ET7 round 3 bets

Before I quickly start on yesterday, congrats to Leighton Bennett on winning the open that dartsplanet organised yesterday (and good job to dartsplanet for getting it running what sounded like successfully, these things aren't easy to sort) - hitting a nine darter in the process.

Yesterday went just about as perfectly as possible. All three of the main bets won, the flyer on Willie O'Connor being the only miss, but that wasn't anything to do with Willie - lots of things have to go right for a bet against van Gerwen to work, the main one being he doesn't average 107... apart from a poor fifth leg and the missing one dart at double in the final leg, O'Connor did nothing wrong and ended up well into three figures for conventional averages himself.

Eight games today, let's see what we've got:

van Gerwen/van Barneveld - Oh how the PDC must have wished the order was the other way around this weekend (as an aside, why do they just have two running orders, standard and reverse? I get switching between those so that MvG doesn't start the session every single event, but surely they can randomise where in the draw the 1 seed plays)! Barney got past Michael Smith, nothing spectacular here, it was purely Smith missing doubles and big numbers. It's 5/1 on Barney which really doesn't appeal. It probably does purely on the numbers (showing just shy of 25% chances), and it's going to be one of those weird crowds where van Gerwen isn't the favoured players in the Netherlands, I just don't believe that Barney believes he can win it. It's a no from me.

Chisnall/Evans - Dave got past Steve Beaton, perhaps a bit easier than expected, a weird game with quite a few breaks. Ricky saw off Danny van Trijp fairly comfortably winning the last five legs in an equivalent 6-2 victory to Dave's later in the evening. Dave is the favourite at 4/7, I think that's fairly close to correct. I might have put it at 4/9, I'm seeing Dave at slightly over a two in three shot, I don't think there's quite the edge to bet on Chisnall.

Durrant/Nilsson - Glen had the bye so just Dennis to talk about, and he got by Clayton in a weird one, Clayton put in some very powerful legs, but Nilsson was able to win all the scrappy legs, including the last one where Clayton was only able to get one dart at bull in eighteen darts, which he obviously missed. Nilsson won despite averaging over six points lower. Data on Nilsson is limited, but 5/1 on him sounds around the right ballpark, an 85 average on the Challenge Tour isn't the sort of thing that ought to trouble Durrant.

Price/Dolan - Gerwyn absolutely blitzed Ratajski, winning the first five legs all in fifteen darts or better, while Dolan was able to see off Stephen Bunting 6-4 with an equally impressive five legs in fifteen darts or better. Gerwyn is the favourite, and there's close to value - he's 4/9 and I've got him at 77% to take it on season long stats, but if we filter down to a smaller sample of the last couple of months, when Price's heater had cooled slightly, it doesn't become value at all and we start to look at Dolan as being the value bet. I'm guessing it's somewhere in the middle and neither is worth the punt.

White/Wattimena - Ian got into a real tough tussle with Mickey Mansell, it went all the way and was generally high quality, at least until the last leg where Mansell missed five match darts - helped by White missing three himself to allow the extra shots. Jermaine got past Danny Noppert, opening up a 4-1 lead before Noppert levelled, Danny was six perfect on throw in leg 9 but couldn't finish 141 in nine darts, giving Jermaine the critical break. It's yet another game where I think the line is incredibly accurate - I see it at mid-sixties for Ian to claim this, and the market has him at 4/7, so let's move on to game six.

van der Voort/Hopp - Two players here who we bet on yesterday, both coming through as underdogs - Hopp with a 6-0 demolition of Joe Cullen, while in the last game of the night, van der Voort and Suljovic was on throw through seven legs before the decisive moment, Vincent taking out 138 using the Harrington special route for a twelve dart leg with Mensur waiting on tops. Awful bit of counting in the last leg by Mensur, going 20-5-20 on 204, dunno if the lie was perfect to hit treble last dart, but with Vincent on a double you've got to surely at least leave a shot, if only so that if he misses the first two on D16 inside he can't think about busting it to return to 32 guaranteed. Market has this very close, Hopp a tiny 5/6 favourite. Sadly I have to agree again - both have had very underrated seasons so while against anyone else we probably bet them, against each other the market is probably underrating them both enough to make the line look accurate.

Wright/Whitlock - Peter was able to get past Ritchie Edhouse, opening a 3-0 lead but being pegged back and forced all the way to 6-4, an odd game, Edhouse took all the scrappy legs but he was right there several times when Wright was winning legs - averaging 97 in them. Whitlock beat Florian Hempel with probably the best darts he's played all year, three 12 or better legs, two of them breaks, wasn't a bad showing by Hempel and if he'd caught normal Whitlock he might have had decent chances to get home. This is very similar to the Price game - Wright is 2/5, and I'm getting him at 77% again. If we trim it down a touch to just April onwards, where Simon was able to make a final, Wright's win chances drop to 72%, which is very close to a correct line. I wouldn't blame anyone for going with Peter, but I can't outright recommend it.

King/Rodriguez - Mervyn was the third of our bets to get home yesterday, running out a 6-1 victor over Daryl Gurney, the highlight being an opening 11 darter, then consolidating the break with a 126 out on the bull after Daryl had missed one dart to break straight back. Rowby had a bit more of a routine game after Friday's fireworks, beating Darren Webster 6-2, only getting the two legs in fifteen darts or better. He was allowed plenty of time to miss 14 darts at double though, maybe on another day when Darren's firing properly, this one gets to 4-4. Now we finally have a bet - 0.25u Rodriguez 8/5. This could go spectacularly wrong, but there's a few things that are in our favour. First, Rowby has shown peak Rowby this weekend so we know he can pull it out. Secondly, while the master computer rates this as basically evens for all intents and purposes, we can check for consistency, as we know that Rowby's bad legs can be really bad, and not be factored into the projections. Rowby scores 93 per turn when winning and 86.5 when losing. Mervyn scores, er, 93 per turn when winning and 87.7 per turn when losing. So Mervyn is also showing up as pretty damn inconsistent - their profiles are oddly very similar this season, so I'm happy to go with it.

I might get something up for the quarters, but I'm thinking I'm probably going to watch the League One playoff final instead, so don't hold your breath.