With just Michael van Gerwen and Jeffrey de Graaf leading the orange charge, it was perhaps understandable that only the one Netherlands player would make the final session. Over to you Jeffrey...
Yep, that was a strange one. O'Connor didn't play well but van Gerwen was right average. When was the last time you saw him average south of 88? Elsewhere, the bets looked decent - Searle missed a couple of match darts, which is an irritant after getting the break back just in time to throw in the deciding leg, and Jones was nowhere, but everything else looked good - Edhouse hung around, perhaps a bit fortunately at times, but then nicked the break and held out in a trainwreck tenth leg, Smith made an incredible comeback so I think we're lucky there, and de Graaf was solid enough again. Another two thirds of a unit or so into the ledger, might have been more if I'd have fired on Evans and Payne as I was contemplating. Or, for that matter, Willie O'Connor. Oh well, maybe I should fire out speculative 0.1u punts more often going forward, it's not going to cause huge damage to the bankroll even if most of the time you lose the match heavily.
So to day 3 - it's now wide open, there's a marquee match in each half, with the winners of Cullen/Gurney and Wright/Chisnall looking very good to potentially make the final, but the Wright half also has Lewis, White, Whitlock, King and Payne all in the mix, while in the Cullen half, O'Connor's got to be fancying it now and Kyle Anderson may be in with a shout.
Before I start on the analysis, a brief word on the Challenge Tour - a great day for Jamie Hughes, binking one and going to the semi finals in the other, losing only to Ratajski there, who went on to win it and hit a nine darter during the day as well. Barnard, Menzies, Harris and Nilsson were in the mix in both events as well, it's real tough to be consistent over a tiring day in a very competitive environment so credit where it's due.
O'Connor/Evans - Ricky Evans has gone for an equally amazing and controversial choice of walk on music in Baby Shark, so must immediately be a favourite to win the game. The bookies have this close to evens, and I'm seeing it as Evans having a small edge, 52% to 48%. It's an odd one psychologically, Evans must have been thinking he's got through his final, but now isn't facing van Gerwen, while O'Connor may also be thinking that he's done the hard bit. Who knows? Nothing of value regardless.
Cullen/Gurney - Massive chance for either of these to go deep, Cullen's been due a final in one of these for a while now while Gurney has made a final but is yet to win one, and could use a title of some description sooner rather than later. Gurney's used an extra life against Searle already, the bookies have this one quite close at 10/11 Gurney and 11/10 Cullen, I'm seeing it a bit wider with Gurney up in the high 50's for win chances, but it's Cullen in Europe and he's got to be of the mindset that it's time to go and win one of these, it could come down to who wins the bull.
Edhouse/Smith - Two non seeds here, I bet on both of them successfully yesterday, and it's a great chance for either of them to make the final session and have what'd be a winnable quarter final. The market has this as quite close, favouring Smith but only around 55/45 or there abouts, I'm getting Smith ever so slightly over 60% to win the game. At 3/4, it's not really worth the bet, if the market moves a little bit in our favour then I think we should fire, but not right now.
Anderson/de Graaf - Kyle easily handled Jonny Clayton, mostly through hugely more powerful scoring giving him enough chances to waste before finally pinning doubles, messing up six perfect darts in the first leg after van Gerwen went out which I'm sure would have made the crowd go mad, while de Graaf got through Bunting to be the last Dutchman standing. The market is favouring Anderson at about a 70/30 clip, which I was thinking would be ridiculous and it must be a de Graaf bet, then I ran the numbers and only saw him winning barely more than one in three times. 21/10's not quite there, if you're feeling that the home crowd will boost Jeffrey then what the heck, go for it.
Wright/Chisnall - Second half of the draw begins with two of the biggest names left facing each other, such has Dave's fall down the Pro Tour rankings affected his seeding. Neither had any real problems against Painter and Rodriguez respectively so it's a jump to a much harder match for both players, I'm getting this as extremely close. The market doesn't, I don't know why, I'm not seeing anything on Twitter indicating Dave has a mystery illness or the like, so 0.25u Chisnall 13/5. I'm almost tempted to go more, this looks like great value.
Whitlock/Johnson - Simon easily rolled Reyes yesterday while Johnson survived match darts to edge past Gerwyn Price, the lines are understandably favouring Whitlock and I think it's in more or less the right proportion - Johnson's not drawing dead by any stretch of the imagination, but I'm getting him slap bang between 25% and 30% which with a line of 12/5 looks to be lacking in value.
Lewis/Payne - Payne was able to get past Darren Webster with a good run of four legs from five after they shared the first two, while Lewis ran six straight after Jones finished the first with a 164 for a twelve, so both playing decently well - the lines are looking around two to one in favour of the twice world champion, which you'd expect, but Payne is live here. Very, very live. Don't forget Josh is the one that's won a title this year. I've got him above 40% to win this one, so 0.25u Payne 9/4, this looks like an against a name player value special.
White/King - Our final game is between two Englishmen who have won tour titles this year, White having to come from a break down to get past a good looking Arron Monk, while King was able to capitalise on Labanauskas missing infinity darts at double in a 6-2 cruise. I'm getting White up at 63% to win the game, which is close to perfect for the 4/7 price that we're getting, so not touching this game with a barge pole.
So we've got two underdog picks at greater than 2/1 where I think they've both got better than a 40% shot, only takes one winner to profit so let's not be greedy.
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