Will go through section by section:
A few interesting games here, but let's go through one by one. Cullen against O'Connor is one where maybe Willie is happy just to be here, given he was the last man out prior to Durrant withdrawing? Joe's certainly the form player, and ought to be the favourite - if you look on 2020 as a whole, Willie might be value, as he had the much better early start to the season - running about 40-45% against Cullen, but since the restart it's more like a 3-1 edge for Cullen. The odds are somewhere in the middle, oddschecker is a bit funky in this one, but Cullen's around 1/2 so I'm fine to pass this one. Won't argue if you want to go with Joe though.
Hughes/Chisnall ought to be fun. We've not talked about Hughes much recently on here, certainly nowhere near as much as early last season where he actually binked a Euro Tour (which would have got him seeded for everything this year, which is nice), but clearly still a very dangerous player, if a bit inconsistent. Same with Chizzy really, although I think Dave's got a better floor game (in terms of worst he'll play, not off TV) and a comparable peak which he probably hits more often. Chizzy a bit better than 60% in the market, I think this is close to a Hughes punt in that he's around 45% no matter what I look at. 13/8 isn't quite tempting enough, maybe if he drifts a bit we can go with it.
Aspinall/Kuivenhoven's one that could have been a lot more fun if it took place earlier in the year when Maik was playing better stuff, he's not been bad but he certainly started 2020 a bit better than how he's playing round about now. Aspinall's going to be tough to beat, it's pretty rare that you see a bad game from Nathan, and the market price of 2/7 on Aspinall looks accurate enough to me. Maybe Maik has a little bit more chance than that, but it's not enough to look at a punt though.
Wade/Lennon's the last game - I'm never sure what to make of Steve, his figures have been competent all year but it's not really translated into results, so could be a bit under the radar. James is somewhat like Aspinall, very consistent, will not give away easy legs, but probably lacking the explosive peak game that the true top level players have. Very close to a Lennon bet, he's 2/1 and slightly over 40% in my projections season long, this drops about 3% since the restart, which is just about enough to make me avoid taking the shot, that and a general lack of results, wouldn't surprise me if he gets close here but misses an opportunity to get close to, or over, the finish line.
First round games here aren't too interesting. Hamilton's likely just happy to be here after a huge absence from the PDC TV stage, creeping in with a good run in the final event, but Petersen's different gravy right now, should have no problems. Devon's rated at near 80% in the market, this seems close season long, oddly enough the Hammer is rating as a better than one in three chance after the restart, but he suffers from enormous consistency issues, scoring over 11 points a turn better when winning compared to losing (in comparison, Devon is at 3 in the same timeframe). Projections don't take into account losing legs, so it won't show where he's just given legs away.
Cross/Kleermaker is the second game, Martijn's had some alright performances recently, while Cross is looking to re-establish himself in the upper tiers of the game, at least behind the big three. Cross is of course the defending champion, while he's not defending the ranking points, he is defending the title, so a bit to prove here. Cross is ranked around 70/30, I think he's got a bit more of a chance here - would set the line at 1/3, so 4/9 is real close to value.
van Gerwen/Labanauskas is a worlds rematch, there's plenty of questions over MvG after he's failed to win any of these titles, but is at least the number 5 seed after getting the most money of anyone that hasn't won yet. Darius has his work cut out regardless though - he's a live dog for sure, anyone that's in the field at least stands a chance, but the 4/1 line looks pretty much spot on to me.
King/White is easily the most interesting match of the first round in this section, King only just being the underdog at 6/5 in the market. Seems pretty clear that King's played his better stuff since the restart, while White's played the better prior to it - season long, White's projecting at 63%, but since the restart, it's King with the advantage at 57%. I'm loathed to bet against White more or less any time, but there's certainly a very strong argument to take odds against on Mervyn in this one. I'll pass on it - more data is better data, and Ian is actually still scoring more overall - the projections saying Mervyn coming from five points more inconsistency for King.
Wright/Clemens is fun, if only because I really want to see a Price/Wright worlds rematch. Clemens is certainly a very dangerous player in his own right, and as one of the two strong German contingent, has a bit of an edge he may not usually have. Market's giving Clemens a 25% shot, which appears in the right ballpark. It'd certainly be a breakthrough win, we all know how good Clemens has been but I think he's still lacking a statement victory, at least on the TV stage.
Suljovic/Gurney ought to be a good watch, Mensur's looking like he's regaining a little bit of form, while Gurney's always going to be tough to beat, even if he may be a little bit off his best form in recent months. The bookies can't separate these two, and I can't put much between them either - this does promise to be extremely close, I think the Austrian has the tiniest of tiny edges, and as he's on the shorter side of the 10/11 against evens line, we can move on.
Ratajski's yet another really strong player in what's an incredibly spicy quarter, and he'll come up against Steve West who's dropped down the ranking a fair bit, and certainly isn't at the levels of a couple of years ago where he was regularly making TV events. Ratajski is at around 70/30 in terms of market line, that looks about right to me, yet another quarter where there's no value.
First up here we've got one of the four event winners from this year in de Sousa, he'll take on de Zwaan who's had injury issues for a lot of the year and, much like West, doesn't seem quite at the levels he was at a couple of years prior where he was running really deep in TV majors. The market's still respecting Jeffrey's game some what, but I'm not, 0.5u de Sousa 4/9, Jose's better than that season long, but since the restart he's got such a superior record that he's rated to win this game nearer to 95% of the time than 90%. This looks an extremely safe punt at a good price, I'm almost tempted to go a full unit here.
Clayton's up next against the other German contender in Max Hopp, and we've got our second bet here - 0.5u Clayton 4/6. Max simply isn't in the same league as Jonny is - sure he's at home and he has his moments, but Clayton's made a final on the Euro Tour since the restart, has an event win like Hopp, and is one of the most underrated players on the circuit. Season long this looks more like an 80/20, Hopp improves slightly since the restart, but still doesn't project to even a one in four chance. Getting 4/6 is incredibly generous.
Smith-off here between Michael and Ross, Ross doing enough in the final event to claim a spot, so is hitting a nice bit of form coming into this. The market seems to have wised up, or are maybe sleeping a bit on Michael, who's gone a bit of time since doing anything in all honesty, I looked at the projections saying Ross would be a fair price of 6/4, then I looked at the odds and they're exactly the same. Oh well.
Finally we have the only all-Dutch game between Noppert and van Duijvenbode, Danny continues to be slept on as an incredibly dangerous player, while Dirk's made a major final extremely recently to completely ruin the underrated vibe we've had on him since he started 2020 in red hot fashion. When there's two players we think are undervalues it usually offsets, season long we think Noppert 55/45, since the restart it's more like 60/40, Noppert is 4/6, so nothing more here.
Disappointingly just the two punts, but regular readers will know we don't just spew money around just because there's games we could bet on. Let's just hopefully take what look like a couple of very safe plays and then re-evaluate tomorrow night for round two.
No comments:
Post a Comment