Sunday 25 November 2018

Players Championship quarter finals

And then there were eight. Here's some stats so far:


Already resized this once and it was still too wide, but you should be able to get the gist of it. We can see that van Gerwen and Anderson are, as you'd expect, the pick of the field, but while Gurney's not killed legs as quickly as Bunting (or, in par, Dobey), his scoring when he's lost legs is putting him third on points per turn. Lennon's right down at the bottom mainly because he had a few of those comedy legs where nobody can hit a double. It's sorted by overall points per turn, with the various PPT metrics being the lines on the right axis, and the bars showing the speed of finishing legs when the player's won.

But never mind that, I hear you say, who's going to win through?

Gurney/Dobey - This has opened up into a huge opportunity for Daryl, likely being the favourite to advance to the final after seeing off compatriot Brendan Dolan in the last sixteen, and will face Chris Dobey, who likewise will also see this as the chance to really make a splash on the big stage, having made a TV quarter final two years ago but not doing a great deal on TV since. Dobey dodged some match dart bullets against Wade but got over the line (and gave us all a few quid in the process by the way), and the market is thinking around two to one in favour of Gurney, perhaps a bit more one sided towards near 70%. I think Dobey's got a little bit more of a chance than that, over a best of nineteen which this round is I'm seeing in the high 30's for his win chance season long, but if I filter just since the summer break, the line looks close to correct. So I'll leave it, Daryl has been here and done it in a TV event and will likely handle the situation better.

Noppert/Bunting - Danny made things look pretty easy against Ratajski in the previous round, which makes you ask a couple of questions as to how Krzysztof can handle a longer match given that in his last two race to 10's he's won seven legs combined, but that's a question for another day really. Stephen edged out Peter Wright, getting the break just before the final ad break but giving it straight back, then from 6-6 holding out to get the victory in what's been a fairly solid tournament for the Bullet. The market has this fairly close, just favouring Bunting, I'm looking at 60/40 season long which is close enough to the line to not bet at 3/4, but over the last few months (where, oddly, Noppert has done most of his damage), I'm seeing this as an overwhelming Bunting win. We're talking Anderson versus random player level of dominance. 0.25u Bunting 3/4, Noppert really hasn't been finishing legs quickly enough for my liking, and Bunting was in the treble like a dream yesterday, which is usually one of the key signs he's on. Bunting won eight of his legs against Wright in par - Noppert only managed three against Ratajski. Let's go with it.

Anderson/Clayton - Gary just annihilated Cullen with an eight leg run to close out a 10-2 victory, indicating that he's arguably in a 1a/1b situation with van Gerwen as to who's playing the best right now, while Clayton was able to get ahead early against Ricky Evans and close out a 10-5 victory to make him, along with van Gerwen and Gurney, one of three players to make this stage two years running. The market understandably favours Anderson strongly in the 1/5 region, which seems not only fair, but a potential value bet, especially given how he's performed so far this weekend (and Clayton has for that matter). Ando's around 75% season long but just over 90% on current form, I always favour the longer sample so I won't be piling in, but wouldn't criticise anyone who wanted to do just that.

van Gerwen/Lennon - MvG was very nice yesterday evening with four twelve dart or better legs in a 10-4 win over Stephen Burton, who certainly didn't look overawed and had his own decent spots as he gears up for the last chance worlds qualifier where he should be one of the favourites. Lennon came from a big deficit against Clemens, playing really quite solidly once 5-0 in the hole but prior to that Lennon himself has said he's not been playing too great but getting results. These two have run into each other a few times this year, but Lennon's only once been able to get really close, and I don't think the 12/1 you can get offers any real value, I'm seeing about 12% season long but just 7% on recent form, and given how Lennon's played this weekend I really can't see how he can win this one unless van Gerwen's form falls completely off a cliff.

So just the one bet, feel free to stick the big two into it to boost the price a touch, I should be back before the semi finals to look at them, and by then I'd have thought the UK ladies' qualifier should be close to completion so may take a look at that as well.

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