Saturday 2 March 2019

UK Open round 6

Starting to sort out the wheat from the chaff now, other than Suljovic, who didn't exactly lose to a bad player, and Gurney, who didn't exactly lose to a bad player either, we've had no real major casualties, and the draw for the last sixteen looks like that'll continue to be the case. I said in an off the cuff remark on Twitter that it looks like the sort of draw you'd make if you wanted to rig it to get all the good players through. Only two of the top 8 remaining players in terms of FRH rankings, and it's Smith against Wattimena, Wattimena being the eighth player in, and the two from outside the top 8 are, er, Beaton and van den Bergh, number 9 against number 10. You've put Smith against Wattimena to try to get rid of Jermaine, you've put the most in form player left against the most dangerous player left from the bottom half, two contenders face each other then you've given Cross, Wade, Whitlock and Chisnall lay ups. As such, it's not that interesting an evening session and I'll be watching the Clasico instead, but first, do we have any betting opportunities to tack on to today's winning day (only just, as it needed Dimitri to claw it back, but hey, we deserved it after Clemens blew a two break lead)?

Projections are here:


Oddschecker's not live yet, so I'll look at 365, Hills, Ladbrokes and Paddy Power. Starting on board 2 first, Aspinall plays Lennon with Nathan pricing at around 4/7, as such, I won't be betting, Nathan's doing slightly better of late, but it's not by much, and the larger sample isn't helping matters. Chizzy/Stevenson's next and we're seeing Dave at around 1/4, 2/9, that sort of price. That's roughly where I have it, I'm not feeling Stevenson's chances of pulling off another victory but there's enough minor doubt not to lump on Dave. Beaton/DvdB is the next one up, and we're being offered good odds on Steve. Very, very good odds - 0.25u Beaton 21/10, Steve's played better than Dimitri the last two rounds, has taken out a better calibre of player across the two ronds, projects as the favourite on 2019 stats and certainly isn't a 2-1 dog over all stats. Finally it's Whitlock/Payne with it being close as damnit to a flip in the markets, Simon having the tiny edge. Simon was gifted three junk legs for the second game in a row, which doesn't seem sustainable, Payne's had a second straight game where he's shown no signs of any sort of leg whatsoever that'd let Whitlock off the hook. 0.25u Payne evs.

Main board starts with Wade/Ross Smith, Wade being 1/3, slightly shorter in places. This isn't quite giving us the odds I'd want over the recent sample, Ross being up at around 9/4, 12/5, plus we have the issue that it's exactly the sort of tournament that Wade clears up when the big guns drop early. We also have that Smith is 0-6 and has lost on TV twice to Wade in recent memory, which doesn't bode well. Next it's Ratajski against Price, Gerwyn had the performance of the day and needed it against Hughes, hitting two 167's including a match winner, the draws don't get much easier, even if he is avoiding the huge names. Market has Price 1/2, maybe a little shorter, on current form that might be slight value but I think Ratajski has the sort of game that'll hang around and certainly not be put off by any antics - although Price has seemed more sedate this weekend. So I'll pass and move on to Smith against Wattimena - Michael's 1/3, even shorter in spots. Now Smith's had to pop to get his medical issue retreated after his tight victory over Gurney, I wonder if it'll put any additional fatigue on him. Wattimena at 11/4 isn't quite enough to put him over, although he was a lot better today than he was yesterday. Lastly it's Cross/Reyes in a rerun from here in November, where Reyes won, but also in a rerun from the worlds, which was a whole different story. Cross is correctly a prohibitive favourite, 1/5 being a best price isn't really of interest, that's bang on the full year sample. No problem with people putting it in accas, given it's not a bad price and Reyes hasn't really been playing that brilliantly to get this far, I just don't see enough of an edge to start punting at that sort of odds on price.

So just the two bets then, tomorrow might be more interesting.

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