ET4 aftermath

Well, van Gerwen got away with that one, didn't he? Both Chisnall and Aspinall should have won their games, Barney forced a decider as well, but oh well, he's got home and it's another 25k in the bank. Ian White was the other finalist, don't know if it's the first time we've had the #1 and #2 seeds make a final on tour this year, but we certainly had that.

Updated FRH rankings:

1 Michael van Gerwen
2 Rob Cross
3 Gary Anderson
4 Michael Smith
5 Daryl Gurney
6 Gerwyn Price
7 James Wade
8 Peter Wright
9 Nathan Aspinall
10 Mensur Suljovic
11 Dave Chisnall
12 Simon Whitlock
13 Ian White
14 Jonny Clayton
15 Adrian Lewis
16 Darren Webster
17 Joe Cullen
18 Stephen Bunting
19 Max Hopp
20 Jermaine Wattimena

Not a single bit of movement, which is to be expected when van Gerwen takes all the cake, but White's more than halved the deficit to Whitlock, Chizzy's put a gap in between the same, and lower down the order, Barney's back into the top 40, and Hughes is up to 82.

Betting wise, we dropped 1.2 units, I think we're clear that van Gerwen is overvalued at this stage and can be laid at will when he's facing anyone competent, Hughes is still value, but that's quickly evaporating and when he does break one that value will likely disappear for good.

We've got two Pro Tour events in midweek before we return to Austria at the weekend, and then we get another Euro Tour the weekend after, so it's real busy season - in those Pro Tour events, due to withdrawals (there's four of the Premier League not there, but supposedly Ando is back for them) Glen Durrant's in the seeds by the looks of things. It's getting messy for various races, looking at Burton's Twitter feed, as things stand for the Matchplay you've got 10 players for 6 spots all within 3k of each other - Anderson, Searle, Smith, de Zwaan, Bunting and King just being inside with West, Brown, Clemens and Dobey just on the other side, so these next few weeks could be pivotal for so many players.

This blog might be busy this week - I'll probably put up a things we've learned post after PC13-14, and then we'll have the Austria preview postings, keep an eye out on Wednesday/Thursday for updates.