Saturday, 28 November 2020

Players Championship round 2

What a beautiful day yesterday was. Probably close to the perfect day with the way the bets were ordered - the first five romped home with Woodhouse, Boulton, Humphries, Searle and Rydz all doing a job, setting up a profit for the day and making the rest a freeroll. Could have been so much better, as only Hughes added to the winners, but we were very close on some others and seemingly on the right side of the two big long shots - Waites missed five for the match, Meikle threw a great leg to force a decider against Wright and then, as so often happens, completely lost his scoring after doing the hard work, then Adie got himself into a great position to break the Whitlock throw at 4-4, missed three darts to do so, was gifted another three, then missed those as well. Webster wasn't close against de Zwaan, but hey, nobody's perfect.

Sixteen games this afternoon - will say in advance that I don't know what I'm doing today so getting some last sixteen lines and analysis may not happen. Meanwhile, the Philippines worlds qualifier is ongoing, so if I do come back later today, hopefully we'll know who's binked it by that time, seems like all the big names are there. Will go again in draw order:

Wright/Whitlock - Covered these guys matches already. Both possibly a bit fortunate to reach this stage. Line looks spot on, I'm thinking Simon has slightly less than a one in three shot at this, Peter's 4/9, so next please.

Searle/Rydz - Took both these players to the bank yesterday with them getting comfortable wins over van den Bergh and Gurney which may surprise the casuals, this one is too close to call, more or less a 50/50, so let's see if the market is unbalanced... 0.25u Rydz 6/4 it is then.

Smith/Anderson - Michael got through a decider against Krcmar, needed to fade a low three figure out in that one but Boris didn't get a dart. Gary looked in pain yesterday but produced a great post break run to come from a big hole against Keegan Brown. Appears 60/40 on the numbers, which is about where the line is, so no bets, although if Ando does prevail then given his potential next opponent, it could be an auto-lay in round three.

de Sousa/van der Voort - Jose was able to ease away from de Decker after Mike kept things close for the first half of the game, while Vincent had zero troubles with Derk Telnekes, not a pretty game and he'll need to improve today to stand a chance. Boat has definitely sailed on de Sousa value, the 4/11 we can get looks absolutely perfect.

Aspinall/Smith - Mentioned Nathan should have gone out already, Ross meanwhile was in no real danget against Kim Huybrechts, mainly because Kim was only ever getting one dart at a double and kept missing them. Market thinks Nathan wins this a bit over 60% but not quite two in three - I think that's a bit unkind on Smith, who for me easily has over 40%, getting close to 45%, so while it's close to a bet, doesn't this just seem like the sort of game where Nathan knows he's dodged a bullet and starts a name on the trophy run?

Heta/Murray - Damon easily swept aside Maik Kuivenhoven who really looked like a shell of early 2020 Maik, while Murray got through Stephen Bunting pretty competently, was a 140 machine but could definitely do with tightening up his doubles. Game looks roughly 70/30 on the stats. Market is close enough to that to not bet here.

Sedlacek/Razma - Karel is the lowest seed left in after stunning Ratajski in what can only be described as an opportunistic performance, Krzysztof missing an uncharacteristic number of doubles. Madars got by Chris Dobey in a game that was a bit closer than the scoreline suggests, Dobey missing doubles as well which could easily have changed a 6-3 loss into a 5-4 lead. Too tough to call this one, I think Madars has a really tiny edge, so with the market saying 4/5 on Razma we can keep moving on.

Noppert/King - Danny took no time to beat Steve Beaton, only dropping the one leg as Steve just had far too many no treble or one treble visits. Mervyn got a good win over Dave Chisnall, getting a solid lead early in the game and just not relinquishing it - Dave didn't play bad, Mervyn was just better. Appears close on paper with Danny having a tiny edge, bookies agree, let's go to the bottom half.

Price/Hughes - Hendo played a little bit better than I thought he would do but was nowhere near threatening Gerwyn. Jamie was similarly a class above Ricky Evans, solid high 90's average, 50/50 on doubles, decent power scoring, what you want to see really. It's nearly enough to take the shot on Jamie, I'm thinking this is about 70/30 give or take a fraction of a percent, and we can get 7/2, which looks a big number. Is yesterday just a flash in the pan though? Fuck it, 0.1u Hughes 7/2, we'll just go small to minimise the risk, it's long enough there's a decent reward.

Wattimena/Humphries - Luke put out Devon Petersen to finally get a decent result that's matched his good play over the year, and now faces Jermaine who came up against a similar player with good play/bad results in Steve Lennon, naturally Steve averaged 102 and only won one leg. This looks like a very good spot to take Luke - 0.25u Humphries 5/6, I thought my data model might favour him a bit, but it says Wattimena only wins one in three! If we can get virtually a flip price we have to take it.

White/Clemens - Two players who came through fairly close games here, White taking out Borland in ten and Clemens eliminating Kleermaker in a decider, didn't need to fade any match darts though. It's a match I'd like to see but I guess it'll be dumped on stage two, another one that looks like it's priced correctly, I have Ian as a tiny favourite, not even 55% so with the market being around evens we can move on again.

Cullen/Cross - Joe wasn't really threatened by Hunt, Adam never really getting close on Joe's won legs, I think he had one dart at double in all of them and that was at bull. Rob was a surprisingly easy winner over Jason Lowe, was 5-1 up and Lowe only really had chances in one of those five. Think it's a sign of their respective form that this is a pick'em in the analysis, market is also on the Cullen hype train and not liking Cross and giving us much the same odds. Yawn.

van Gerwen/Clayton - Michael was an easy winner over Labanauskas, Jonny similar over Mansell, nothing really to see here, both players averaged a ton, very good spot to go Clayton here, 0.25u Clayton 3/1, seems on the stats to be about 55/45. That's an extremely strong edge.

Jones/de Zwaan - Wayne got through Glen Durrant, who looked much improved from the Slam but just really couldn't handle an extremely solid game from Wayne, not doing a lot wrong, possibly his best game all year. Jeffrey beat Webster easily enough as we mentioned earlier, nothing to see here other than it was good from him - ton average, solid all round game. I'm half tempted to take Wayne here. We can get 9/5, and the stats say this is only about 55/45 in Jeffrey's favour, I just can't see Jones as the sort of player that can play that kind of game in back to back matches, so I'll pass on it.

Zonneveld/van Duijvenbode - Niels got one of the bigger shocks yesterday by putting James Wade out, while Dirk got through a good tussle with Willie O'Connor early on, both players averaging 100 and neither doing much of anything wrong at all. This is an extremely similar game to the previous one - the winning chances and odds are identical, and it's similar in that I'm just not sure that Niels will be able to replicate the game from yesterday. Ought to be a good one to watch though.

Woodhouse/Boulton - Final game, one where we were on both of these yesterday so I expect to see no value, in both games the loser picked up four legs so the matches were competitive, so good to see them get over the line. No bet here once again. If either player has an edge it's Woodhouse, but it's the tightest game of the day on the analysis and the bookies can't separate them either.

So just the four plays. Humphries and Clayton seem the best, Rydz looks good enough to go with, Hughes is a bit of a flier but we know he's been able to do it in the past and given Gerwyn's had the odd vulnerable game, who knows?

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