Saturday 31 August 2019

Austria day 2

Day 1 wasn't bad, didn't have much on but what we did was mostly fine, the World Trophy appeared to go alright, Paul Hogan aside, I've only just managed to find the results on the BDO's site and they do appear to have stats up, but it was so opaque to find them that I'm not looking at day 2 there, might re-evaluate day 3 once everything's in the master computer. So Austria it is, and we have:

Beaton/Wilson - no bet here. It's around 60/40 in Beaton's favour, Wilson does a bit better on smaller samples, but with the line around 11/8 Wilson it looks close enough to me to avoid the opener.

Whitlock/van der Voort - 0.25u van der Voort 11/8, appears to be worth the stab, Vincent projects as a favourite over the whole season, although that does trend towards where the line actually is as you decrease sample size. We'll go with the larger sample, betting against Whitlock is rarely wrong these days.

Price/Dolan - no bet, I'd have thought that with Dolan north of 2/1 that the model would spit out a bet, but Price's early form from the year is good enough to make it look the other way season long, and he's still doing well enough over smaller samples that it's only until you get incredibly small where Brendan looks like value. Could happen for the Irishman, but not enough value for me.

Chisnall/Burger - no bet, Dave's 1/6 and while it's probably printing money to stick bets on Chisnall, it just takes a missed double here and there and a good leg from Dietmar there and all of a sudden it's 3-0.

Evans/Shepherd - no bet. Might be tiny value in Ricky, he's a best price of 8/15 and is tracking at 70% vs Kirk season long, but over the last couple of months it's not quite such one way traffic relatively speaking, so I'll pass on it.

Smith/Menzies - no bet. Cameron's 4/1 and didn't really do enough to make me think he can pull it out substantially more than 20% of the time to be worth the shot. Smith might have some value, but 2/9 against someone vaguely competent in a short race needs a bit more data really.

White/Rusty - no bet again. Same prices as the game above, Rodriguez did just about enough to make me think it's not an automatic win for Ian.

Lewis/Bunse - intriguing one. Bunse is 10/3, which looking at season long stats ought to be value, over the year he's about 32% to win against Adrian, but while the perception is that Christian's grown on the circuit over the course of the year, the win chances actually go the other way, so I'll avoid this one again.

Aspinall/Brown - 0.25u Brown 21/10, that seems way off. Nathan's only at 55% season long against Keegan, he's won the eye catching titles but Keegan has quietly played very competent darts and beaten players a heck of a lot better than Nathan this season.

Gurney/Rowby - 0.1u Rodriguez 7/2, this one is just horrible to evaluate in that, as far as consistency scores go, you've got a top 5 player in each direction facing each other. The model looks at winning games, and Rowby's winning games are good enough that he projects as favourite. Just. So you're effectively betting on Rowby turning up half the time. Will he? At least he wasn't in blistering form against Payne, one leg aside, so it's not like he has form that he won't sustain day to day.

Clayton/de Decker - no bet here. Simply lack data on Mike, 9/4 isn't a big price that we can auto punt the underdog, he edged out Dobey who isn't too dissimilar to Clayton, so I don't want to lump the other way either.

Wright/van den Bergh - 0.25u Wright 1/2, this one's a bit like the Gurney game, except a bit easier to rationalise the other way. Season long, Peter's about 60% against Dimitri - in winning games. His A-game is better, but the thing is that he produces his A-game a lot more than Dimitri does, his losing average is considerably higher. I think Dimitri looked good yesterday but there's enough chance that he can't sustain it and then the bet becomes profitable automatically.

Suljovic/Gawlas - no bet. Adam was one of the stories of yesterday, coming from more or less nowhere to reel in Ross Smith with six five visit legs won, nice comeback from a 5-3 hole after Smith had back to back legs leaving a double after nine darts. 1/4 against 4/1, Suljovic at home against someone playing only his second European Tour match should be free money, but you never know. It does seem a bit of an over reaction, Smith was even shorter than that.

Cullen/Humphries - no bet. Luke edged out Hughes yesterday, the market's correctly realised that Joe hasn't been good for a while, but he's just about doing enough over the season that Luke only projects to just win, with Humphries being priced just the wrong side of events we can avoid this one.

van Gerwen/Anderson - 0.1u Anderson 9/2, that seems a bit stingier than you'd normally see at this stage, but I think it's still worth it. Kyle after all had match darts against Michael in the same length of game just last week, is about a one in three shot year long and no shorter sample period puts Michael as anywhere near the 80% plus we need to not bet.

Webster/de Zwaan - no bet. When was the last time a seed was longer than 2/1 to win a European Tour match against a qualifier? Who knows. That might be a slight overreaction, but not by much.

Friday 30 August 2019

Couple of late flyers

0.1u Dekker 11/8 vs Burger, Cor's come through a better qualifier and on the Nordic/Baltic tour is putting up decent enough stats that he ought to be no worse than evens

0.25u Shepherd 8/15 vs Steinbauer, Kirk's not ripped up any trees on the tour this year but Alex certainly isn't convincing either

Thursday 29 August 2019

ET10 round 1 bets

0.25u Anderson 21/20 vs Bunting, as mentioned in the previous post, Kyle's been putting up substantially better stats over the course of the year than Bunting has, over a shorter time period it's a bit closer but I do think Anderson is the better player.

Some micro World Trophy punts:

0.25u Taylor 3/4 vs Telnekes, Scott has put up some good performances in the PDC circuits this year, and I'm simply not convinced that Derk is more than a peripheral marginal top 16 BDO player.

0.25u Hogan 6/4 vs Harms, it's a short format and the sort of event that Hogan ought to perform well in, I fancy him to have the game to get home in this length of game.

0.25u Williams 2/5 vs Newton, still not seen Wes do a great deal in any event, BDO or PDC, and he's up against one of the top flight BDO players who won the Champion of Champions event just recently, should be just printing a tenth of a unit.

0.25u Kleermaker 10/11 vs Parletti, Dave's got himself up pretty high in the BDO rankings but I think Kleermaker's been hoovering up better points and is on more of an upward trajectory.

0.1u Gallagher 7/5 vs Gulliver, simply don't believe Trina still has it.

Austria preview

We're back on the European Tour road, and it's to Vienna we go with the first of four weekends in the next five that'll decide who gets to Göttingen and who doesn't, the qualifiers are all done and the draw is out, so let's start right away with previews:

Price v O'Connor/Dolan - Fun all Celtic section this, with two Irish tour winners from this season battling to face major winner Price in the second round. Dolan's the form guy from recently but the two of them can barely be separated, scoring within two tenths of a point per turn over the season. O'Connor might have the slight edge in explosiveness, but it's only slight, and Dolan playing better over the last couple of months might be the key factor. Price ought to be a solid favourite over either in the second round, but either player would be a very live dog in that one.

Whitlock v Pipe/van der Voort - Oh wow, this is the ultimate clash of styles. Both have had a quietly understated year, van der Voort about three quarters of a point better than Pipe, which doesn't translate to any significant edge at all over the course of the year. Maybe Pipe's playing a bit better recently, but it's still on a knife edge. Whoever gets through has a great chance to make the final day, Whitlock continues to have a weak season and rates lower than either first round player.

Lewis v Wattimena/Bunse - All continental tie, Jermaine has now pushed back into the FRH top 20 and barring a stellar run by Beaton will stay there at the end of this tournament, and could edge Bunse's compatriot Hopp if he takes this one. Christian's not had an awful season with an 87 points per turn rating, but maybe the full tour's a bit too soon for him. Still, it's great experience, but I can't see someone of Wattimena's calibre fluffing his lines here and the 4/9 line looks accurate enough to me. Adrian Lewis is a good test to see where Jermaine is, if he wants to progress to the next level these are the sorts of games he needs to win, and season long it looks like a flip as to whether he will or not.

Smith v Menzies/Münch - Kevin made waves in the worlds a couple of years back, but has been pretty darned quiet since then, with a string of first round defeats in some Euro Tours, but not much else, not even the continental BDO/WDF circuit to give us a read. Menzies on the other hand has been in the equation for one of the better players to not have a tour card for a while now, he tops the Challenge Tour as things stand so maybe he gets one after narrowly missing out in Q-School. Can't look past Menzies in this one, no lines yet as Münch came through the qualifier. Michael Smith ought to be way too strong for either though, there's nothing in what we've seen from Menzies in either tour to make us think that this won't be one sided.

Suljovic v Gawlas/Smith - Two players here who we know wildly different amounts about - Ross Smith has been doing well enough to put himself into major qualification equations and is just shy of 90 per turn this season, whereas Adam Gawlas is I believe a 18 year old Czech who has come from nowhere to win one of the Eastern Europe qualifiers. Will be great experience but an 82 (conventional) average on the Development Tour may not cut it, but hey, if he can force his way into another couple next year, maybe he gets into the Czech World Cup team with Sedlacek, that'd be fun. Mensur's on home soil, still playing at easily a top 16 level if he isn't quite at the peak he was at a year or so ago, Smith will have chances but Mensur will start the favourite.

Beaton v Wilson/Carlin - James Wilson is having frankly an awful year, and is barely in the worlds as things stand so getting points on the board here is going to be critical. Gavin Carlin started out the season hot but has cooled a bit since then, scoring about a point less than Wilson is per turn, and being the level of underdog he is seems about right. Beaton lost his European qualification streak, but is a seed here and this looks a fine spot for the evergreen Adonis to push into the last sixteen, although in recent months he's perhaps cooled a bit.

White v Evetts/Rodriguez - It's Rusty Jake here, who we've not seen on the senior circuit for a bit, continuing the Development and Challenge Tours, where he's not run into Ted Evetts for a while - although he is 3-0 up in three matches from 2017. Ted's doing really solidly this year, over 90 per turn on the senior circuit and has claimed four of the last eight Development Tour titles, which is some going. Ian White will need to be on his game to get through this one, White's undisputably a top ten player, but if it is Evetts he faces then he can't take any liberties, Ted's made two Sundays already this season and a run here could easily solidify a place for him in the European Championship.

Aspinall v Brown/Schnier - Keegan Brown is safely into the European Championship already and gets a home nation qualifier in Hannes Schnier, who hasn't looked impressive in the two times we've seen him last season (won against a domestic qualifier in Gib before getting whitewashed by Clayton, also easily outclassed by Wade in another event), he did beat Rasztovits in qualification but averaged in the 60s in the last game, so no dramas for Brown you would think. Aspinall's up in the seeds and has a clear point per turn better scoring than Brown, that's not a great amount and is mainly due to Brown chucking away legs, his level of explosiveness is on a par, he just doesn't do it often enough.

Gurney v Rodriguez/Payne - It's Rowby John here, still wildly inconsistent but is not having a bad season, a 93 average when winning is up there in the top 20 of the whole PDC, but he's also in the top five of inconsistency. The gist is he's about a quarter of a point per turn behind Payne, whose consistency is much, much tighter, so if we get average RJR it'll be a 6-5 knife fight, but we never get average RJR. Bookies have it even and I wouldn't like to call it. Gurney has similar tight consistency to Payne, but is a couple of points higher on all levels and I can't see Josh generating the scoring he'll need to trouble Daryl. Rowby could though.

Clayton v de Decker/Dobey - This bit ought to be fairly interesting. de Decker's made a fifth event through the associate qualifier, but has yet to make any sort of inroads in the main draw, he scores well enough though and has just been a bit unlucky. Drawing Dobey counts as unlucky, Hollywood's stats are fairly close to de Decker's, but over a much larger sample and you'd think the experience differential would be the difference, Mike had a good final round win earlier but that was about it. Clayton is slipping down the seeds a bit and could do with a run, statistically he's about at Dobey's level, if a bit swingier, so we'll see what happens.

Wright v Webster/van den Bergh - Time for Dimitri to start doing more on the senior tour, he's shown it a couple of times and is over 91 per turn this year, but with even more inconsistency than Rowby. If he's on, watch out, but if not, maybe Mark has a shot, Webster is pretty much mid-high 80's in points per turn regardless of winning or losing, so if we see Dimitri at his low points, maybe he has a shot. Against Wright, Webster would have no chance realistically, if it's DvdB though, then Dimitri has the level to trouble Peter if Wright isn't at his best.

Cullen v Humphries/Hughes - Both qualifiers will have to be fancying taking on Cullen, who's poor form for a while now was displayed for all to see in Blackpool. Hughes we know all about, Luke looks to have put his well publicised issues behind him with some good Development Tour form and some board finals and wins on the senior stage, scoring near 91 a turn for the year (Hughes is over 93 though and well worthy of around an 8/13 price). Cullen would be a similar dog to Hughes you'd think, and if Luke advanced it could be tight.

Chisnall v Burger/Dekker - No, not Jan, Cor, who won the Scandi qualifier. I'm sure he's played here before, but I guess not. Dietmar Burger I guess we know what we get, couple of mid-high 70 averages in qualifying, did get 90 against Kallinger in the board semi, don't really know enough about Cor to make a judgment but his Nordic/Baltic results lean towards me favouring him. Chisnall has no issues with either, obviously.

Evans v Steinbauer/Shepherd - Another host nation qualifier and it's Alex Steinbauer, mid 70's all throughout qualifying and the same when we saw him last year getting whitewashed. Kirk certainly isn't doing great since getting his tour card, but should have enough. Ricky Evans is a solid step up in class again, averaging four more per turn than Kirk is, neither of the two can really complain about the draw.

van Gerwen v Anderson/Bunting - Now everyone here can complain about the draw. Anderson is scoring pretty damn well but not getting the results, Bunting is scoring a bit worse but getting the big scores at the right time, and van Gerwen is van Gerwen, who Kyle should have beaten in New Zealand, but didn't. Bookies can't split the two, but I think there's a bit of an edge for Kyle, not quite 60/40 but fairly close to it. Against MvG, who knows? Probably an auto-lay of Michael.

Webster v de Zwaan/Goedl - Jeffrey should have no trouble with the Austrian, Christian nearly made it through Q-School, but didn't, and since he's been playing the Challenge Tour with little impact whatsoever. Darren Webster's a great draw for Jeffrey, de Zwaan's about three points higher and should have little trouble reaching the last sixteen if he hits even his B-game at this stage.

Bets will follow, although I only really like Anderson at this stage, I may have a look at the World Trophy as well but these'd be mostly micro stabs in the dark.

Thursday 22 August 2019

Mid World Series lull

Didn't see much point in commenting on van Gerwen's return to form, I suppose the key thing was Heta locking up a seeding for the World Series finals, pretty certain he can't be caught now, so will be interesting to see how he does in the finals.

Latest installment of "if I ran the PDC":

5) We have a one day Challenge Tour vs Development Tour tour card faceoff for a tour card

This goes back a bit to the old Championship League thing, whereby they had a bunch of games just for the sake of plying bookmakers with cheap content and markets. Every tournament they have doesn't need to be in a big venue, so why don't they try something to fill the pre-World Championship void and have a one day event, similar format to the final day of the European Tour, with the winner of it gaining a tour card at the end of it. Would be cheap to produce, give a lot of developing players exposure, and there's plenty on the line for the competitors. Work it so that if someone qualifies through both routes, they get a bye straight to the quarters. Seed by straight cash otherwise, they have the same number of events and prize fund so it's the fairest way, tour card holders through the Development Tour are ineligible to play. So, if we look at the Challenge Tour, we have:

3 Stephen Burton £5,200
4 Boris Koltsov £4,650
5 Callan Rydz £4,200
6 Andy Jenkins £4,200
7 Ritchie Edhouse £3,800
8 Patrick Lynskey £3,500
9 Cody Harris £3,450
10 Berry van Peer £3,250

In the Development Tour, we have:

3 Luke Humphries £6,100
4 Ryan Meikle £5,450
5 Shane McGuirk £4,800
6 Nathan Rafferty £4,350
7 Callan Rydz £4,150
8 Jeffrey De Zwaan £3,950
9 Ciaran Teehan £3,800
10 Keane Barry £3,600
11 Bradley Brooks £2,950
12 Andrew Davidson £2,850
13 Corey Cadby £2,800
14 Greg Ritchie £2,650
15 William Borland £2,500

That'd give us a draw of:

Callan Rydz vs Bye
Ciaran Teehan v Keane Barry
Nathan Rafferty v Berry van Peer
Boris Koltsov v Andrew Davidson
Stephen Burton v William Borland
Ritchie Edhouse v Patrick Lynskey
Shane McGuirk v Greg Ritchie
Andy Jenkins v Cody Harris

I personally think that'd be a pretty interesting format, but I am quite the darts nerd who'd watch close to anything. Fun to note that Rafferty is really close to the top 10 in the Challenge Tour, which'd have given him a first round bye as well.

BDO World Trophy draw has given us some interesting ties - Hamilton vs Smith-Neale and McKinstry vs Kenny could be good, Jim Williams vs Wes Newton might not be too bad if Newton's got a bit back towards peak form, but I think the highlights are Harms against Hogan and Parletti against Kleermaker. Ladies' event isn't bad either. Hopefully we should get some good data, although the first couple of rounds are a bit on the short side.

Sunday 11 August 2019

Challenge Tour 13-16 - this is so tight

So, let's have a look at the standings:


That's everyone with a bag in the bank, but there's quite a few stupidly strong players just outside - Colin Osborne, Darren Johnson, Mark Frost, Wes Newton, Barry Lynn, Mark Barilli, Andy Hamilton, Stuart Kellett, John Bowles and Scott Waites should all be known to various degrees of darting cognoscenti and they're all above £750 and could at least force themselves into a UK Open spot for 2020, assuming the PDC doesn't move the goalposts as they have a habit of doing.

So what of this weekend? We had winners in Cameron Menzies, Patrick Lynskey, Jesus Noguera and Callan Rydz. I don't think any of them can be surprises - maybe Patrick, but he did have a final earlier in the year, I say maybe on account of that outside of his two final runs, he's really not done a great deal, heck, look at Shaun Carroll for comparison who beat Lynskey in that final - he's added £300 in the following 15 tournaments (not sure how many he actually played).

There's just the one weekend left - who would I like to see push through and grab the tour card and the worlds spot? Let's look down to anyone who's within 2.5k of Noguera in second and is therefore within a win and a decent second performance striking distance:

Menzies - would be absolutely fine with that, only just missed out on getting a card by the narrowest of margins this year, so getting an automatic card would be great.
Noguera - you don't win two in a year if you're a mug, so he'd be a welcome addition to the tour, and boost the argument to have a Euro Tour somewhere on the peninsula, but would he actually use the card? He's shown no inclination to try to get into the Pro Tour events, which he could have walked in to, and has done no Euro Tour qualifiers either.
Burton - again, fine. Was really good in 2018, but just a bit too late to retain the card.
Koltsov - another one I'd be fine with, he seems to be developing incredibly rapidly through repeated Challenge Tour and Pro Tour outings, and I think he'd be in a position to give it a proper go if he were to get in.
Jenkins - I'm really not sure what Andy would add to the tour. At 48 he's clearly not completely done, but I think he'd be just another Wayne Jones or Mark Dudbridge in that he's declining, not good enough for the Pro Tour, but still good enough to work around the Pro Tour/Challenge Tour boundary.
Rydz - if there's anyone I want to get over the line it'd have to be Callan, he's got so much potential and talent and he's been so close to getting in the last couple of years, I think he's now gained enough experience on the secondary tours that he could jump into the Pro Tour and make a success of it.
Edhouse - he's a bit like Stephen Burton, although maybe not quite as good, I wouldn't hate the idea of him getting the card but there's certainly plenty of players that I'd prefer ahead of him.
Lynskey - I think I'd want him to show a bit more consistency to be honest, if he can punch his way in then fair enough, he just seems a bit streaky compared to others around him.
Harris - get him in, he's good enough and he definitely needs the security of a tour card to keep giving this a real go, if he doesn't make it I could quite easily see a return to NZ for a year and trying to work it out on the DPA circuit.
van Peer - if he's over the problems he had, then it'd be a great redemption story - I just fear that if he did have a couple of good runs and got on, that the week in week out might be detrimental to him at this stage.

The final weekend isn't until the last weekend in September, which coincides with the final Euro Tour event. How idiotic is that? If someone's in the running to get into the worlds spot or the tour card spot, are they really going to risk missing the Challenge Tour events to go for the European Tour qualifiers?

Saturday 10 August 2019

Denis Ovens wins World Series title - wait, what?

Damon Heta - oh wow, that's incredible. Great job. Taking out Wade, GAndo, Whitlock and Cross is a stupidly tough run and he's managed to do it. With him looking in pole position to get a worlds spot through the DPA tour, and surely getting to wherever the World Series finals are, his game is surely going to be on the up and up, he's only 32 and there's plenty of time for him to take the shot at Q-School and the tour if he wants to.

But here's another "if I ran the PDC" occasional post on that point, and it's a bit of an adaptation of point 1:

4) Tour Card 128 is a "card share" card

I'm sure plenty of us have worked in places where there's a flexible policy in relation to working practices, and in recognition of that people have skills that you'd like to use, but don't necessarily have the ability to commit to something full time, can work around this and split their role across two people. Why can't this work for darts? Let's face facts - the entirety of the PDC ranking schedule takes place in Europe, with a large proportion of that taking place in the United Kingdom. That's a fucking long way away from a lot of darting cultures, and it takes an enormous commitment to come half way around the world to ply your trade in Barnsley and Wigan for two years.

So why not build something in to the tour card system whereby you can give players like Heta (and, previously, the likes of Kyle Anderson, Cody Harris etc) the opportunity to get into Players Championship events, and anything else that may be available to them, for a shorter time period? You've got 30 Players Championship events - offer 5 players the opportunity to reside in the UK for a 6 event run and also allow them carte blanche to play the Challenge Tour, Euro Tour qualifiers, and any other non-PDC events that might be available to them. This'd be targeted at the elite of the rest of the world that might be thinking about giving the tour a go, but were unsure - you'd be situated where you'd be for a month, six weeks, two months dependent on the exact schedule. That ought to give you a solid enough idea as to whether you can acclimatise to a different country, culture, perhaps language. If you do alright on and off the board, you'd be a lot more confident about making the commitment to try to get on the tour - failing that, you'd certainly gain a lot of experience which will surely translate to your home circuit and, as a result, improve the game across the world in general.

It's a Challenge Tour weekend - we've had wins for Cameron Menzies and Patrick Lynskey - we know both of them, more about Menzies for sure, but Patrick did make a final earlier in the year and that pushes him decently up the rankings - not sure exactly how far, but if he can do some damage tomorrow then who knows?

Sunday 4 August 2019

Dolan wins - wait what? PC21/22 round up

Before that, the latest in a series of posts of "if I ran the PDC" posts:

3) New tour card winners have the option of a two year card starting at zero, or a one year card with the previous season's ranking money counting

This isn't something I'd expect to be used too often, but I find the "everyone starting from zero" concept a bit silly, I think that if someone has a decent amount of ranking money, be it someone like Labanauskas who had £25k in the bank from the worlds and a few more grand from the European Tour, someone like Ratajski where, if he'd won his card at the start of 2018, might have thought there to be value in having all the European Tour money counting towards the Pro Tour order of merit, or if someone like Luke Woodhouse was to make the worlds but not quite retain his card at the end of this year, but claim it straight back - the worlds money plus the amount he'd have earned from the Pro Tour might make it worth the punt. Something to think about.

So on to PC21/22 - huge number of people not playing, Ratajski took full advantage to claim PC21, defeating Dimitri van den Bergh in the final, who's getting a bit more consistent on the senior tour now and was third overall in this weekend's points per turn (behind Chizzy in second and, maybe a bit surprisingly, Madars Razma leading overall), while today Brendan Dolan claimed his first victory in god knows how long, taking down Jermaine Wattimena who comes up one win too short once again. Decent weekends for Ian White and Mensur Suljovic, each claiming a semi and a quarter, the other semi finalists were Danny Noppert yesterday and Cody Harris today, a bit out of left field that one but we know he has the upside and good to see him take advantage of his opportunities.

Elsewhere, Chizzy won his board both times, VVDV made a couple of board finals as he continues to pay decent stuff under the radar, Willie O'Connor did the same, Harry Ward put another £2.5k in the bank, similar with Conan Whitehead, while Justin Smith cashed both days despite being a name I don't know a great deal about. Looking at the stats it was a bad weekend for the Welsh - obviously Price withdrew but Jamie Lewis and Robert Owen are bottom and second bottom of this weekend's points per turn, Lewis in particular having another stinker today, with the number of associates about it is a surprise.

New FRH rankings:

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

No movement, but Aspinall's within 1000 points of reclaiming eights from Wright, while 18th through to 21st (Wattimena) are all within 750 points of each other. Dolan's win sees him climb to #33, he's in a bit of an area where there's gaps so not a huge amount more he could have done, particularly with Dimitri's final seeing him hold the final spot in the top 32.

Saturday 3 August 2019

Bit of a roundup

So there's been a few things going on in the world of darts since the Matchplay finished - we had the Euro Tour qualifiers yesterday, and there was a few interesting names making it through. Brett Claydon doing the double came out of nowhere I guess, just looking at ET11 first we saw Simon Stevenson break Steve Beaton's streak, Scott Taylor made it through as an associate, will be good to see how Ryan Meikle's developing, similar with Bradley Brooks I guess, while in the Euro side Maik Kuivenhoven is a little bit of a surprise qualifier. Tom Lonsdale was only a leg away from making it, which would have been a bit of a coup. In ET12, the Euro half was mostly the usual, but Davy van Baelen made it, as did Benito van de Pas, how odd. The UK qualifier saw a lot of names who've been playing a bit better than results suggest qualifying - Luke Woodhouse, Arron Monk, Kyle Anderson, Adam Hunt, Willie O'Connor, Steve West - would have added Jamie Hughes prior to ET8 obviously. Richard North also qualified, which is a useful bit of form after a pretty awful 2019 to date.

BDO news, and they've announced venues for the World Masters and Lakeside - I say Lakeside, as it's not Lakeside, it's at the smaller venue in the O2, which I think it somewhat of a positive move. Bringing it right into London can only attract more attention, it's a decent venue, sure there's some doom-merchants saying "it's not Lakeside BDO is dead" but I think it was time for a change. As for the Masters, they're going to the Circus Tavern. That's an interesting one, obviously it's no stranger to darts (although, oddly, the BDO press release just refers to it as "hosting tournaments, exhibitions") and it's also good that they've tied it down for three years. It's hugely important for the BDO to have a bit of stability and I think this accomplishes it.

PC21's going on, I find it incredible that after Gerwyn Price's late withdrawal (I at least knew about it yesterday from Twitter, when he actually alerted the PDC is another question at least) that they couldn't find a replacement. Hildesheim's not exactly in the arse end of nowhere, Hannover, Braunschweig, Wolfsburg, Kassel, Bielefeld (if it even exists) are all fairly close and you've got to think that there's surely one German player with associate PDPA membership that could have hopped in his car and not given Ian White a bye. Or, for that matter, any of the other associates that made up the field for the Euro Tour qualifiers. They didn't all just do a runner, surely?