Saturday 2 March 2019

UK Open day 1 roundup, round 5 projections bets

Big post. What a day that was. van Gerwen gone. Anderson gone. Durrant gone. Wright gone. Adie gone. Barney gone, and probably gone from our screens in ranking events for good. A bunch of huge checkouts, Jamie Lewis 161 for the match at 9-9 with Adie waiting on the same was special.

Only real thing we didn't have was any unknowns making it super deep, with only Scott Taylor making the money (and he made it to the second money round), but if you will make the field stupidly stronger for them to go and halve the number of Rileys qualifiers in the process, then that will be one side effect, even if a large chunk of the Rileys qualifiers aren't exactly amateurs and are playing in the Challenge Tour, playing at Lakeside etc.

A couple of names that you'd have thought would get into the round 4 hat didn't - Dobey was the big one but he got a quietly nasty draw, Noppert was comical, obviously Duzza was the huge name, but Carlin's no mug.

So now we're left with 32, and here's how I see the projections:


There's a few standout games. Smith/Gurney should obviously be spectacular, Price against Hughes puts two red hot players against each other. There's a few others that I'd be really interested in watching - Clayton/Ratajski will be one of those games which'll be quietly really high quality, probably be no wider a result than 10-7 either way with the vast majority of legs going in fifteen darts or less. Wattimena/Woodhouse could be deceptively good and deceptively close, people are starting to pick up on Jermaine, and him doing a number on de Zwaan yesterday will certainly pique attention, but Luke's a much better player than his ranking suggests. Lewis/Payne might not be too bad either.

So to the bets, and it's not quite the organised chaos that day one is (I say organised, it was enough chaos for Cameron Menzies to comically get timed out), and the overnight break allows oddschecker to get itself sorted nicely. Let's take a look:

Cross/King - Nothing here. Market has it 75/25. Cross played very, very well and nobody noticed, most twelve darters of anybody in round four. King obviously played well, there's always a risk of after the lord mayor's show-itis, don't think I'll pick anything here.

Smith/Gurney - That's quite the projection. Gurney wasn't troubled yesterday and didn't play well at all, Smith raced to a lead and then held it pretty solidly. No real signs of any injury issue. 0.25u Smith 4/5, just cautious in case anything flares up, but this is projecting really quite one sided.

Price/Hughes - No bet, the market rightly has this quite close based on Hughes' recent form, and in spite of Price's recent form, 8/13 looks in the right ballpark. I'd chuck out the twelve month figure since Hughes didn't play much in my database in 2018 at all, seeing Price around 60% doesn't offer anything with where the market it.

Wade/Hopp - Thought there might have been a bit more of a tempting line on Hopp than 13/8. I guess not. Quietly good game, you might have expected him to beat Nentjes, maybe easily, but three twelve darters and 7/10 in fifteen is quality stuff from the German. Wade put in a Wade-like performance against an underpar James Wilson, but may need to improve or get caught out.

Suljovic/van den Bergh - Is it the time for Dimitri to step up and go deep in a ranking major again? Possibly. 0.25u van den Bergh 13/8 is too tempting with me barely being able to split them, Suljovic played great against Wright, DvdB the same in round 3, was a bit below par against Evans but I suspect that was Ricky dragging him down a bit and won't be repeated.

Whitlock/Clemens - 0.25u Clemens 13/10, just laying Whitlock here, his game against Dekker was one sided but Jan didn't show, if Jan takes all the 19+ darters Whitlock won it's Whitlock up 7-6 right now, while Clemens was unspectacular but extremely professional against van de Pas.

Chisnall/Schindler - Market's favouring Chizzy just about right here. He played well, especially towards the end of the match with Humphries, he's got a title in the bank this year, and Schindler really wasn't great against Hunt, game was extremely scrappy. 1/3 seems fine here, can't really justify snapping off 11/4 Schindler in the circumstances.

Clayton/Ratajski - Ultra even match. Next to nothing to separate them. Bookmakers agree. Nothing here, going the over on total legs could be a great play if you simply need more action.

Aspinall/Razma - Line's about right if you look at the recent sample with Aspinall in at 4/11. Nothing here, but after Nathan played great in round 3, he didn't play badly against Kist in round 4, Christian just brought the goods and forced a twelve darter in the decider for Nathan to break. No real Madars value if you're considering the larger sample I don't think, Nathan's playing too well and Madars' against Klaasen was a textbook Jelle match, close early, Klaasen goes down a break and then collapses. Razma didn't even have to play well from that point, and he didn't.

West/Smith - 60/40 line in the market for this one. Seems fair enough if you ask me. West's got that tiny bit extra explosive power that might nick him the one break that could decide this.

Wattimena/Woodhouse - Market sees this as 65/35 Jermaine. Over the larger sample this seems fine, but Luke's played some very good stuff recently, and yesterday as well, Jermaine rolled de Zwaan but didn't need to work to do so, only getting three legs in par, so 0.25u Woodhouse 7/4, why not.

Beaton/Brown - This seems far too close. Brown's maddeningly inconsistent, Beaton can often be the same, but Steve's taken Ando out and played good darts in doing so. Keegan's probably been playing some of his better stuff this year in Minehead, but I've got to go with a bit of 0.25u Beaton 10/11, it's too hard to pass that up in fear of Keegan continuing to play as he has done.

Lewis/Payne - Another one that you can't put a cigarette paper between, bookies equally have it even (there does look to be a minor arb if you fancy that), Jamie got the bigger scalp and came through a good test, but Payne's margin of victory looked very impressive, and the underlying numbers look fine. Should be very close - double up on the Clayton match on over legs played?

Huybrechts/Stevenson - Close on the season long stats, Kim having a bit of an edge but nothing much in the 2019 season stats. Market is 60/40 so I don't think I'll be betting here, it's a good spot for Kim to make inroads in a major for the first time since forever, Simon's got the big win over Barney but maybe he relaxes?

Lennon/Mansell - All Irish affair here, Mickey scraping through a slugfest with Scott Taylor in a decider, while Lennon easily swatted aside the challenge of Bunting. Mickey surprised us by beating Noppert but I can't see a repeat, 0.25u Lennon 8/15, primarily on recent form, if a larger sample was in Steve's favour I might have upped the stake.

Reyes/North - Last game, and like many previously it's rated quite close by both my projections and the markets. Neither are in great form, neither stand out, looks to be hidden away last game on board four for a reason.

Back after round 5's done with more stuff.

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