Saturday Slam stuff

Didn't see too much unexpected in the first half of the last sixteen. Clayton maybe could have kept things a bit closer but seemed to have way too many legs where he simply wasn't scoring, which with Dimitri playing as he was made things way too difficult. The two players that got through with one win went down, neither player really getting close - suppose they both did early on for a bit. Chisnall losing as he did against Jose was odd, went down heavily early in the game before coming back a little bit. That choice not to go for bull was an odd one from de Sousa, but it is what it is.

Four games today - it's a pretty damned fine schedule with Smith/Cross, Petersen/Heta, MvG/Ando and Price/Aspinall. Can't ask for too much better than that. In terms of betting, Smith's maybe a little bit too short, I'd have gone for something like 4/7 against 6/4 rather than 1/2 plays 15/8, but no real edge and I think with the relative recent form, favouring Smith a little bit more is just fine. The Petersen line is pretty much bang on. I'm seeing him as just shy of 60%, so with him being 4/6 it's very well set. Ordinarily, Anderson would be worth the shot at longer than 5/2, but this whole playing through injury spooks me, he doesn't seem in the right place, so I'll pass on it. Such is van Gerwen's relatively mediocre level of play I don't see him as even having 60% chances since the restart, but I will avoid the game. Finally we've got Price against Aspinall - if we're going any place here it would be on Price, sure he was lucky in round one, but Nathan wasn't really in top gear either, so I think that levels out and the longer straight elimination game will focus Gerwyn's mind a bit. That, and he's back to back champ in this event. He's generally around 4/9, the projections put him closer to 4/11, there's not enough there, so no bets on this day either.

Can't recall if any of the hastily arranged Asian qualifiers are taking place this weekend. If so, will be interesting to see who can make it through, I'll hunt through Twitter and see what's going on.