Winter Series incoming

Alright, five days of action that's going to decide pretty much everything. I have all the time off work, so will be able to analyse and bet in running throughout, won't be offering any tips here (will post up on Twitter any each way value I see), but there's certainly going to be a lot of value on offer.

First things first, congrats to Wales winning the WC that has got Clayton into the Grand Slam, it's also locked up all the Euro Tour winners into it, so Cullen, Petersen and de Sousa are there. White is waiting as the penultimate man in from the Pro Tour, Ratajski was with him but got home as part of the qualifier tonight, which also saw Evans, Hunt, Whitlock, Pipe, Clemens, Joyce and Chisnall claim spots. As such I think that puts Searle on the bubble, who can only be denied if someone binks who's above him in the Pro Tour? Plenty of people who could do - Gurney, Lewis, Beaton, Bunting, Hopp, Hughes, King, Noppert, de Zwaan, Wattimena, Dolan - all players perfectly capable of binking that could deny him. Of course, anyone could get there if they bink twice...

Keep an eye out on Twitter, I'll likely pick out some each way value for tomorrow. In the meantime, there's been a few people questioning about the World Cup - mainly in terms of structure and that sort of thing. Lots of people wanting more pairs - I'm not a fan of the concept, I think that if they want to improve things, they should either expand to 40 teams first (have an extra day with 25 to 40 playing off to get in to an existing format), and if you want pairs, just have the pairs as the first game when at the last 16 onwards. Then again, that makes teams with one really good player that bit more overpowered - if you can shove your best player on set 2 and also have him in the pairs, then it limits things to just needing the weaker player not to fuck up too badly. At least at the moment, the pairs is a decider for all the marbles. I don't know. Maybe if it reverted back to every other year, I'd be a bit more enthused about it.