Friday 30 June 2017

Leverkusen - lack of updates

FRH Towers has suffered an internet crash of apocalyptic levels, so any analysis or bets will, if they appear at all, be extremely brief and to the point. The master computer expects to be back online on Monday, so hopefully I can get a round up posted in decent time.

Monday 26 June 2017

The FRH performance index

As I have half an hour before an incredibly critical appointment to see a man about a dog, I thought I'd crunch some numbers on the stats that I've mentioned a few times, namely how quickly someone finished in four, five or six visits, and what they average when they're losing. I've taken the top 50 in the official rankings and added anyone in my top 50 that isn't there (which is just Rob Cross instead of Ricky Evans) and assigned the following points.

The first table gives 45 points for the highest scorer in each category, and scales it down so that scoring zero would get you zero. The second table, which I think is more useful, gives you 45 points if you are the highest scorer in a category, and zero points for whatever the lowest scorer has, scaled linearly in between. I think this is better, as at least on the last two categories it's really easy to score some sort of decent tally. For aesthetics, the perfect score as a result would be 180. So, without further ado, here's the figures, firstly for zero score = zero points:

1 Michael van Gerwen 179.52
2 Gary Anderson 167.89
3 Raymond van Barneveld 156.50
4 Adrian Lewis 153.33
5 Phil Taylor 152.01
6 Peter Wright 150.51
7 Kim Huybrechts 149.91
8 Dave Chisnall 147.36
9 Mensur Suljovic 144.53
10 Michael Smith 144.50
11 Vincent van der Voort 142.12
12 Cristo Reyes 137.35
13 Simon Whitlock 137.04
14 Mervyn King 136.48
15 Darren Webster 136.27
16 Jelle Klaasen 135.38
17 Joe Cullen 135.25
18 Ian White 134.13
19 Robbie Green 133.31
20 Robert Thornton 132.75
21 Daryl Gurney 132.40
22 Kyle Anderson 131.25
23 Benito van de Pas 130.06
24 Steve Beaton 129.85
25 Gerwyn Price 128.66
26 James Wade 127.04
27 Alan Norris 126.91
28 Stephen Bunting 126.76
29 Rob Cross 126.23
30 Ricky Evans 124.75
31 Terry Jenkins 124.75
32 John Henderson 124.58
33 Chris Dobey 122.79
34 Dimitri van den Bergh 122.64
35 Jonny Clayton 122.50
36 Joe Murnan 121.56
37 Brendan Dolan 121.10
38 James Wilson 119.38
39 Steve West 119.01
40 Jermaine Wattimena 118.05
41 Max Hopp 117.75
42 Christian Kist 117.04
43 Mark Webster 116.65
44 Ronny Huybrechts 116.42
45 Jamie Lewis 115.68
46 Kevin Painter 112.87
47 Rowby John Rodriguez 110.33
48 Justin Pipe 107.34
49 Josh Payne 105.32
50 Jamie Caven 105.18
51 Andrew Gilding 100.88

Secondly, for lowest score = zero points:

1 Michael van Gerwen 177.12
2 Gary Anderson 165.30
3 Raymond van Barneveld 143.46
4 Phil Taylor 143.07
5 Peter Wright 139.33
6 Adrian Lewis 129.64
7 Mensur Suljovic 126.43
8 Dave Chisnall 121.81
9 Kim Huybrechts 117.41
10 Michael Smith 116.04
11 Simon Whitlock 110.99
12 Cristo Reyes 109.32
13 Vincent van der Voort 106.69
14 Mervyn King 102.72
15 Darren Webster 102.11
16 Joe Cullen 102.01
17 Daryl Gurney 101.44
18 Ian White 98.18
19 Benito van de Pas 97.24
20 Robbie Green 96.55
21 Ricky Evans 96.39
22 Rob Cross 96.36
23 Jelle Klaasen 94.77
24 James Wade 91.58
25 Gerwyn Price 90.41
26 Kyle Anderson 87.97
27 Steve Beaton 87.67
28 Stephen Bunting 85.21
29 Alan Norris 81.97
30 Robert Thornton 80.61
31 Dimitri van den Bergh 77.87
32 Jonny Clayton 74.56
33 Chris Dobey 74.37
34 James Wilson 73.41
35 Terry Jenkins 73.29
36 Brendan Dolan 72.68
37 Mark Webster 68.42
38 John Henderson 67.95
39 Christian Kist 67.30
40 Steve West 65.80
41 Joe Murnan 62.47
42 Jermaine Wattimena 61.59
43 Jamie Lewis 61.09
44 Ronny Huybrechts 59.67
45 Max Hopp 58.15
46 Rowby John Rodriguez 49.73
47 Justin Pipe 48.86
48 Kevin Painter 48.54
49 Josh Payne 47.98
50 Jamie Caven 23.13
51 Andrew Gilding 13.51

Sunday 25 June 2017

Quick Austria roundup

Very fast as I need to be up in the morning to fund my beer bill:

Best player performance: Giving this to Joe Cullen. van Gerwen today was possibly the best we've seen, but Cullen's game was absolutely on point, and a semi-final slotting in more or less everything within fifteen darts, getting plenty of twelves and ending well north of 105 against Huybrechts is a great weekend given the talent on show.

Best single match performance: While Viljanen against Wright might be an obvious shout for this, I'm going to Michael van Gerwen in the semi final against Reyes. Three legs in twelve darts or better, another two in fifteen, the only leg he lost he was on 40 after twelve darts, it's really, really hard to do much better than that. Reyes against Gurney is worth a mention, King and Bain have also had solid games throughout the weekend.

Worst player performance: Stephen Bunting getting seeded to this and then not winning a leg against Chris Dobey, who while he played some good stuff this weekend, hasn't exactly been in form, has to be the winner.

Worst single match performance: Rob Cross, while getting everything on the other end of the scale, needs this against Klaasen, while Jelle winning wouldn't be out of the ordinary, doing it 6-0 while averaging south of 95 and only getting half your legs in fifteen darts is certainly a huge surprise. He did at least grind out a win against Andy Jenkins otherwise he might be swapped with Bunting in the previous category. Cullen's semi final was very disappointing, averaging sub 70 in losing legs and only getting a couple of the legs he did through Smith missed doubles isn't the best.

Ended up dropping just under a quarter of a unit for this event, I'm fine with all the bets I made, people underperforming and running into players on top form happens and is factored in to what I'm looking at.

Current adjusted top 20:

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

Austria quarter finals

Well those bets were unfortunate, can't help but feel that Bain let that one slip, holding well enough to 3-2 up then lets Schindler win the rest in six visits, the critical one being on his throw - the twelve darter, while nice, was just to hold which loses a fair chunk of the effect. Cullen was just lights out and Huybrechts did well just to keep it that close.

Quarter finals are up in less than two hours:

Michael van Gerwen/Martin Schindler - Schindler took a couple of legs in the World Cup against MvG, but still lost, this is a longer race and the odds makers have van Gerwen at 1/25, I've got him winning before a deciding leg over 95% of the time, with Schindler doing the same less than 1% of the time - Schindler at this stage has over a 50 winning leg sample which is big enough.

Daryl Gurney/Cristo Reyes - Big opportunity for either of these, neither of which will think this is just a final, Gurney is priced up around a 60/40 favourite. This seems too much, they've played very, very similarly, and on historical data I have this going the distance over one in four games, with Reyes taking a slight bit more of everything else. I think there's enough edge here to play, but I'll go small - 0.25u Reyes 11/8

Kim Viljanen/Joe Cullen - Cullen's a 3-1 favourite, this looks to be very much down the middle of what I have from all stats - if Cullen plays like he did against Huybrechts I really don't see Viljanen being able to cope, who was able to ease past Dobey finishing only two legs in under fifteen darts, a big drop from the performance against Peter Wright.

Michael Smith/Mervyn King - Smith's installed as about a 65/35 favourite, ignoring Stan James' rogue line which offers an arb but Stan James paying out on it is really unlikely, I'll ignore it, and I have this as closer - King's up at 32% before 5-5 with Smith at 42%, so a fair chunk should go all the way and winning the throw could be key, but King's simply played better this weekend - all legs under fifteen in round two, including a twelve, then four from six in fifteen in round three, compared to Smith's four from six in fifteen (incorporating one twelve) in round two and only two out of six in under fifteen darts against Klaasen - Klaasen let Smith hold throw in seven visits twice and seemed out of sorts. King's taken out the home favourite and Smith is no harder than Suljovic, so I'll go for the best price that we're likely to get paid on - 0.25u King 15/8

No chance of bets before the semis/finals, write up should follow this evening.

Saturday 24 June 2017

Austria last 16

Was only able to get one bet up for yesterday, but at least it worked - I suppose the big thing is that results have really opened up the tournament - van Gerwen looks as close as a lock as you can get to reach the semis, while the corresponding quarter is all seeds, meanwhile on the other side Peter Wright's elimination opens things up primarily for Mensur Suljovic, who had one of the standout performances of today, but for a bunch of other players - there's nothing to say that Viljanen can't beat Chris Dobey and reach the final session on this form, while Huybrechts, Cullen, Klaasen, Smith and King are all players who are capable of reaching a final. Let's go through the bracket:

Michael van Gerwen/Vincent van der Meer - Stupid odds obviously, van Gerwen didn't look on top form against Kallinger, but didn't need to be, performing at the sort of level that van der Meer has been this weekend, won't be touching this but it's hard to see how van Gerwen doesn't kick things up and advance easily.

Jamie Bain/Martin Schindler - Bookies have this close to evens, as Schindler had easily the best performance of his short career in beating Ian White with fifteen darters for fun. Bain I mentioned yesterday, and my stats, while both are very limited, suggest that Bain should be a substantial favourite. This looks a great spot - 0.5u Bain 5/6

Benito van de Pas/Daryl Gurney - The bookies look to have this absolutely bang on - they have Gurney as the slightest of favourites in a flip, and so do I. Gurney's probably been the more consistent of recent while Benito's form has been real patchy, Gurney looked a touch better in round 2, I wouldn't disagree with you if you wanted to bet Gurney but I don't think there's enough edge.

Simon Whitlock/Cristo Reyes - Whitlock's listed as having a really small edge, no more than around 55/45, Reyes played a bit better in the legs he won today but lost a lot more, my stats say that Whitlock should be a small favourite, so will leave alone.

Kim Viljanen/Chris Dobey - Huge game for Dobey, who's already done enough this weekend to massively improve his Matchplay chances, and he's fallen into a great position to do even better. The stats of the two on won legs is extremely close - Viljanen actually having a tiny 1% edge to win in regulation, but Kim has quite a small sample and Dobey leads by 8 points on losing average. Dobey's somewhere in the 62-65% favourite range on the market, I'll leave it alone.

Kim Huybrechts/Joe Cullen - I think this should be a bet for Huybrechts. The market has it as him having not even a 60/40 edge, which I think he easily has - while Kim's weakness is his inconsistency, his average on losing legs is within Cullen's to 0.02 per visit. When he's winning legs he's blowing Cullen out of the water. Let's punt - 0.5u Huybrechts 3/4

Jelle Klaasen/Michael Smith - Smith is a small favourite after seeing off Chris Quantock who didn't show, despite Klaasen beating Rob Cross 6-0. Smith did a bit better on raw stats today, looks better than Jelle on historical stats, but not by a large enough amount where I want to gamble. Should be a great watch.

Mensur Suljovic/Mervyn King - Mensur's two twelve darters backed up with a couple of fifteens was the best performance of the day as far as I'm concerned and will have the home crowd behind him against King, who swatted aside Zoran Lerchbacher in great style, every won leg in fifteen or less, finishing with a twelve. Mensur's a bit shorter than a 2/1 favourite and seems to be peaking in form, but I think there's potentially very small value on King - if it wasn't being played in Austria. It is, so I'll say the line is fine.

Austria day 2, one quick bet

Don't have a lot of time to look too in depth regarding the betting for this one, and scanned yesterday's and didn't like much. There is one line I do like though - 0.25u Bain 11/4 vs Norris - Bain's statistics before today were twelve out of fifteen won legs in fifteen darts or less - yesterday he held with fifteen, broke with fifteen, held with fifteen, missed three at double to break in fifteen, held in fifteen, broke in fifteen then held in eighteen. Of course, he's inconsistent and averages low 80's in the legs he loses, but there's little to suggest that Norris is playing well enough for this not to be a value bet, even if Bain is on a bad leg he may well get shots.


Sunday 18 June 2017

Players Championship 13/14 aftermath

These events got finished today, as well as the qualifier for Leverkusen, so let's get right into it:

Performance of the weekend - A few contenders here, but I think it has to go to Gary Anderson for a win and a final, regardless of how highly ranked you are, that's some feat. Contenders included Rob Cross, with his two semi final performances pushing him up into my live top 35, Robert Thornton and Daryl Gurney had solid weekends, Vincent van der Voort was solid, Richard North was really close to winning this with a quarter final, last sixteen and qualification for Leverkusen, Richie Corner also deserves a mention for two board finals, pushing him close to the live top 80.

Best tournament performance - Step up Steve Beaton, winning a first title in a long time, including wins over Anderson, Cross, Chisnall and whitewashes of Shepherd and Dennant. Shepherd and de Zwaan's quarter final runs should be mentioned in dispatches, along with Ian White making another final.

Best single match performance - Nothing really stood out in the Euro qualifier, and nothing seemed amazing today, so let's look at Saturday - Harry Robinson (who I assumed was some upcoming kid, not someone who played the worlds twenty years ago, oops) with two 6-0 wins to open up including over Steve West seems like a good shout, and I can't see anything that really gets too close. In a weekend where it seems the older guys brought it, this seems appropriate.

Worst weekend long performance - A few bad performances from highly ranked players - Wright, as the top seed in both, only raked in £2500, but falling to van der Voort and Cross, on current form, isn't really that bad, Klaasen lost to Meeuwisse and Newell after beating Brian Woods, which seems hard to beat, then Benito van de Pas lost both first round games to Steve Hine and Richie Corner, so there's that. Benito it is.

Worst single tournament performance - Wade losing round 1 to Wattimena isn't really that much of a shock, so let's revert to Jelle Klaasen going down in the opening round to Yordi Meeuwisse.

Current adjusted top 20 - King would have been back up in the top 20, but Thornton outplayed him enough this weekend so he holds on for now:

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

Wednesday 14 June 2017

Challenge Tour

While Hamburg was going on last weekend, we had the penultimate weekend of Challenge Tour matches, notably Mark Dudbridge won one and finalled another to open up over an £800 lead in second place, with Wayne Jones still leading the way in the race for a tour card. Matt Edgar won another from seemingly nowhere, it's not unexpected given what we know of him (he did after all make the Players Championship Finals last year) but his form this year, when he's been playing, has been iffy, while Kevin McDine and Warrick Scheffer grabbed the other two events, climbing to sixth and tenth respectively, while Luke Humphries kept in touch with a £1500 weekend. Will be interesting to see what happens on the last week, which isn't until September.

The main point of this post is re: Lisa Ashton, who's played three of the four weekends (I think the fourth clashed with a ranking BDO event), and didn't do too badly at all, making a quarter final and picking up £550. There was a suggestion that the BDO should use one of its wild card slots for the Grand Slam on Ashton on account of being back to back world champion, with Durrant having two of the automatic spots from being both the world champion and World Master. I'm not so sure.

While I don't track the women's events, it was pretty easy to look up Ashton's results in the two most recent ranking events (the BDO site doesn't keep news older than that, so if there were stats for the World Masters, I couldn't find them). She's won 30 legs and lost 13, what are her numbers like?

Out of the legs lost, she's averaging 83, which is in the same ballpark as Kevin Painter, James Richardson, Devon Petersen and Mark McGeeney, so not too shabby. Bear in mind that nobody in my whole database even averages 98 on this stat.

In terms of twelve darters, she did this twice, so 6.66%, which again isn't sloppy. There's a possibility of sample size issues, but this is a better number than Alan Norris, James Wilson, Brendan Dolan and Mark Webster. However, it becomes a bit unstuck when you look at other stats. Another eight of those legs were in fifteen darts, which makes fifteen darts or fewer weigh in at 33.33%, i.e. one in three. This is a similar number again to McGeeney, but of those with any sort of sample, the only ones who are really much worse are BDO players - the only PDC player with any sort of sample that's this poor is Martin Schindler, who's down below 25%.

It doesn't get better looking at eighteen dart legs - this is only 70% overall. There's a few players from the PDC down this sort of level - Jamie Caven, Devon Petersen and Andrew Gilding are less than three points higher, Andy Hamilton's basically the same, but there is nobody with a sample size as large as Ashton's that is below 70%.

So how would she actually do in the Slam? Let's recall the selection - it's 16 players from winning or finalling PDC events, 8 players from a PDC qualifier and then 8 players from the BDO, of which she would be one. Let's say she gets the easiest draw she can from the automatic qualifiers, which given the selection methods, we'll call James Wade and Mark Webster, and that she also draws someone who's down on the cusp of the top 64 in the PDC who's binked the qualifier. We need someone with a sample, let's go with James Richardson. We'll mix it up a touch and say that it's actually played under Premier League rules rather than a race to five, only so I don't need to tweak a spreadsheet, and we play all 12 legs so we can say a most likely result without worrying about stopping at 7 legs:

vs Wade: 8.53% win, 13.89% draw, 77.57% loss, most likely result 8-4 Wade
vs Webster: 14.29% win, 18.08% draw, 67.64% loss, most likely result 7-5 Webster
vs Richardson: 14.61% win, 18.13% draw, 67.26% loss, most likely result 7-5 Richardson

Should she get a bad draw and end up in van Gerwen's group: 0.63% win, 2.44% draw, 96.93% loss, most likely result 9-3 van Gerwen.

Sunday 11 June 2017

Hamburg aftermath

So that's the sixth European event in the books, half way through the schedule, and it's another win for Michael van Gerwen, with a simply crushing performance right throughout the event. What awards shall I give? Let's see.

Best player performance: Michael van Gerwen. Hudson is close and he played some great stuff, but in a lot of cases he just ran into someone not on his game, and exploited it. MvG didn't care what the other guy was doing and rolled regardless. I'd give the best single match performance to MvG if I didn't generally not give multiple awards to the same player - four twelve darters in one first to six game is insane. He didn't miss a beat throughout the event, only the semi final wasn't really peak performance.

Best single match performance: A few contenders here, Stephen Bunting's return to form against Kyle Anderson was pleasing, Dave Chisnall against James Wilson was top notch, but it has to go to Cristo Reyes - beating a top three player with every leg in under fifteen darts on his end, including two twelve darters, truly shows what he can do.

Worst player performance: James Wade, holy mother of God, wins two legs, neither in fifteen and one in more than eighteen, and in the legs he didn't win he averaged 67? Go home lad, you're drunk.

Worst single match performance: Can't give to Wade twice, so let's give it to Hopp. Hugely favoured opening game on home soil, blasts in a twelve dart leg to break including a 170 kill in the opening leg, holds to make it 2-0, then averages under 80 for the rest of it and loses 6-2. Just get some consistency. It'll come, he is after all just 20, but it seems like he should have enough experience to grind out these sorts of games given the great start he had, rather than capitulating in hilarious fashion.

Up 4.3 units on the betting this weekend. It does feel good when the underdog bets hit, it gives some cushion when two favourite bets that look like locks don't come in at all.

New adjusted top 20 - as mentioned a few posts ago, I'll include the full top 100, and their current score to three significant figures. Plus/minus in the top 20 is from the last table of just the top 20, if you want to see the change from the last top 100, dig it out in the archives, I think the last one followed the worlds.

1 Michael van Gerwen 1.12m
2 Peter Wright 473k
3 Gary Anderson 427k
4 Dave Chisnall 225k
5 James Wade 214k
6 Mensur Suljovic 209k (UP 1)
7 Raymond van Barneveld 207k (DOWN 1)
8 Adrian Lewis 186k
9 Jelle Klaasen 181k
10 Michael Smith 176k (UP 1)
11 Simon Whitlock 175k (DOWN 1)
12 Benito van de Pas 173k
13 Kim Huybrechts 171k
14 Ian White 170k (UP 1)
15 Daryl Gurney 169k (UP 1)
16 Phil Taylor 165k (DOWN 2)
17 Alan Norris 161k (UP 1)
18 Gerwyn Price 160k (DOWN 1)
19 Joe Cullen 122k
20 Robert Thornton 111k

21 Mervyn King 110k
22 Stephen Bunting 101k
23 Cristo Reyes 97.1k
24 Darren Webster 89.2k
25 Steve Beaton 88.3k
26 Mark Webster 87.5k
27 Terry Jenkins 85.6k
28 Kyle Anderson 81.9k
29 Brendan Dolan 81.8k
30 James Wilson 76.5k
31 Chris Dobey 72.7k
32 Justin Pipe 71.4k
33 Vincent van der Voort 70.6k
34 Steve West 70.0k
35 Robbie Green 62.3k
36 Christian Kist 61.8k
37 Jamie Caven 57.6k
38 Rob Cross 56.6k
39 John Henderson 56.5k
40 Jermaine Wattimena 54.0k

41 Max Hopp 52.8k
42 Jonny Clayton 52.5k
43 Jamie Lewis 51.4k
44 Ronny Huybrechts 51.0k
45 Kevin Painter 49.0k
46 Dimitri van den Bergh 48.9k
47 Andrew Gilding 46.1k
48 Josh Payne 44.5k
49 Rowby John Rodriguez 42.2k
50 Joe Murnan 42.1k
51 Ricky Evans 41.2k
52 Mick McGowan 38.6k
53 Jeffrey de Graaf 37.8k
54 Ron Meulenkamp 34.7k
55 Devon Petersen 33.7k
56 Jan Dekker 33.2k
57 James Richardson 32.8k
58 John Michael 31.5k
59 Dirk van Duijvenbode 27.8k
60 Dave Pallett 27.4k

61 Keegan Brown 25.4k
62 Andy Hamilton 24.1k
63 Darren Johnson 23.9k
64 Zoran Lerchbacher 23.6k
65 Simon Stevenson 21.3k
66 Willie O'Connor 20.9k
67 Andy Jenkins 20.9k
68 Andy Boulton 20.5k
69 Mark Frost 20.1k
70 Pete Hudson 19.7k
71 Ted Evetts 19.6k
72 Magnus Caris 18.7k
73 Mickey Mansell 17.8k
74 Ronnie Baxter 17.7k
75 Paul Nicholson 17.2k
76 Wayne Jones 16.5k
77 Mike de Decker 16.5k
78 Vincent Kamphuis 16.0k
79 Berry van Peer 16.0k
80 Mark Walsh 15.8k

81 Richard North 15.5k
82 Matt Clark 15.3k
83 John Bowles 15.0k
84 Dragutin Horvat 14.9k
85 Wes Newton 14.7k
86 Alan Tabern 14.3k
87 Kim Viljanen 14.2k
88 Peter Jacques 14.0k
89 Richie Corner 13.9k
90 Stuart Kellett 13.9k
91 Chris Quantock 13.4k
92 Jeffrey de Zwaan 12.9k
93 Ryan Searle 12.8k
94 Nathan Aspinall 12.6k
95 Yordi Meeuwisse 12.4k
96 Steve Hine 12.2k
97 Steve Lennon 12.0k
98 Mick Todd 11.6k
99 Ryan Meikle 11.4k
100 Martin Schindler 11.3k

Hamburg final session

Thanks for busting 20 three times in a row Alan, much appreciated

No huge surprises apart from Hudson making the final session from nowhere, obviously van Gerwen should be much too strong and is priced at stupid/1 on for the match. The other games should be fairly evenly poised, let's have a quick look:

Suljovic/Chisnall - Chizzy's a bit more odds on than I'd have thought, with my stats coming up 38-35 to Chisnall and the remaining games going 5-5, but Chisnall has looked a lot, lot better than Suljovic this weekend - enough that I think the line is fine.

Bunting/Reyes - Bunting was very classy in winning every leg against Kyle Anderson in fifteen darts or less, nearly the only player to have done that this weekend. The other is Cristo Reyes won a tussle against Peter Wright with two twelve darters and the rest in fifteen. This should be an easier task, and Reyes is a tiny, tiny favourite at the bookies. However, my stats give Reyes a much bigger edge - 46-29. Questions are whether Bunting will continue to trend upwards, he's played better each round, first round was fairly scrappy, second one was tidy enough, whether he copes with what looks like a hot venue better than Reyes, which seems doubtful as it's more like Tenerife than St Helens, and whether Bunting can actually slam in the twelve darter if needed to break at a key spot. He's not hit one all weekend. Reyes might suffer from a bit of a comedown after the win over Wright, but it still seems worth a Reyes punt - 0.5u Reyes 10/11

Smith/Cullen - Smith's around a 60/40 favourite in the market, maybe slightly closer (oddschecker's using funny numbers as the shortest), my numbers have it as a 44-30 game, which looks close enough to not bet - Cullen has looked very good, five out of six legs in five visits vs Pipe and four today (including one twelve darter) in holding off a van der Voort charge, while Smith has also appeared solid - five straight legs in fifteen or less against Hamilton earlier to effectively seal the tie at 5-1, and two twelve dart legs in a 6-1 first round win. Should just be a good game to watch without any betting implications.

van Gerwen/Hudson - just for fun, I have van Gerwen winning 95.5% of games before a deciding leg to Hudson's 1%, with a bagelling at over 20% probability, not even worth betting that outcome at 10/3.

Not going to be able to post in time for the semis and final - it's always a quick turnaround even if the bookies are prompt in pricing it up and I'm out playing myself anyway, but some semi final projections for you if you want to bet yourself. These are percentages to win 6-4 or better, the remainder are last leg deciders:

MvG/Smith - 69/12
MvG/Cullen - 76/8
Suljovic/Bunting - 57/19
Suljovic/Reyes - 47/27
Chisnall/Reyes - 47/27
Chisnall/Bunting - 56/20

Saturday 10 June 2017

Hamburg last 16

Ahhhhhh, that's better. Whitlock completely fucking up against Hamilton aside, I can't really ask for a better round of 32 and event in general, up nearly 4 units so far. Last sixteen kicks off tomorrow, let's have a look:

Suljovic/Gurney - Gurney really didn't impress against Hendriks, only managing one leg in fifteen darts or less, which really won't hack it against Suljovic, then again, he only managed two, albeit one when it absolutely mattered, to get a twelve darter to break in leg 10, but even after that he should have been eliminated, van Duijvenbode couldn't finish in the eighteen darts he was given. The market has Mensur as a small favourite, my stats have Mensur as a bigger favourite but I don't think they quite account enough for Gurney's recent improvements in play (they go back as far as last September). A small punt looks OK though - 0.5u Suljovic 4/5

Chisnall/White - Chizzy completely crushed today with three twelve dart or better legs, easily the performance of the round. White got by with five out of six won legs in six visits, thus Chisnall is installed as a heavy favourite. The line looks as if it should be marginal White value on historic form, but given yesterday I'm fine ignoring it.

Bunting/Anderson - Bunting looked solid against Klaasen, 6-2 with four in fifteen and the others in eighteen, Anderson won by the same score with slightly worse legs, only getting the two in under fifteen against a far, far below par Wade. Bookies have Bunting a small favourite. My stats like Anderson again, much like yesterday's match, but I do wonder if he can pick the game up to his standard level after round 2's basically free win. He wasn't exactly on fire against Kist either. Will leave it alone.

Wright/Reyes - Wright is a big, big favourite here, after Reyes dodged some bullets against Nathan Aspinall who was probably the better player but couldn't get over the line from a 4-3 lead. Reyes as a tiny punt would look OK if he played decently in his opening game, but I don't think he did so will pass on this one.

Hamilton/Smith - Andy shocked me by winning against Whitlock with no real trouble, although if Whitlock could have hit straight fifteen dart legs he wins 6-0. Smith appeared red hot against de Decker and comes in as nearly an 80% favourite. This seems perfectly fine, although the lack of data on Hamilton is a concern. Probably one to put in an acca if you want to shove one on for a laugh, but I'm not going to bet this.

van der Voort/Cullen - This is surprisingly even, can we bet Vincent for a third time and print money for a third time? Cullen was really, really good today - the only bad leg he had was the sixth, otherwise he rolled Pipe looking great in the process. Vincent showed some great clutch play to get the break in the deciding leg against Benito. The line looks real close to historical numbers, so I'll not bet on yet another game.

Hudson/Norris - Hudson really should be out, Kim should have closed out from 5-2, and then when Peter shanked that second dart terribly on 89 for the game, my god. Oh well, he's here, and he's against Norris, who allowed Kantele to break him twice in seven visits early before getting his act together. On historic numbers and pure skill, Norris is a value bet at the odds we're given, but he's looked so shaky in so many places I'm not sure I can go as hard as I like, but I can't pass these odds completely - 0.5u Norris 8/13

van Gerwen/King - Mervyn was really hot and cold against North, missing a nine but needing seven visits to win half his legs. Michael was standard but didn't really need to get out of top gear, only throwing in the one twelve dart leg to ice the match. van Gerwen is a huge favourite and I think it's incredibly close to being an accurate line, ignoring that King was a bit shaky and inconsistent today. No bet again.

Friday 9 June 2017

Hamburg day 2

The only thing I can do in relation to yesterday's betting is direct you to Bobby Roode's current entrance music. It was glorious.

So for round 2, what do we have? Thanks to the snap election and me being awake at gone 4am yesterday, I'm fresh and can look at the lines right now:

Gurney/Hendriks - Hendriks might well be a live dog here, but I question the stats I have, simply because he's all over the place. Will leave it alone.

Norris/Kantele - Kantele just doesn't seem good at all. Alcinas should have finished him easily but couldn't get over the line, while I only have nine winning legs on Kantele which is a small sample, those legs reckon Norris wins 90% of the time, and a losing leg average of barely over 80 doesn't convince me at all. 1u Norris 2/7

King/North - North managed to swat aside Mansell with relative ease, which I found really surprising, and is installed as a 2/1 dog against King, and while I should probably recommend a King bet, I lack enough real data on North to want to bet.

Smith/de Decker - de Decker's now actually shorter against Smith than he was against Hopp, which seems borderline retarded, but there you go, Smith should win this comfortably but the stats I have indicate that de Decker might just pull it out enough to not bet the match.

Reyes/Aspinall - Interesting game this one, and I'm going to ignore it. This is because my sample has Aspinall firing in so many five visit leg wins, that it reckons he should be the favourite. It also has him up at 89 on losing legs, which isn't a bad number, and I've got 24 winning legs which isn't that small a sample, so maybe there's a point? If it was more than 2/1 then I'd come out swinging, I think I should regardless, but will refrain from doing so.

Huybrechts/Hudson - This is almost a Huybrechts bet, and I wouldn't say no to sticking him in your accumulators, but he doesn't have quite enough at 2/9 for me to start piling on against someone who just did a 6-1 job on a top 32 player.

White/Jacques - Not sure why White's so long here. Jacques struggled against Dobey, relying on many missed match darts, and the value is here - 1u White 4/9

Cullen/Pipe - Got good data on both of these, Pipe looked fairly good in beating Ratajski, and it's a 4/7 - 7/4 game. The numbers disagree with this, and by a good margin - 0.5u Cullen 4/7

Whitlock/Hamilton - Schindler really should have finished the Hammer, but oh well, he's long odds against versus Whitlock, and it's not long enough for my liking - Hamilton really shouldn't be able to hang here at all - 1u Whitlock 2/7

Chisnall/Wilson - Just going straight to the data here, it reckons Chisnall is correctly the favourite, but by around the amount that the odds suggest, Wilson didn't have it all his own way in round 1 so I'm not going to rush to try to bet the underdog.

Suljovic/van Duijvenbode - Mensur's consistency should easily be enough here, but I'm not rushing to pile on at shorter than 1/5 against a potentially dangerous opponent who I've already backed this weekend.

Wade/Anderson - Kyle's weekend doesn't get much easier. The figures actually suggest that Kyle should be the favourite though, yet he's around a 2/1 dog. Wade clearly crushes on consistency, but regardless of that I think it's an obvious bet - 0.5u Anderson 7/4

Klaasen/Bunting - Not touching this with a bargepole because of Klaasen's surgery.

Wright/Michael - Michael used all his lives against Tautfest. Too short to bet on Wright though.

van de Pas/van der Voort - If you didn't watch it, watch the Adrian Lewis game, that was fantastic entertainment. The figures I have reckon this is much, much closer to a flip than the odds suggest, and Vincent managed to get over the line having run up a 5-0 lead in the face of a ferocious Lewis comeback, which is often the main reason why we don't bet on Vincent - if he's done it against Adrian Lewis, Benito should be a good shout - 0.5u van der Voort 15/8

van Gerwen/Henderson - LOL

Hamburg day 1

Home qualifier is in the books, the German World Cup team made it, along with Mike Holz, who made a couple last year, of most note getting a first round win before losing 6-3 to Suljovic, and Erik Tautfest, who's a complete unknown (and seemingly has three entries on dartsdatabase). Let's look at bets:

Hudson/Dolan - Hudson looks like a punt here, Dolan's been struggling and didn't look great in Frankfurt and we're getting odds, Dolan's not outearned Hudson by much so far this season - 0.25u Hudson 17/10

North/Mansell - North's on debut it seems and Mansell is actually the underdog here, which is odd as he played good darts last weekend and will have more stage experience. I have no stats on North, who although getting into my adjusted top 100, has done it entirely on the Pro Tour. Mansell seems to be an OK play - 0.25u Mansell 11/10

Ratajski/Pipe - Even money basically, the Pole actually has fairly similar stats to Pipe, so while he's clearly got a solid record and should have chances, I don't think there's enough to bet.

Hamilton/Schindler - Martin looked OK under pressure in Frankfurt, Hamilton really needs this to try to rebuild his career, it's evens each way which doesn't look too far off.

Bryant/Wilson - I know little about Bryant, who so far in the PDC looks to be making up the numbers, which puts Wilson as more than 3/1 on. James is very solid and had a good run on the Pro Tour last time up, so I think this should be value - 1u Wilson 2/7

Kantele/Alcinas - More or less even money, Alcinas we know more of, Kantele really didn't look good when he qualified for one last time out, the Spaniard should get home here - 0.25u Alcinas 10/11

de Decker/Hopp - Hopp shouldn't be 4/1 on against anyone, period - 0.1u de Decker 37/10

Jenkins/Hendriks - Jimmy looks hit and miss on paper, Jenkins should be more solid, odds are tight and this should be tight.

Quantock/Aspinall - Two young players here in a close one, Quantock looking to consolidate a good 2017 while Aspinall's looking to rebound following an off year after the world youth final. Aspinall, if firing, should have a small edge, but that's a big if right now and not one that I want to push at around evens.

Webster/van Duijvenbode - Dirk's quite a bit odds against here, Webster had one good run last time out on the Pro Tour but seems a bit off the peak Webster we saw six months ago, Dirk has qualified for a lot of these and looks to be back close to the form that saw him get to the 2016 worlds. Let's go for it - 0.25u van Duijvenbode 5/2

Henderson/Holz - I think John should come through here in one that's hugely important for his Matchplay hopes, Holz did beat a couple of people we know in qualifying but his chances seem slim and this is reflected by the odds.

Jacques/Dobey - An important game for Chris, who's not been as on fire this year, particularly since the UK Open. He's a small favourite against Jacques who shouldn't be without chances, so I'll leave this alone.

Neyens/Bunting - Kenny literally got deleted off my ranking sheet for not cashing for two years last week, and I wouldn't blame you for going small value against a spluttering Bunting, but I wonder if this long off the stage will affect the still developing Belgian, whose best work has been on the minor tours and in the last world youth.

van der Voort/Lewis - Not the draw that Vincent wanted I think, but we have big, big odds against Lewis, who has been up and down a chunk, plenty of times Adrian runs away with this but there's enough times that he doesn't - 0.25u van der Voort 7/2

Tautfest/Michael - The home qualifier is unknown, Michael should have enough but I'm not touching this needing 80% equity to bet the Greek.

Anderson/Kist - Big clash to close things out as both look to secure Matchplay spots, Anderson seems the better natural talent and is a 60/40 favourite, but Kist seems to be on an upward curve so should maintain order and may be able to pull it out enough.

Thursday 8 June 2017

Average inflation

One of the first posts, if not the first post, I made on here was relating to averages going up when you play a better player, even if you throw the exact same darts. I thought I'd try to quantify this by looking from a BDO to PDC switch perspective. Glen Durrant averaged 93.48 in his final vs Danny Noppert, Wikipedia reliably informs me. How would he have averaged had he not faced Noppert, but instead faced Michael van Gerwen? This isn't too hard to calculate, we just need a model for van Gerwen. My stats say he's killing in twelve darts on just over 30% of occasions, and in fifteen darts 80% of the time. This then becomes easy - shove 1-10 into a random number generator, if it rolls a 1-3, van Gerwen hits a twelve darter, if it rolls 4-8, it's fifteen darts, 9 or 10 gives us eighteen darts.

I then took the Darts for Windows PDF, gave van Gerwen the throw as Noppert did, then looked leg by leg, using the first leg available where the player who should be on throw in my virtual match is throwing first. Most of the time this is the next leg, some times I needed to pop ahead (for example if Durrant had made it 2-2 in the first set, I'd need the next leg in which van Gerwen throws first, which as Durrant won the first set against Noppert in four legs, wouldn't be the opening leg in set two of the BDO final, as Noppert was on throw and not Durrant). I'd also skip a leg where I don't have enough information to determine whether Durrant would win a leg - this happened once where Noppert went out in fifteen darts on throw, while in my sim van Gerwen took eighteen darts, without a reliable way to see if Durrant would have finished the 72 he had left, I'll use another leg and come back to this one later.

Firstly, van Gerwen bagelled Durrant, dropping just four legs in the entire simulation - Durrant's best chance was in virtual set 2, where with the darts he took a 2-0 lead in legs, but then couldn't finish in 18 with van Gerwen taking the same, and allowed van Gerwen to break in fifteen darts in the deciding leg.

Secondly, Durrant's average was 97.32, nearly a whole four points higher than in the actual final. Now as van Gerwen won the sim quickly enough that I didn't even need to go into the eighth set to grab data, we should have a quick look at what wasn't used to see if there's any major discrepancy. We didn't use leg three of set six, where Durrant kills in 18, or legs two and three of set seven, where Durrant kills the two legs in 29 darts - an average a shade under 96 for those legs, nor did we use any of set 8 (average 91, five legs), set 9 (average 95, four legs) or set 10 (average 94, five legs). If anything, these sets were slightly better in terms of averaging than those which were actually used in the sim, in any case we can't say that Durrant's average is higher in the sim because he played better in the early stages of the real match.

Wednesday 7 June 2017

Dutch courage

One thing I briefly touched on in the previous post was the distribution of locations for the European Tour. While I get that Germany is a huge market and breaking it would mean a lot for the PDC, it's surely getting very, very close to the stage where it's oversaturated there and the only way it can continue to grow is if they have a player truly step up to top 20 level (let's not get ahead of ourselves and talk about Premier League level). Germany's never had a player reach even the last 16 of either World Championship (I'd think that someone could do so in the BDO system were they to try right now, but with the PDC throwing as much money at the European Tour as it is right now it'd be financial suicide), or even make it out of the first money round at anything other than the European Championship.

So why exactly do they now have nine European Tour events (as well as the World Cup in terms of hosting events), while the Netherlands, Austria and Gibraltar have one a piece? The Netherlands is surely more deserving of at least having one of the extra two events added this year. Of the 56 spots given to European qualifiers, the Netherlands have hoovered up 31 of them - easily more than half, which is remarkable considering that none of Michael van Gerwen, Jelle Klaasen or Benito van de Pas need to take part in them, and Raymond van Barneveld hasn't taken part in any of them (the one he did qualify for, he did through the UK qualifier). Of the current tentative qualifiers for the European Championship, the Netherlands account for six out of thirty-two, compared to Germany's none, the closest being Martin Schindler, currently missing out on countback. I'd think it'd sell out easily - if they can sell out the Premier League in a matter of minutes, then a European event shouldn't be too much hassle.

It's not like in the two events which have the European qualifiers already that are hosted outside of Germany have been lacking in German qualifiers - Schindler and Eidams made both events, with Blum making the last qualifying round for Austria to join Hopp, Horvath and Puls as those four who missed out at the final hurdle for Gibraltar. So they can certainly get there, but not do much once they do qualify - first event Germans went 0-4, second one they went 3-4 (Marijanovic was somehow eligible for this one), the third one they went 2-4, the fourth one they went 1-4, and in the last one they were 1-2. I wouldn't necessarily expect a winning record - that'd require, as a minimum, every qualifier to make round 2 and have one of them knock out a seed, but it does seem fairly poor, especially when you factor in who their victories collectively came against - Andrew Gilding, Robert Owen, Joe Cullen, Josh Payne, Brian Woods, Zoran Lerchbacher and Callan Rydz.

They can certainly spread things around without unnecessarily halting the German cash cow - moving one to the Netherlands, perhaps moving Gibraltar to the Spanish mainland (and keep the Gibraltar lads eligible for the home qualifier), and have one in Belgium - with Ronny Huybrechts and Dimitri van den Bergh to go along with the seeded Kim Huybrechts, there's certainly enough talent that we know can make a run in one of these things to add to the likes of Mike de Decker, Kenny Neyens, along with others on the Development Tour that could get vital stage experience. How about one in Ireland, now that there isn't the boost those players got from the Grand Prix spots?

I'll likely run a full top 100 of the adjusted rankings following Hamburg, to give everyone an idea of how various players are progressing in the last six months since I listed a full ranking. There's quite a lot of newer players like Peter Jacques, Steve Lennon, Chris Quantock and Richard North to go with the more obvious Rob Cross who have cracked the top 100, as well as Ratajski who will likely move into the top 100 as a result of his qualification for Hamburg.

Monday 5 June 2017

World Trophy quality

Afternoon,

Oddly got a spike of a couple of hundred visitors a few days ago, oddly all from that hotbed of darts, Israel - got to assume that it's some sort of botnet, but if not, cheers for the impressions.

So I was listening to Alex and Burton's podcast yesterday running over the World Trophy (which also had an interesting interview with Mark Webster which is worth a listen), commenting on how it was decent quality and it's a shame that nobody bothered to turn up for it. It did look a bit of a rubbish venue and Barry's not exactly the entertainment capital of the world, but that aside, how good was the quality?

What I'll do in this post is compare it to a certain level of PDC event - the European Tour. I'll take the first round of each European Tour event (16 first to six matches) and compare it with the first round of the World Trophy (also 16 first to six matches). I'll then take the remainder of the World Trophy (15 matches, eight of them first to six with the quarter finals onwards being a bit longer) and compare to the second round of the European Tour (same format as round 1). So what I'm doing in the first instance is comparing the elite of the BDO (it's their entire top 22 plus ten qualifiers who, given they include the eventual winner, a previous Lakeside finalist, the current Scottish Open champion, isn't exactly a list of mugs) against a mixed bag of PDC players - this features none of the top 16 in Pro Tour rankings, and as they haven't yet been to the Netherlands, can feature some decidedly ropey home nation qualifiers and plenty of not even B-list domestic players. In the second instance I'm letting all the PDC players have one game only, while the BDO gets to have everyone with a win play and all the good players pad the stats for them by taking more than one of their matches.

Firstly, the opening round stats:

4 visit leg percentage:
Sindelfingen 8.72%
Jena 8.11%
Hildesheim 7.59%
Gibraltar 4.90%
Saarbrücken 4.86%
World Trophy 2.70%

5 visit leg percentage:
Hildesheim 52.41%
Sindelfingen 52.35%
Saarbrücken 42.36%
Jena 41.22%
Gibraltar 38.46%
World Trophy 36.49%

6 visit leg percentage:
World Trophy 89.19%
Hildesheim 88.28%
Sindelfingen 85.91%
Jena 83.78%
Saarbrücken 81.25%
Gibraltar 76.92%

Losing leg average:
World Trophy 85.18
Sindelfingen 84.23
Hildesheim 84.07
Saarbrücken 82.55
Jena 81.86
Gibraltar 80.78

Secondly, the European Tour round 2 vs World Trophy last 16 onwards:

4 visit leg percentage:
Gibraltar 14.29%
Hildesheim 13.87%
Jena 10.60%
Saarbrücken 10.53%
Sindelfingen 10.00%
World Trophy 9.43%

5 visit leg percentage:
Hildesheim 63.50%
Saarbrücken 57.89%
Gibraltar 55.19%
Sindelfingen 54.67%
Jena 49.01%
World Trophy 45.91%

6 visit leg percentage:
Sindelfingen 94.00%
Saarbrücken 90.98%
Gibraltar 90.91%
Hildesheim 89.78%
World Trophy 88.68%
Jena 86.09%

Losing leg average:
Saarbrücken 87.65
Hildesheim 87.63
Gibraltar 87.47
Sindelfingen 87.14
Jena 86.92
World Trophy 85.30

So in five out of eight stats, the World Trophy finishes bottom, and in a further one it finishes second to bottom. However, in the other two stats it finishes top! How can we explain that? I think it has to be the nature of the entrants - the BDO isn't good quality, but the make up of the World Trophy field is such that the chances of both players in any given leg both making enough of a hash of it to not finish in eighteen darts is fairly slim, whereas in the PDC, there's enough bad UK based and home nation qualifiers in the mix that they can run into each other fairly often, and them both messing up a leg can happen quite a bit. It's a similar tale for the losing average - if there's complete dross that qualifies for the European Tour, you're getting six legs worth of stats. The BDO losers will do the same, but they'll usually keep decent enough order - an average of 85 is around eighteen darts.

Busy PDC weekend, with European Tour 6 as well as the fourth weekend of the Challenge Tour, which may give us a better idea of who'll likely join Wayne Jones in gaining a tour card for 2018. Should be able to have betting analysis up for the Hamburg on Friday morning.

Sunday 4 June 2017

World Cup

I have very little time to bother about non-ranked events - I don't include any of them in my statistics, but the World Cup is often one that I try to pay casual attention to, mainly because the format allows us to see certain players on TV that we don't normally see outside of the worlds, and that might give us some indication as to what's going on.

The problem is the format. As I alluded to on 2+2, for those that read the darts thread there, pairs is a hugely different format - you get no ability to gather any cadence or rhythm which you would do in a singles matchup. It's incredibly easy for a player to be knocked out of their play just in singles - Gerwyn Price seemed slightly tilted against Oreshkin earlier today, although it made no difference to the end result, multiply that by adding two extra players in, even accounting for one being your team mate, you aren't able to draw much at all from it.

So what can we look at? Not much. I guess we know Paul Lim and Larry Butler can still hang at the top level, but class is permanent, and the main nations can still choke if given the opportunity to. Scanning through the results, the Greek player that isn't Michael didn't seem awful, albeit inconsistent, Oreshkin is much like we've always thought, great peaks but bad troughs, Koltsov seems similar, the Brazilians look bad, whoever wasn't Petersen for South Africa doesn't appear good.

I honestly don't see why they don't run with the same format as they do in round 2 onwards for round 1. You'd need to open up the Thursday and Friday for afternoon sessions, but hey, that's more potential ticket sales.

The only other thing I feel worth mentioning is the format in terms of doubles order - from what the TV commentators made out, whoever opened up in the first singles game needs to start each doubles leg. Not only is this incredibly stupid, but if it is the case, surely unless you have a situation whereby you're a weaker nation and your best player might beat the opponent's second player but clearly lose to the main guy, you just put out whoever is better at finishing first? The typical leg is won in fifteen darts - if so, each player in the pair has two scoring visits. It really doesn't matter that much which order the first four visits are in, you're going to end up in more or less the same spot. But from there, I clearly want whoever is better at cleaning up to take the fifth visit. Say Lewis got his usual case of can't be arsed to play on the continent and Wade was drafted in as a last gasp replacement. Who would you want to finish some high two figure/low three figure shot if the tournament depended on it? I'm guessing it's not going to be Dave Chisnall.