It's small, I apologise for that - I'm not sure how best to get more vertical space on to my screen from Excel and still grab it. Green highlighted players are in - I'm trusting the Weekly Dartscast's Twitter for their posts as to who is still in the race and who isn't, I could certainly come up with some sort of permutation where Ratajski didn't make it so Wattimena not making it seems not too crazy, but I think that anyone from de Zwaan upwards is safe as houses - it wouldn't be too ridiculous to see Dimitri miss out by O'Connor winning his first game, Pipe making a semi, Huybrechts making a semi, de Sousa finaling and Smith binking, but let's have a look. I think anyone from Kciuk downwards is realistically dead.. Labanauskas, Thornton and Meikle I suppose have the upside, but they'd all need to final and that seems way too unlikely to consider.
Now we get to the players that might have a shot. de Sousa would need to final really, a semi would put him £500 ahead of Pipe, but with Pipe playing as he is, it's probably going to need a final. We know he can do it, but that Sunday run is unchartered territory for Jose and who knows how he'd react (cf. Jamie Hughes, last Euro Tour before Matchplay before we write him off for those reasons). West might have a bit more of a shot if he were to semi, and heck, he semied today, so who knows. Taylor I think isn't realistic, he can beat the odd guy but I doubt the draw can ever open up enough to reach a semi. Same with Shepherd really.
Michael Smith is the super interesting one. Thanks to so many bricks as a seed, he's on the outside looking in - if he reaches the quarters, he's be ahead of Smith on countback, so it's a scenario of beating whichever qualifier he needs to and then beating Ian White, which is a tough ask for anyone but Smith at least has a decent head to head record. Beating either Ratajski or Cullen in the quarters would probably make things absolutely safe.
We're getting closer now - Noppie can definitely make a quarter final. He's playing well enough to do so, he'd effectively be in the same scenario as Smith except we have no idea who he'd draw. Edhouse could theoretically sneak in by just making the last 16 if other results go his way, but I think realistically he needs a quarter final which I think is a bit too much of an ask. Kim Huybrechts is in the exact same scenario, but at least he has previous, even if he's not shown much of any form for a good couple of years now. That just leaves Justin Pipe who's currently on the outside looking in - Pipe would jump both Henderson and Smith with one win, and he's playing at a level right now whereby he should be favoured against most qualifiers. If he can nip past whichever seed he gets, he'd go past Evetts as well, and then I think he's absolutely safe.
What about those on the inside holding on? As mentioned, I think Hendo's fucked, mainly because of Pipe, but as a backup I think the chances of none of Smith, Noppert, West, Huybrechts or de Sousa is way too long. Ross Smith at least has the cushion of being ahead of Hendo and an extra bag in the bank, a Pipe win would put him back on the bubble though, and anything like a Smith semi final or a Noppert/Huybrechts quarter would do for him. Evetts is the next in line, his countback is almost non-existent but he needs three people to pass him - Pipe would need the last 16, Smith would need a semi final, then you're probably talking either a Huybrechts or Edhouse quarter, or someone making a miracle final run. I think he should be alright, but it's not completely certain. O'Connor has more of a cushion in that not only does he have a better countback than Evetts, so that sort of Huybrechts/Edhouse run wouldn't actually put either of them above him, Willie's actually in the tournament. One win would make all the difference - it'd take him out of range of a Michael Smith semi final run for one. Given the level of ridiculousness we're already talking, I think Dimitri is safe.
Of course, all this could be flushed down the toilet if someone withdraws and all the seedings get mangled, but we'll cross that bridge when we come to it...
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