So, about that Asian tour...

Now that's done, what do we know about the qualifiers? It turns out, thanks to DartConnect, a hell of a lot more than what we have done in previous years, because they're giving us lots of juicy statistics to look at. So, of the five that have made it out, how quickly have they finished legs? Let's see:

I'm only listing events 3-12, firstly because events one and two appear somewhat broken on DartConnect, and secondly it always seems better to use more recent data, and ten events (even if they didn't play them all - Asada missed the last couple and Ilagan/Lam missed some of 5/6) is a nice round number that should give a good sample - they've all won over 150 legs, with Ilagan having the largest count at 213.

What does this tell us? It tells us a lot more than averages - as we know from way back when I took my postings onto this blog, averages mean nothing and rise when playing against good players - and there's certainly plenty of players on the Asian Tour which, to put it nicely, wouldn't generally be described as good. There's a heck of a lot of 5-0's, 5-1's etc where these guys are going to have to do all the doubling legwork with the reduction in averages that brings about.

What it does tell us is how quickly they'll score the requisite 501 points to win a leg. Now having a 5% chance of winning a leg in twelve darts isn't terminal - there's plenty of players in my database with numbers in that region - Wayne Warren is under 5%, Cody Harris is even lower than him, heck, Paul Hogan (for it is he) only managed two legs from 35 in that speed in the UK Open (although, in fairness, it was a bit chilly). Challenge Tour king Michael Barnard is only just over 4% (on the main tour). That's more a rating about explosive scoring and the ability to get a break from nowhere.

What is more concerning is that none of them finish half their legs in fifteen darts or better, and none of them (apart from Lim) finish 80% of their legs in eighteen darts or better. Over my whole database of over 45,000 legs (of which only a fairly small percentage is the BDO), the percentage of legs finished in five visits is 50.8%. Only Lim comes remotely close to that. Sure, there's plenty of players that have less than that (Hopp and Mansell are less this season and they've won on tour this season, Klaasen is and he's a former world champion who's qualified for multiple majors this year), Barnard again is, Norris, Labanauskas, McGeeney... van de Pas is down at 37%! But van de Pas is at least getting 80% of legs in eighteen darts or better (exactly, in case you were asking). There's really very few players below 80% that Porter or Hearn could give a WC wildcard to without you thinking they've both been on a week long spice bender. Maybe a Baxter or a Caven that are "name" players but haven't been relevant for years. Lerchbacher possibly, he's at least over 10% for twelve dart legs. Robbie Green or Devon Petersen? Mark Walsh (sorry Burton)? John Part? Ted Evetts?

Just looking at the fifteen and eighteen dart percentages, Lim's very comparable to Ryan Harrington, Davy van Baelen and Diogo Portela, Ilagan to Barry Lynn, Asada to Jim Brown and Lee Harris, Malicdem to Keith Geraghty, and finally Lam to Aden Kirk. If you're asking who half of those players are, then think before looking at the world championship draw and betting on any of these guys.