ET2 day 2

Not a bad day one really - Jeff Smith gave us a bit of a fright (the other guy, in fairness, played pretty darned well), Horvat got through with an up and down performance which nearly saw him hit a nine, Petersen got the job done, only disappointment was Robinson who never really got going against Hopp. That, and dartsdata once again had a failure in the first session. They have a relationship with Dart Connect, which works, why they still don't bin sportradar off will forever remain a mystery. Into day two, there's a lot on the line for a lot of players, what are we thinking?

Chisnall/Wenig - Good win for Lukas, although all the quality was filtered down into the first leg and a bit, Chisnall's a clear step higher than Harris and, unless he does the same as what he did in Austria and completely fails to show up. 1/5 is fairly tempting, if it wasn't for Chisnall being so bad last week - losing to the same player Wenig beat yesterday. This probably ends up 6-1 Dave or something like that and we regret taking the easy money.

Wattimena/King - Hmm, this has gone on long enough that Jermaine's still a seed, Mervyn looked good against Siepmann yesterday, so maybe there's value in King. Computer says something like 55/45 Wattimena, I'm not sure that's accurate, but it's effectively evens so there's not much here. By the looks of things King should be fine for the Grand Prix barring someone doing a miracle semi final run, but a win here would make things absolutely safe by going ahead of Huybrechts, so a bit of added motivation.

Lewis/Noppert - Hmm, this has gone on long enough that Adrian's still a seed. Noppert looked very good in dispatching Payne 6-2, possibly the best performance of the day, Nico runs him close though. Danny is correctly installed as the favourite, while I think 4/5 is slightly overrating Lewis's chances, I don't think there's enough value in it to really consider a Noppert bet. Danny's only projecting 60/40.

Wade/Kurz - Nico looked really, really good against a quality operator yesterday, and needed to show some quality to come back from a 4-1 deficit. Do we really think that Wade is that much better than Lowe right now, to the point where it justifies him being shorter than 1/2? I'm not sure it does, but while I was tempted to have a play on Kurz, I remembered we do have a fair bit of data on him from the Superleague, and I think his play there is just enough to put me off going for the punt. Really wouldn't surprise me if Nico wins this, and I'll probably regret not going with the first instinct of 2/1 being good value.

Gurney/Clemens - Gabriel is actually an underdog here, which I find a bit surprising. Having said that, Daryl's game seems to have picked up a bit of late, and Clemens didn't exactly have the best Autumn Series. I'm fine leaving this one alone, while I do think that Gurney's overrated and it's the other way around for Gabriel, Daryl isn't exactly bad and a line of fairly close to a coinflip isn't unreasonable.

Aspinall/Horvat - Dragutin had some nice flashes yesterday, but Nathan's a lot higher quality than Huybrechts, while anyone will struggle if the other guy fires in twelves, Horvat isn't going to do that every leg and isn't good enough to nick enough of the remainder. 1/5 may be slightly short, but not enough to consider betting against the Asp in this one.

Durrant/Waites - Scott played really well against Penhall yesterday (who didn't do too badly himself), four legs out of the first six won in twelve darts or better is incredible play. We've got a world championship rematch and Duzza is around 70/30 in the market - this seems close to fine, Scott's probably slightly better than that assessment, but not enough to consider a bet on him.

Cross/O'Connor - Willie got a quick 6-1 win yesterday with a fine performance, taking five of the six legs in fifteen or better. Rob is a fair bit better than Larsson, but if Willie plays like that again today he can absolutely pull this one out. The line I think is probably overrating Willie slightly, but only just - I'm seeing it as close as two to one in Rob's favour, so 8/15 best price on him looks about right, I'm certainly not looking at only 13/8 on O'Connor.

Clayton/Dobey - Huge, huge game for Jonny here, who must win to reach the Grand Prix, and he's got a pretty tricky draw in Chris Dobey, who probably wasn't at his best against Ryan Murray by any stretch but was solid enough and apart from the sixth leg really didn't do much wrong. Bookies have it close to even, Dobey being a slight favourite in fact, which does surprise me a bit. 0.25u Clayton 11/10, while there's a small consistency issue I'm seeing it as 60/40 Clayton, and with Jonny having a huge incentive to get over the line in this one, I think he should do it enough that this is a good bet to go for.

White/Hopp - Ought to be good this, Ian remains a top tier player who likes this sort of event, while Max is on home soil and should have the (limited) fans behind him. Hopp played just OK yesterday, it's rated around White winning two in three, that I think is a bit too good to pass up, 0.25u White 1/2, the projections put Hopp at winning less than one in four, even if we put a bit of emphasis on Max playing in Germany, I still don't think this is bad, although I'm only going for a quarter of a unit rather than a half just as a bit of caution.

Suljovic/Smith - Mensur's off a recent final, and comes in at a similar level of favouritism as White in the above game against the Canadian number one who was forced all the way by a relatively unknown German qualifier yesterday. Jeff's play was fine, and there's almost small value in this one - I'm seeing about 60/40 Suljovic over the course of the year and we can get 2/1 on Jeff, it's more the failure to put yesterday's game away and a pretty bad time in the Autumn Series that makes me think that he's not going to play to that level and make us realise our value.

van Gerwen/Lennon - We're clearly never betting on MvG here, the question is whether Lennon is any value. He's actually only 4/1 - whether that's the odds setters being worried about van Gerwen's perceived lack of form rather than finally catching up to that his lead over the field is not at the level they've been thinking it is, I'm not sure. I'm not touching it though - I've got Lennon at 28% which might be worth a tenth of a unit, but a lacklustre performance in round one against Koltsov is enough to turn me off the game.

Wright/Smith - Ooh, this is a great round two match. Smith was OK against Tabern and never really in trouble, Alan completely failing to put up any resistance in his first two holds of throw being the key thing - heck, he went 18 darts without a treble in leg three and was still 65 points off a finish after them. There's no real value in this - Wright's in the conversation for being the best player in the world right now, Smith's not that far behind in quality and I'm seeing around 60/40, Wright's correctly favourite but isn't too short to display any value, I want a bit more than 17/10 before I'll think about Michael in this one.

Ratajski/North - Richard had probably his best game all year in terms of importance against Meulenkamp, although the win wasn't spectacular - three six visit holds, then a six visit break back before two five visit legs to go from 5-3 down to a 6-5 win. Important for confidence more than anything, if that comes then the better darts will follow - although this is a bastard draw for Northy. He's 4/1 which is a huge price, if anything it should actually be a bit shorter - but not by much, and with the vig in the market Ratajski isn't worth a play.

Price/Petersen - Match of the night this, ignore the Wright game. Devon wasn't anywhere near at his best against de Zwaan, who's basically praying for Chris Dobey to win to stay in the Grand Prix now, but it was enough. These have met in two high quality Pro Tour matches, the first (the semi final) being a match of the year contender already, and there's no reason to think this won't be more of the same. 0.25 Petersen 9/5, we've seen just how good Devon is this year and we've seen him take Price to deciders twice already in longer format games than this - the second one he really should have won, there's no way he should be this long. I'm seeing him over 45%, he's that good. (note - edited down to 9/5 after the 2/1 disappeared between writing and posting)

Cullen/Hunt - Then after that evening line up, we get pretty much a damp squib to end, Hunt didn't do much to inspire confidence yesterday after an Autumn Series with some signs of life, and Cullen's not that high up on the list of seeds you'll pay money to see. The go home match sees Joe at shorter than 1/2, there might be small value on Hunt, but Joe has played well this month (in ranked events, we'll pretend that capitulation against van der Voort didn't happen) so I can easily avoid this.

So just the three bets. Congrats to Kevin Doets and Damian Mol for claiming their first Dev Tour titles, Doets in particular needing to take out Keane Barry who was close to unplayable at times and has got to be a short price to nick a title today. Pretty strong field in these, it takes some real good play to claim a title, credit where it's due.