Sunday 13 January 2019

BDO final preview

(2) Glen Durrant (1/3) v (9) Scott Waites (11/4)

Route to final:

Durrant - 3-0 v McGrath, 4-3 v Baker, 5-2 v McKinstry, 6-3 v Williams
Waites - 3-1 v van Egdom, 4-1 v Veenstra, 5-3 v Whitehead, 6-1 v Unterbuchner

Key stats:


Er, yes. So last year, the master computer gave Duzza a 98.5% chance of beating McGeeney, who had a match dart. This year, the master computer is giving Duzza only a 97.9% chance of beating Waites, so 0.5u Durrant 1/3 before I do anything else.

Glen's just that much better. He's lost a lot of legs because he's actually been tested - Baker did a great job of coming back from a near whitewash, Williams went toe to toe for six sets, whereas Whitehead aside, Waites hasn't really been tested - Veenstra didn't play badly, just not as good as in his opening game, and Unterbuchner was hugely disappointing. The key thing to look at here is just how many legs Waites has won where he's taken more than fifteen darts to do so. It's 38 out of 60 legs won, that's a huge percentage. Durrant is simply not going to allow Waites to get the easy legs that he's been afforded in more or less every single match. The semi final against Michael demonstrates this perfectly - of the 19 legs Waites won, he took a leg in fifteen darts (needing a 112 out mind you) in set three, then he closed out set four with a twelve darter. Every single leg that he won outside of that, he needed a sixth visit as a minimum. I'll be shocked if Durrant isn't up by at least 4-2 at the main break, and 5-1 wouldn't surprise me either, Waites only rates to hold his set on throw 30% of the time - that's less than a 3% chance of holding all three of those sets. Sure, he's got a 20% shot of breaking the Durrant throw over the course of a set, but I'm not holding my breath.

It's not quite so doom laden if I expand to use everything since 2018 Lakeside, and not just 2019 Lakeside, but even then Duzza's got a 90%+ win chance. They've both got a shot at winning their third title, but I think only one of them has a realistic case for it.

Congrats has to go out to Mikuru Suzuki for claiming the ladies' title in dominating fashion, bringing her best darts when it mattered with a 90 average and not really giving Winstanley any chance whatsoever. Congrats to anyone who was able to get on at 100/1+ when Burton tweeted out that one book did actually have lines for the title a few months back, must be nice.

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