John Bowles, then losing a first round deciding leg match against Ted Evetts. Huybrechts just outside also fared poorly, but at least his first round loss was to Rob Cross. The second round loss was to Ryan Searle though. Whitlock was poor, having a pair of opening round losses to Matt Clark and Jon Worsley, Bunting lost opening round games to Tabern and Payne, but at least qualified for the one Euro event he needed to, Webster also busted twice in round 1 to Murnan and Rowley, and busted one of the Euro qualifiers to Aden Kirk. Caven continues to bring the comedy, being swept by Clayton, losing to Andrew Gilding, and being denied in both Euro qualifiers by Matt Clark and Matthew Dennant, but this is expected of him now. Got to go to Whitlock, purely because he is in form and those losses are so unexpected.

Worst single tournament performance - Peter Wright when he went out in the last 64 is the only answer here.

This week I'm probably going to put up some thoughts on the 121 out, and maybe look at the Matchplay race a little, as it's getting quite tight for a lot of players.

Current adjusted top 20:

1 Michael van Gerwen
2 Gary Anderson
3 Peter Wright
4 Dave Chisnall (UP 1)
5 James Wade (DOWN 1)
6 Raymond van Barneveld
7 Adrian Lewis
8 Mensur Suljovic
9 Jelle Klaasen
10 Phil Taylor
11 Kim Huybrechts
12 Benito van de Pas
13 Simon Whitlock
14 Ian White
15 Gerwyn Price
16 Alan Norris
17 Daryl Gurney
18 Michael Smith
19 Robert Thornton
20 Joe Cullen