Thursday 19 July 2018

Matchplay bets

Let's look game by game in running order:

Lewis/Wilson - Only conceivable bet here is on James with the market making this around 75/25. Lewis has a bit of a lead in terms of averages, but it's mainly due to the ones he's lost - on the legs they've both won they're pretty similar, although Lewis has more on a better clip of 58% won compared to 53%. Wilson's been knocking on the door this year though - four quarters and a semi isn't bad form at all. Seems like a value bet, i.e. one that we make even though it'll probably lose, although likely not as often as the market suggests - 0.25u Wilson 31/10

Chisnall/Brown - This is one where psychology might come into it given Brown's head to head record. Their respective won/loss records are very similar but Chizzy's doing both sides much better than Brown is. A line of 70/30 doesn't look too far off where things are at, there might be tiny value in Keegan but I'm thinking to avoid it.

van Gerwen/de Zwaan - Jeffrey has done it over this distance and over this opponent this year. It's a question of whether van Gerwen will want the revenge win, which he usually does, this could easily end up being 10-1, 10-2 if he wants it to be. de Zwaan's cooled off a little bit since winning that title, which removes any tiny edge I think there might have been.

Smith/Clayton - A standout tie of the round, Smith's fresh off of a TV title (albeit about the most worthless one available) while Clayton's got a Euro Tour win and is playing at a better level than he's ever done. Smith should win this but Clayton is not without chances, albeit the chances look to be at around exactly what the market thinks, so nothing here.

Webster/Lennon - Closest game in the market so far, which has it with Webster a shade over 60%, I've got it a bit tighter but it's always hard to say how a player will do on debut at a venue, although that didn't seem to be a problem at the worlds for Steve. I'm thinking the experience of Darren could come into play here just enough for this not to be a bet, should be an entertaining game regardless.

White/Hopp - Ian's finally got the Hopp hoodoo off of him, and that should be enough. White's floor game is one of the best in the whole PDC this season, and despite Hopp having claimed that Euro title, his numbers simply are not convincing, this looks like a great spot for the English veteran - 1u White 8/15

Price/Cullen - Bookies have this one even. How will Price's injury hold up over a longer game? It's a good question, I've got the two of them evenly matched, with Price having the slight edge - assuming both are 100%, that brings in enough uncertainty. It might even be a Cullen bet if you must bet - if Price is going to win then you would think he'd have to get it early rather than let Cullen hang around, and Cullen is certainly good enough to do so.

Gurney/West - Line looks plumb here. I've got West at 32% and he's 9/4. It's probably underrating West and overrating Gurney as there is a large consistency differential (Gurney's losing average is over six points lower than his winning average, West's is only about two and a half), but I'm not sure that West will be able to put in enough quality legs to get through this one.

Suljovic/Beaton - Mensur's rated at more than 3/1 on, which seems really high to me. Beaton picked up a bit of form in the last events going in with two semi finals, Beaton has beaten Mensur every single time (although most of these games are really old and not relevant), and the projections have this quite close - that said, the projections don't take into account Suljovic averaging two points more in the legs he's lost than the legs he's won. He's really been on the end of having his opponents nick legs where he's been in good spots to take it, we saw that in the Premier League as well. I'm going to trust the model small with 0.25u Beaton 17/5, but I don't think our edge is anywhere near as large as what the numbers state for reasons mentioned above - they probably don't translate to Mensur winning nearly 80% of the time though.

Anderson/Bunting - Line looks alright here. Ando's rated in the very high 70%'s on the market, which is a bit too short for me to consider, looking at Bunting I don't think he can bring the good legs that he has shown on and off throughout the season quite enough to beat someone of Anderson's quality over a race to 10. It could happen but I'm not going to put money on it.

Cross/King - A similar line here, which looks close to perfect - I'm getting Cross at 75% which is offering little in value. Maybe King has a shot, 7/2's a big number in a two horse race when you add in he's won a tournament for the first time in ages, but I'm struggling to call this value, Cross is playing better than the amount of titles he's won suggests.

van Barneveld/Anderson - Really hard game to read because Barney's played next to none of the circuit again, we don't even have any World Series exbos outside of the one in Germany to look at. The model is making Anderson a slight favourite - Barney's scoring a lot more in losing legs but they're extremely even in every other aspect, although Barney is on an extremely limited sample (every other player here has won three times more ranking legs than he has). I'm tempted by another small nibble, Anderson's not really lit the stage up this season but he is certainly live here, 0.25u Anderson 19/10.

Huybrechts/Henderson - A fairly close game on the market, the stats of these two look very alike with Hendo having small edges in most areas. Huybrechts will be under pressure to break the god awful run he has had on TV of recent (outside of the UK Open in any event), while Henderson's under a bit less pressure. John's going to have to throw well, but it doesn't take much for Kim to go missing either and help him out - 0.25u Henderson 7/5

Whitlock/North - Richard was the last one in and it's hard to really recommend anything here, even despite Whitlock having been really quite average since the first 2-3 weeks of the Premier League, although he did reach the final in Copenhagen fairly recently. North's only had one really good run this year and that was four months ago at this stage, I've got things closer than the bookies suggest but I just can't see North getting home.

Wade/Wattimena - 2/5 Wade seems a bit short given the form that Jermaine has been showing, but I've said a few times that Jermaine has got quite a lot of wins through just taking what's been given, something that Wade's an expert at and this seems like a really awful match stylistically for the Machine Gun, factor in that James has now been chucking in some good five visit legs with more regularity and the line makes more sense, the model has it at around 70/30 so nothing of value here.

Wright/Klaasen - Can't see any way for Jelle to win this. His pattern in many games has been to look OK to decent for 5-6 legs then fall away. Against weaker players in a race to six he might be able to get home, if he leads Wright 3-2 at the first break he'll still need another seven legs. Even at 2/9 this is closer to a Wright play than a Klaasen play, although it's the sort where I think a fairer line is 1/5, so I'd just add this into an accumulator if you're having one and you can't go wrong.

And that's the lot. Usual White play and then four underdog punts of differing degrees, let us gogogo.

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