Saturday 20 March 2021

Super Series 2 - Electric Boogaloo

Another four Players Championship events in the books. In the absence of van Gerwen, the three big players claimed three of them, with Price, Wright and Clayton (arguably the best player outside of those three right now - if not higher?) claimed one each, with Brendan Dolan picking up the first event back on Tuesday. Congrats to those - also to Smith, Humphries and Wade for picking up final money, Price also getting one to be the only player to final twice this series. A few surprising names had good series, Jason Heaver made one semi and picked up an additional 3k in the other three events after drawing a complete blank in the first series, Scott Mitchell averaged over 1.5k per event, Alan Soutar made a semi final on day one, but then levelled off a bit (the hype train is a little bit ridiculous on him now, there's certainly no betting value when he's half the price of Noppert to bink a PC event), and we also saw quarters from Barstow, Schindler, Zonneveld and then quite a few players in the top 64 but not top 32 region. Good stuff all round.

New FRH rankings:

1 Gerwyn Price
2 Peter Wright (UP 1)
3 Michael van Gerwen (DOWN 1)
4 James Wade
5 Gary Anderson
6 Jose de Sousa (UP 1)
7 Dimitri van den Bergh (DOWN 1)
8 Dave Chisnall
9 Michael Smith
10 Joe Cullen
11 Nathan Aspinall
12 Krzysztof Ratajski
13 Jonny Clayton (UP 2)
14 Glen Durrant (DOWN 1)
15 Rob Cross (DOWN 1)
16 Simon Whitlock (UP 1)
17 Daryl Gurney (DOWN 1)
18 Dirk van Duijvenbode (UP 2)
19 Ian White (DOWN 1)
20 Stephen Bunting (DOWN 1)

Wright's reclaimed the #2 spot as a result of van Gerwen's absence. Dimitri having a bit of a bad run this series has allowed de Sousa to nick ahead, Clayton's win edges him ahead of Durrant and Cross, while two quarters from van Duijvenbode moves him up to a new high of 18.

Lower down, Dolan is up to #29 as a result of his win (and two semi finals!), Adrian Lewis is out of the top 32, while Mitchell and Soutar cement places in the top 100.

Is it me, or do there seem to be a disproportionate number of players that we might already have seen the best of? Let's scan our eyes down the FRH rankings, and see who looks to be sliding. That chunk from 14-19 is the big one, DvD obviously excepted, and I think we can exclude Whitlock as well, while we may have made this point 12-18 months ago, he's shown a bit of late. Durrant, post Premier League, has been positively mediocre, he does not even feature on the top page of scoring in 2021. He's below Matt Edgar. It's surely a long, long way back to getting up to the top ten level of play he was at a year or so ago, especially when you factor in the strides the likes of de Sousa, van den Bergh, Cullen and Ratajski have made (and Clayton for that matter).

What about Cross? He's also not on the top page of scoring, albeit only just, but if I were to ask you who would be the two players immediately above and below him in scoring, would you guess Scott Waites, Andy Boulton, Jason Lowe and James Wilson? It's not terrible, but it's a long way off the top five level he was at. He's currently 50/1 to bink the worlds, and I'd rather take a Ratajski at 33s or Dirk at 40s.

Gurney's an interesting one. His scoring is about half a point lower than Cross's, and he's always been fairly low in comparison to his main OOM ranking. That said, when was the last time he was outside the top 16 in the FRH rankings? It's probably got to have been before he won his first major. He's having good results in 2019 drop off, he binked a Euro Tour pretty much two years ago exactly, semi finalled the Matchplay, and also semi finalled the PC Finals as well as a Pro Tour bink.

Then we've got White. Now Ian's scoring is just fine, it's in the top 16. He's been a top 16 player for quite some time. He's just not got results for the last twelve months, and similarly had a good 2019 (by far his best money wise with two Euro Tour wins and pretty decent major results. Question is whether he can get the results back on track. Suljovic is a bit lower down, but fairly similar.

Scrolling down, Adrian Lewis is outside the top 32, and as it stands, wouldn't make the worlds. That's pretty fucking remarkable. Something I posted on Twitter about Lewis - he's inconsistent. This season, he is scoring twelve and a half points higher in the legs he's won compared to the legs he's lost. That's a huge disparity. When he's winning his legs, he's pretty darned good - it's in and around the top 20 level. But when he's losing legs? It's awful. There's only eight tour card holders that are scoring worse than Lewis in losing legs. There's clearly still an A-game there, but it seems like the B, C and D games have disappeared completely. Why this is, only Adie would be able to tell you, but if he can just scratch together a few scrappy legs here and there, then the results will probably come.

Further on, there's lots of players that I think are clearly past their peak. Beaton I don't think ever gets back to the top 32. He's scoring below 89 this season and that won't cut it. Steve West is two points lower again, but at least has a bit of time on his side and still shows something in patches, but I doubt he can ever do it on a week in week out basis to get into one of the tricky to qualify for majors, which barring a good worlds run is exactly what you need to do to get into the top 32 (it's similar to what's been holding Humphries back, although now he does have a major final's worth of money and, after this week's final, isn't too far off in the Matchplay race). Henderson's 48 in a couple of months and is scoring pretty much at West's level in 2021. After being gifted some ranking money in 2020, it's hard to see how he pushes back to the top 32 either. Darren Webster is not only looking nowhere near the top 16 (two years ago, he was seeded for the Matchplay), he's nowhere near the top 32 and is more likely than not to lose his tour card, and is he going to get it back at 53?

Age isn't a defining factor, we just need to look at what Mervyn King has been doing in the last twelve months, but it's pretty hard to see how we don't see the likes of van Duijvenbode, Petersen, Noppert, Clemens, Humphries etc keep pushing on to the top 32 and permanently dumping the likes of White out of it, and similarly lower down, players like Searle, Heta, Rydz and others are going to occupy top 32 spots sooner rather than later. Then you've got players like de Zwaan, Dobey and Hughes, for whom anything can happen - they're all good enough to go on a run somewhere and make serious bank to threaten the top 16, then they're also all inconsistent enough that they may drop from the top 32. de Zwaan and Dobey are both outside the top 32 in the tour card race reckoning, Hughes is 29th.

Sunday 14 March 2021

Edgar v de Vos

OK, there's something I mentioned I wanted to pick up in the previous post, and that was expanding on something Matthew Edgar commented on in one of his videos, it's this one here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5G7CHlge80o

Edgar posts a lot of good stuff here, so in the unlikely event you're not already aware of Edgar TV, then go and check him out, but what I want to do is analyse what he's commented on in the last third or so of the video, namely where in the "cons" section, he comments on tons. Here, Edgar is referring to this chart from Dart Connect:


Now Dart Connect's brilliant, but here's a huge example of where statistics can be either outright misleading, if not telling you the whole picture. Look at that 100+ column, which is what Edgar is thinking looks bad, and something he wants to improve on, and if you look at it at face value, then it does appear bad. But what exactly is it telling you?

Here's where Dart Connect is a bit disappointing, it has a bunch of stats, but doesn't really explain what it does. Here, it just says "all turns of 100 or more". OK, that's fine, but it doesn't look to be calculating it right for one - if we simply count the number of turns where someone scores 100 and compares it to the number of turns full stop, it gives too high a figure for both Edgar, and also for Geert de Vos, who we'll be doing a comparison against. However, if we go for an alternative metric which I thought they might use, and that's to only include turns where it's actually possible for a player to score 100 (i.e. if the marker says Matthew you require 40, it doesn't count), then for both players it gives too low a figure, by more than what it's out using how you think it'd be calculated. Maybe it's me mistranscribing the actual scores, but for it to be the same for both players makes me think there's simply something wrong with how it's worked out.

The main thing is what it's intending to show, and is it a useful statistic? You would think that it would just be intended to show scoring consistency, but a statistic that says someone starting 100-100 is better than someone who starts 60-140, when they both are on 301 after two visits, is surely not that useful. Sure, as a pro you'd want to be hitting at least one big treble a visit, which in theory should correlate to this 100 count, but that's relying on you staying straight all the time and never switching. And here you've got a limitation with Dart Connect, it just records the score with the three darts, it's not going to tell you whether someone scoring 59 has gone 20-20-blocked and 19, or 1-1-blocked and T19. Unless there's something behind the scenes that I can't immediately see (no clue how they score cricket), we're out of luck.

So what's a better metric? The goal of darts is to win the leg, so maybe something like the percentage of legs where a player is under some score remaining after some number of visits. Maybe 120 or under after 12 would be a good measure, so that you see how often you are going to enter the critical fifth visit with an outshot that is only going to require one treble to be on a big double. This could probably be queried if you had a direct connection to the DC database, but for now it'd be something you'd need to work out on your own.

The other big issue is one thing that may be overlooked - certain visits under 100 will cause more visits under 100. Let me give you an example - I start off a leg with two straight tons, you start off with two visits where you block the T20 bed after the second dart and end up with 99. Who's more likely to have a ton visit on turn three, if we assume that we have the same skill level at hitting big trebles?

It shouldn't take a genius to work out that I will, as a result of the previous visits. I'm on 301, can stay on 20's, and will ideally look to get seven marks to leave 161 and be on a finish. You can't stay on 20's, and will try to get seven marks on 19's to look to leave a 170 out. Difference here is that I will get a ton if I only hit one treble - you won't. Having a visit where you need to get off 20's in the early stages of a leg may well see you needing to do the same (rightly or wrongly) later on in order to try to avoid leaving bogey numbers, and through no real fault of your own, and it will really damage your ton percentage.

So is this an issue affecting Edgar? Fortunately we can take a look at this. Here I've grouped every score that Edgar and de Vos put up in the Super Series, and grouped it in blocks of 5, so anything that's 95-99 will be in the same bar, anything 100-104 is as well, etc etc. Let's take a look:


Now I've deliberately left off the y-axis, but as an exercise to the reader, have a guess where the 100-104 group is. If you said it's where that largest blue bar is, then you're correct. de Vos won a game in the Super Series and Edgar didn't, so de Vos has had an extra 24 visits, but that's a huge number of straight tons from de Vos. An absolute mountain. 52 straight tons in 47 legs. By contrast, Edgar has only hit 19, but look at the bars just below those two. Edgar's hit significantly more scores of 95-99 than de Vos has, and enormously more scores of 90-94 - de Vos has only hit three to Edgar's 18.

Is this a problem? I wouldn't necessarily say so. If someone's hitting four straight tons, they're leaving 101 - which isn't really much of a different checkout to 120, you've got 19 points of wiggle room before you're being left with a fundamentally more difficult outshot. If you're on 101 and I'm on 116, then if we both hit a treble first dart then it's just a case of which big number we hit to leave a double of choice. Sure, you might have more choice as to what preferred double you want (if I'm on 114, I can't really set up D16), and there's also you having the option of using the bull last dart in hand on the fourth visit to get just under 100 for the fifth visit in a lot of circumstances, but I think it's fair enough to say that the lack of tons isn't necessarily going to cost Edgar if, as it looks like, it's as a result of a lot of switching.

I don't know if I'll be posting here through the Super Series - I may put in some quick things if anything looks interesting, but for the most part I'll probably just put some each way selections for the outright events on Twitter.

Sunday 7 March 2021

Should have fired on Humphries I guess

That's another UK Open in the books, congrats to Wade for binking and especially grats to Humphries for reaching the final, great achievement, actually winning something is surely just around the corner, and I guess Wade is vindicating those who said he should have been in the Premier League.

New FRH rankings:

1 Gerwyn Price
2 Michael van Gerwen (UP 1)
3 Peter Wright (DOWN 1)
4 James Wade (UP 1)
5 Gary Anderson (DOWN 1)
6 Dimitri van den Bergh
7 Jose de Sousa
8 Dave Chisnall
9 Michael Smith
10 Joe Cullen (UP 1)
11 Nathan Aspinall (DOWN 1)
12 Krzysztof Ratajski (UP 2)
13 Glen Durrant (DOWN 1)
14 Rob Cross (DOWN 1)
15 Jonny Clayton
16 Daryl Gurney
17 Simon Whitlock (UP 2)
18 Ian White (DOWN 1)
19 Stephen Bunting (DOWN 1)
20 Dirk van Duijvenbode

Nobody in or out of the top 20, Petersen's quarter run didn't actually see him rise at all, although he has closed the gap to King in 21st to less than 4000 points. van Gerwen passes Wright by over 5000 points, Wade's now got a 30k cushion down to Ando but there's a 200,000 point chasm to Wright in third. Cullen hits the top 10 despite an early exit, Aspinall having a lot of his ranking back loaded (this is of course the weekend where, in the real order of merit, he'd lose his UK Open win). Whitlock creeps up a couple of spots with his quarter, as does Ratajski.

Humphries, as previously advertised, hits the top 30 (knocking out Adrian Lewis), Dobey also holding a spot there for now. Jamie Hughes drops from the top 32, Dolan is up to 34, Kleermaker rises to 55, Jacques hits the top 100, while Soutar is only a few spots outside right now.

I'm not sure when I'll be back with a new post - there's something I do want to pick up on from one of Edgar's videos which I'd need to do before the next Super Series, but I'm not sure when that'd be.

Semi final tips

Don't really fancy any bets for the semis. The Wade/Price line, set with Gerwyn having slightly less than a two in three chance, looks spot on to me. The van Gerwen/Humphries line, where you can get better than 3/1 on Humphries, I think in theory should be a bet on Luke, I'm just struggling to see Luke being able to hold the game together for 21 legs against van Gerwen. So I think that's it for the event - 34 bets, gaining 2.4 units at a roughly 30% return on investment. Can't complain really.

In terms of FRH rankings, van Gerwen has already managed to regain the number 2 spot from Wright, Wade was 5 anyway but could get to 4 if he manages to bink, while Humphries is up to 35, would hit the top 30 if he reaches the final, and a bink would see him up to 21. Plenty to play for.

Quarter final tips

Seems like most of the weaker players have been eliminated at this stage. There's not a single really weak spot left, so I'm not anticipating a great deal of value here, but I am expecting a good level of play upcoming. Let's look at what we've got:

Whitlock/Wade - Wade was a pretty comfortable winner over Clemens, who seemed a bit below the level he's played at throughout the tournament, while Whitlock was again forced to a decider, this time by Brendan Dolan. Market has it 60/40 in favour of Wade, which seems about right at a rough guess, and it appears close to spot on in the projections. Maybe Whitlock's a point or two better off, but there's not the value to bet it.

Price/Petersen - The real Gerwyn showed up with a 102 average against Chris Dobey, who wasn't throwing badly at all himself, 10-5 maybe a little bit flattering. Devon ended the run of Peter Jacques 10-4, fairly comfortable, Peter seemingly just running out of steam. I thought the projections might have been closer on this one, but they give Devon just a one in three shot - to within a tenth of one percent. We can see 5/2 in places, which is worth thinking about, but it's not quite enough to recommend.

Chisnall/Humphries - Dave ended the dogged resistance of Alan Soutar in a game where he needed a break and waited until almost the last moment to get one, getting over the line by just that one break. Luke was comfortable against Kleermaker, dropping just four legs and only needing to average 93 to do so, makes me think we could have opened the throttle on bet sizing in that one, oh well. This one might be closer than the market suggests, I'm seeing this as 55/45, and we can get 7/4 on Luke. No consistency issues on this one either. I'm just wondering whether a combination of Chisnall starting to realise what he can do in majors, combined with Luke playing to get to an uncharted level in a major, might be enough to shift things slightly more in Dave's favour, that, and a slightly better level of play throughout the event. I'll pass on it as a result, but wouldn't be surprised if I regret it.

van Gerwen/Ratajski - MvG needed every single leg to get past de Sousa, Jose getting the break back fairly late but then a combination of a four visit kill from the opponent (in leg 17) and then failure to score (in the decider) prevented Jose from getting the additional break he needed to win. Ratajski was magnificent. Nobody should be beating Clayton 10-3 right now, and Krzysztof made it look easy. Maybe his best TV performance. Market has this at 2/1, I see this as 55/45. Think it's enough to play it - 0.25u Ratajski 2/1, I do get the sense it's finally his time to break through and get the huge TV win.

So just the one play. Will be back before the semis, but it may be very short notice.

Saturday 6 March 2021

Round 6 tips

Down to sixteen players and eight matches, both the main tips came through, missed out on Suljovic over van Gerwen but couldn't do too much about that one, although I was a bit excited at 3-1. Don't think there were any huge shocks, or any shocks for that matter, the only one I suppose being Kleermaker over Rydz, but that wasn't a big one in any case. Let's project round 6:

de Sousa/van Gerwen - There's really very, very little to split between the two on the stats. de Sousa actually projects to win more often, but van Gerwen has the higher overall scoring, as there's next to nothing between his winning/losing scoring, whereas there's a bit of a gap for Jose (although he's still consistent enough that it's below the database average). Will almost certainly be taking Jose to pull the upset.

Petersen/Jacques - How far can the Jacques run go? Probably ends here, Devon's a cut above who he's played to date, should probably claim this two times out of three, and has looked very steady, not being troubled much at all.

Clemens/Wade - Spicy one this, but relegated to stage 2 - for once I can't really disagree with the stage 1 picks. Clemens has had no issues to date, Wade had a bit of a tough time in round 4, but was able to pull away from Cross earlier today. Looks about 60/40 in favour of Wadey here, Gabriel definitely got a good shot but James has the edge.

Humphries/Kleermaker - Probably only one of two games that you think are auto-board two games (the next one's the other), Luke has been throwing very close to his best stuff throughout and gets another player outside of the top 32 here, while Martijn's just been quietly doing the business while never really hitting the peaks in terms of averages. Should be really comfortable for Luke, I'm projecting over 80%, he's a clear five points in scoring ahead of Martijn whichever way you look at it.

Dolan/Whitlock - Good opportunity for both, feels like it should be close on paper after Brendan was able to end the run of Luke Woodhouse and Simon edged a nail biter against Darius Labanauskas. Looks like Simon has a small advantage, more than 55%, not quite 60%.

Dobey/Price - Chris rattled off ten straight to end the John Brown fairytale, while Price was never really troubled by Ricky Evans. Probably the biggest test for Gerwyn yet, key thing will be whether he can step up the gears if needed. Looks like it's about a 2-1 matchup in the Welshman's favour, Dobey is definitely live here, although whether he's able to realise what'd be the biggest win of his career is another question.

Ratajski/Clayton - Amazing game this one's going to be. Krzysztof was pushed pretty hard by Madars Razma, while Clayton made van Duijvenbode look ordinary with a 108 average. Nice arrows. Model can't split the two, seems bang on 50/50.

Chisnall/Soutar - Dave continued good play with a 104 average to pull away from the ever dangerous Danny Noppert at the end and win 10-7, while Soutar continued his remarkable run and defeated Ron Meulenkamp by the same score. Probably ends here, Alan's gone 92, 92 and 93 in three of his games by conventional averages with just the one big one against Mansell, he's going to need that against Dave really. 70/30 in favour of Chizzy for me.

Will edit with bets once oddschecker stops fucking around thinking that the Suljovic game is still in play.

Bets:

0.1u de Sousa 5/2
0.25u Humphries 2/5
0.25u Ratajski 6/4

UK Open Round 5 bets

Ah, that evening was much better, picking up a solid set of results, Smith managing to come from behind against Cullen being the highlight, Razma also doing similar against Evans, and the longshot stab of Woodhouse also coming through. No huge shocks, we did have two of the automatic four main stage picks lose but neither Chisnall > Wright or van Duijvenbode > Anderson can really be described as a shock, I suppose the only one is White < Evans, I do wonder if Ian is damaged at this stage and is never going to get back to where he was two years ago. Odd, there's a couple of other players I can think of (Durrant, Beaton) who may also have already seen their best days, in any case I think White may now finally be out of our circle of betting trust, which is getting rapidly smaller given some of its members have binked big and lost the value (de Sousa, Clayton), leaving maybe just Ratajski and Noppert at this stage.

Still, sixteen games today, let's go:

Waites/Petersen - Could be fairly close this one. Market has Petersen as a favourite, but not by much. I've got it exactly even for all intents and purposes, which isn't quite enough with Scott at 13/10.

Cross/Wade - Rob was a bit lucky to get away with one against Hammer yesterday but got through and will need to step it up against James, who was pushed all the way by Ryan Joyce. Looks about 2-1 in favour of the Machine as I see it, that probably wouldn't be enough on its own, but more recent samples push it to 70%, and given performances in round 4, I can go 0.25u Wade 4/6.

Price/Evans - Not a great deal to write about this one. Gerwyn should take this very comfortably, it looks a tad more one sided than the 2/7 we can get on Price, but not by that much that we can consider betting him. If you want to put Gerwyn as a banker, then go ahead.

Rydz/Kleermaker - Good opportunity for both here, neither can complain too much about the draw. Callan's a near 2-1 favourite in the market, it might be closer to 3-1 where I look from. I think I can pass it as both players looked a bit sluggish in the previous game (although Rydz did look fine against Ross Smith, that said Martijn was good against Schindler), which I think increases the amount of variance and number of games where Martijn sticks around for long enough to maybe bink it.

Dobey/Brown - Chris was solid enough against Hendo, while Brown's game against McGeeney was a bit swingy but he got ahead early, and the swings were as to how much the lead was. Think Brown's run ends here, Dobey at 4/11 is actually fairly close to value, I just wonder where exactly the confidence is at given he's not had a really decent performance since, well, last year when he had that game with Ratajski.

Jacques/Hopp - Peter's been a bit of a surprise package so far, great scoring in round two, got a free win where he didn't need to do much in round three, then came through a great purists battle against Boulton. Hopp was able to get past a slightly misfiring O'Connor then win a high quality affair against van der Voort. Projections actually have this even - Hopp leads in the overall scoring by about 2-3 points since the Matchplay based on Jacques having a fair few worse legs when losing, but given Peter looks like that's not in play as much this weekend, 0.25u Jacques 21/10, certainly seems a closer game than that.

van Gerwen/Suljovic - Mensur was fine against Bialecki, van Gerwen was fine against Mitchell, even if it didn't look like it, think much of it was Scott doing weird things. Sure, Mensur's not exactly going to rattle through the legs, so maybe MvG looks less than peak again, even if the numbers are fine. 0.1u Suljovic 7/2, this seems more like a 65/35 game on the numbers so I'll take a stab at Mensur here. Not like we're doing it with a complete nobody who's never beaten MvG before who didn't average 99 in the last round.

Clayton/van Duijvenbode - Ooh, this should be fun. Dirk edged Ando in a real back and forth game, Clayton was pushed a bit by Rowby but looked comfortable enough in the end. Think that 8/11 Clayton is the correct spot, it's ever so slightly tighter than that in the actual market, but no Ferret value.

Labanauskas/Whitlock - Both slipping under the radar so far, despite Darius drawing Ashton and getting bizarre levels of shoutouts on the comms during that game, last round he got a favourable draw against Webster, didn't do too much wrong, Webster just hitting high 80's which couldn't handle with Darius' level of play. Whitlock was a bit too classy against Sedlacek, who'd had a good run prior to that, not dropping a leg. Seems like 65/35 to Simon on the projections, he's 4/7, seems close enough.

Humphries/Searle - This ought to be a good one, two players who are pushing up towards the top 32, one who's already made the break through and binked at Pro Tour level, one who's still waiting, but both of whom have made good TV runs in the past and could do so here. Luke took a tight game against Huybrechts where both played great, Searle averaged 103 in a 10-7 win over Adrian Lewis. Should be very close, the market has it evens, I'm actually seeing Luke with a 55/45 advantage oddly enough, that's not quite enough for me to really go with it given how Ryan played yesterday.

Smith/de Sousa - Another great game which we will get on the main stage, both winning deciders on board two yesterday which, as usual, was much better than the main stage once the big guns came in. Fairly similar analysis to the previous game - the market has it even, but I've got one player (de Sousa) having a small 55 to 45 edge. Again will pass, Smith's form seems to be ticking upwards.

Soutar/Meulenkamp - Alan's been the standout player so far from the earlier rounds and looks pretty dangerous having beaten two Lakeside champions already, while Meulenkamp's been a bit better than of late, taking out Eddie Lovely then getting into a solid lead early against Lennon, who started slowly and picked up but had too much work to do, seemingly using everything to get it back to parity. Soutar is priced at 4/6, which doesn't look too unreasonable, maybe it could have been 4/7, not enough edge to punt it.

Woodhouse/Dolan - Mentioned Luke taking Dimitri out earlier, solid 95 clip in a 10-5 win, Dolan showed an equally competent game in dispatching a gritty Kai Fan Leung by a three leg margin. Market thinks this is flippy with Brendan having the small advantage, I've got this the other way around, but there is a big consistency disparity which is leading me towards not taking Luke here. Wouldn't take much drift for me to go with it though.

Chisnall/Noppert - Dave averaged a ton in putting Peter Wright away in a game that was never close, Noppie got ahead big early on Durrant, who tried to come back a bit but ran out of runway and went down 10-6. Seems like a Chizzy 8/11 line would be correct, and he's actually a little bit shorter than that. 9/5 is tempting, but Dave has finally started getting big wins on TV, so maybe I can resist firing on Danny here.

Gurney/Clemens - Daryl was made to work in a good standard game against Jason Lowe that was only decided by the one break, while Gabriel was far too good for Adam Hunt, who could never really get a foothold in the game. Appears extremely tight on paper with Daryl maybe having the better side of a 10/11 projection, that's exactly what we're being offered.

Ratajski/Razma - Final games sees Krzysztof, who again had a great game on board 2 with both him and Nathan averaging over 100, while Razma needed to come from behind against David Evans. This should be a fairly comfortable win for Ratajski, who I see as having just over a two in three chance to take it and move to the last sixteen, the market gives him at 2/5 which looks about right.

So all in all not much there, just the two standard punts and then a small lay MvG flier. Back after round five with last sixteen thoughts.

Friday 5 March 2021

Round 4 bets

OK, we've got at least three sets of lines out, Oddschecker is being daft and only showing about a dozen games, but we'll go with what we have, here's what I'm going with:

0.25u Brown 11/10 v McGeeney
0.25u Smith evs v Cullen
0.25u White 8/13 v Evans
0.25u Ratajski 10/11 v Aspinall
0.1u Woodhouse 3/1 v van den Bergh
0.25u Lennon evs v Meulenkamp
0.25u Razma 8/13 v Evans
0.25u Waites 8/11 v Brown
0.25u Noppert 11/10 v Durrant
0.25u Humphries 20/21 v Huybrechts

UK Open round 4 - projections

Little bit of a disappointing ending to that session, Beaton not getting over the line was the biggest hit obviously, but we still ended up being a quarter of a unit up, so we'll take it. Let's quickly run through projections in draw order, I'll post up bets once lines are widely available, these are all from Matchplay onwards in terms of sample size:

Gurney 66% v Lowe
Lewis 58% v Searle
van der Voort 58% v Hopp
Brown 81% v McGeeney
Rydz 58% v Wattimena
Clayton 75% v Rodriguez
Labanauskas 57% v Webster
Smith 63% v Cullen
Wade 67% v Joyce
van Gerwen 70% v Mitchell
Price 79% v Hudson
White 73% v Evans
Bunting 54% v Soutar
Dolan 73% v Leung
Wright 55% v Chisnall
Cross 59% v Hamilton
Hughes 72% v Kleermaker
Whitlock 62% v Sedlacek
Ratajski 64% v Aspinall
Anderson 53% v van Duijvenbode
Petersen 73% v de Zwaan
van den Bergh 63% v Woodhouse
Boulton 65% v Jacques
Suljovic 86% v Bialecki
Clemens 66% v Hunt
de Sousa 58% v King
Lennon 59% v Meulenkamp
Razma 74% v Evans
Waites 73% v Brown
Dobey 81% v Henderson
Noppert 57% v Durrant
Humphries 67% v Huybrechts

UK Open Live Updates post

Meh, let's break things off into a separate post now we're under way. God knows how many tabs I've got open.

1117 - Kirk looked solid enough beating Mathers. May lean towards taking him in round two a bit more often pending what happens in the Zoran/Jim game. Also Bialecki nine, nice.
1125 - Bialecki looked competent, around what I was expecting. Main good, will definitely take evens against Collins if offered. Doets did Doets things, average maybe a little misleading, his play was fine.
1127 - Christ, the guy that Griffin beat hit three twelves. Rhys didn't look overly threatening, will keep an eye out on the de Decker price, could be value there. Probably going to fire on Doets > Borland shortly.
1129 - 0.25u Doets 7/4 vs Borland (365), this looks incredibly flippy. Taking Kevin easily here at that price. Looks like Taylor's been forced into a decider from a solid lead, please hold this.
1134 - Christ, Taylor got away with one there, but will take the cash, solid start. Probably grabbing Blades at anything reasonable, 4/6 or there abouts, keeping tabs on it. Also WTF Rusty. Also good pick on the Doets one there, opened at 6/5 on Betfair.
1137 - Should say that Main opened too short, best I could see was 4/7 which isn't good enough value. Zonneveld looked good, waiting for a line, will shove Koltsov/Kuivenhoven into the computer shortly.
1140 - Blades and de Decker have both opened way too short to consider, and I'm not going to even think about going the other way on them.
1145 - 0.25u Koltsov 11/10 (Betfair), I really don't think Kuivenhoven will take this, model loves Boris, he's inconsistent but averages a fair bit more and has a win so is probably feeling good.
1149 - That Rafferty average is a bit misleading. Just completely took the legs off he lost, the scoring in the ones he won is fine. Vos just beat Gawlas, a little better than I expected.
1151 - Doets is now 11/8 on 365 lol
1153 - No value on Niels. 365 is close at 4/5, Betfair isn't at 8/15. Probably a fair line would be 4/6 so no thanks.
1155 - Hudson average might be a little inflated. Probably eliminates any value there might have been against Noguera, but we'll wait and see. Lerchbacher being a little unlucky here, scoring fine, just missing doubles and Williams isn't.
1202 - Surprised by that Verberk result, Lukeman was rather disapponting. Lewis Williams looked OK, but a 94 average seems a bit misleading, kind of like Hudson.
1208 - Jim Williams got away with one a bit, Lerchbacher made a great comeback effort but didn't quite get over the line. Probably say he's around a flip against Shepherd.
1213 - 0.25u Hudson evs (multiple places), thought there would be no value, but the market is thinking this is closer than I think, so will grab evens against Noguera. Murnan safely through, but the average looked a bit low. Will see if there was a duff leg from both or something like that.
1217 - Phew, McDine scraped through. Nothing odd on the Murnan game, just wasn't great, purple patch over? Kevin wasn't bad at all. Bit of a surprise with Mol defeating Edhouse. Round one close to done now.
1220 - Seems as if they've said Pipe was very well, so another player who's been fucked over by dodgy testing then. You'd expect at least one false positive from a field of this size. Brown's average is a tad misleading, a couple of decent legs but then several simply OK legs and a few where he's not quite gone out in 15, not leaving much but letting Carlin check in six visits.
1223 - Bialecki is very close to a bet. I did briefly see evens just now, but it was shifted down to 10/11 by the time I went to bet it. It's really close anyway.
1227 - Scott Taylor looked very good. Will see how he's priced against Verberk, but I'd guess he'll be too short to consider realistically.
1230 - David Evans got the win, but didn't look good. Siepmann was just worse. Sedlacek got the whitewash, but again, that's more to do with his opponent.
1232 - Hamilton is in a pick'em spot against Mol? Seems interesting, but will give Damian the benefit of the doubt as he played alright.
1236 - Finally a lost bet as Raman lost to Rowby, but hey, 6-4 and averaging 92, shouldn't have been 7/2. Burnett in a decider, van Peer's gone to pieces against Schindler, who's got match darts.
1242 - I really hope that game doesn't set Berry back massively. Good performance from Kciuk in beating Huybrechts, if we're offered 9/4 or 5/2 (entirely possible, Kim's a name player and has been playing well) it's probably worth a tenth of a unit shot.
1245 - That's an impressive average from Jacques. He's in the Baggish section, so it'll be a while before we see who he'll play, but that could be tempting.
1247 - As an aside, I've not seen any more tips jump out at me, so anything more to be added will be from round three at this stage.
1254 - What is Meikle doing? Can't see the value on Kciuk, 2/1 is nearly worth it, but happy to move on.
1257 - Going to be watching the Telnekes line very closely in round three. That 6-2 win against Zonneveld was not impressive at all so Bialecki or van der Wal could be worth a nibble.
1300 - OK, Meikle's back on throw, so still chances, but Doets is getting closed down fast.
1306 - Doets, nice. Atkins looked very good in defeating Brooks, as we expected, although Waites is surely going to be a step too far. Hudson did a nice number on Noguera, but again that was more Jesus disappointing.
1310 - Annoying result for Meikle that. Just didn't really put much pressure on Kenny's throws, although Nick wasn't making too many mistakes in that. Happened a while ago, but Gilding was clinical against Worsley to give us more cash in the bank. Baggish has just got the break as well, which is nice.
1322 - Kleermaker was up 4-0 up with the throw and it's now 4-3, he'd better not fuck this up.
1324 - That Brown/Rafferty game probably defines scrappy... there's not many new round 3 games yet, and those that I have seen are priced as I'd expect with the seed being favoured heavily (Heta, Searle)
1327 - Why is Waites through with a walkover? Good from Vos, only just a couple of legs off, may be worth a poke against Hudson. Kleermaker's got another break so will throw twice for the match.
1332 - Vos is only 11/8, which I don't think quite has the value. Kleermaker got home, so just the Koltsov bet left in round two now.
1333 - Missed Schindler coming through, will be really interested to see how he gets priced up against Kleermaker, as that could be good value.
1335 - Very even standard between Griffin and de Decker, Mike missing out again. Sedlacek I though would be favoured, but we'll wait and see.
1340 - Schindler and Bialecki lines are not as generous as I thought they might have been, so we won't be betting on those. Still waiting on the Sedlacek line, Barstow cruising against Thomas, against Brown it'd be very tempting.
1345 - Very good there from Ashton. Didn't give Beeney much of a chance. Think that Darius will be a bit too strong, but you never know, it's another grand in the bank in any case. Sedlacek offered no value at 1/2, probably wanted 8/13 before I'd fire on that.
1350 - Actually put Barstow and Brown through the master computer, and it was closer than I thought. With Brown being the card holder, I thought we might have got evens on Chas, but he's about 8/11 and he's not actually that far ahead of John, so nothing there.
1353 - Scott Waites has a world class beard.
1400 - Murnan might have just been on a bit of a hot streak, was a bit disappointing but Leung did enough. Can't see anything else to add to the betting slip right now.
1403 - Few interesting games just gone 6-5 involving Mitchell, Lovely and Hamilton - got a feeling that their round three matches could be value one way or the other, Hammer plays Blades and Gary might be undervalued, Lovely's going to play Meulenkamp and Eddie could be the tip, while Mitchell against Gilding could be tricky to call.
1412 - Wow this Kuivenhoven/Koltsov game is terrible, Boris should be running away with it but Maik's pulling him down to his level.
1416 - Lovely/Meulenkamp is starting a fair bit earlier than I thought, but Ron's got a bit more game than I first thought and isn't that great a price either. Blades is also not priced as I'd like, he's actually the favourite.
1425 - Disappointing from Edgar there, losing from 5-2 up and having 18 to win the decider and not even getting a dart for it.
1435 - Gilding's very close to a bet on 365, game with Mitchell seems like a toss up, but 11/8 isn't quite what I'm looking for. Mitchell does, I think, have a tiny edge. Also everything's fucked up in the Kuivenhoven/Koltsov game, not started on Dart Connect and gone from dartsdata. Great.
1457 - Bit of a break while I watch the game that didn't show on Youtube. Really didn't want to watch that match. Dunno what happened with Wilson, that was an unfortunate one, also lol Barney. Still not seen anything useful to go in round 3 and we're close to getting all the games cleaned up now, so I'll end this post here unless something amazing shows up.

Thursday 4 March 2021

UK Open round 1-3 bets (part 2 - live updates on Friday)

If I'm going to give an actual bet recommendation, I will edit this on the fly tomorrow and post them in bold at the bottom - this is just a rough and ready guide for myself and others as to what sort of trigger level you want to look for as matches appear, do not treat it as gospel. I may very well go with some tips that contradict what I'm posting here if someone dominates a round 1/2 match, or if someone completely shits the bed but still somehow sneaks through. I'll only post up thoughts for round 2, round 3 has too many permutations and we can work that out more on the fly.

Kuivenhoven v Koltsov/Rodriguez - Probably looking Maik as 2/1 dog regardless of opponent
Barry v Nentjes/Burnett - Tricky, probably say Keane would be 4/6 or so against Geert? Dunno about against Richie
Mitchell v Peters/Williams - Seems flippy against Williams. Would guess Scott would be 1/2 or there abouts against Luc?
Teehan v Baggish/Claydon - Would guess that Baggish is a similar price against Ciaran as against Brett, so about 4/7? If Brett comes through maybe Ciaran's a small favourite?
Smith v van Peer/Schindler - Jeff and Martin seem similarly matched long haul. Martin's in a bit better form I think, so maybe he's about 8/11? No clue on Berry, as he's a fair dog I'd assume the same again?
Hamilton v Edhouse/Mol - Guess this'd be around a 4/5 Hammer evens Edhouse game. Damian would surely be around 3/1 again, maybe slightly shorter.
Lerchbacher/Williams v Mathers/Shepherd - Both of these seem flippy, we don't have much on Lerchbacher, and what we do have on Jim seems a bit of an underestimate. Would think that the winner of the second game should be about 4/6 roughly, but would be heavily reliant on first round reads to touch this one.
Noguera v Hudson/de Vreede - Think Hudson has a bit of an edge here, maybe 4/6? If Ryan gets through, probably a coin toss?
Kay/McDine v Rodriguez/Raman - Urgh, four players we have no read on, or at least reliable data. Would take a punt that Rowby would enter against McDine at 4/6, maybe slightly shorter?
Telnekes v de Vos/Zonneveld - If Niels comes through, he should be favoured against Derk. 8/11 seems like a par score.
Tabern v Gawlas/Vos - Adam's probably favoured, but not by much. Seems like 4/5 would be about right, Alan is competent enough. Would probably think about Vos if we're seeing 5/2.
KFL v Murnan/Dennant - Murnan rates 60/40 against Kai, but is playing much better than that.
Collins v McGuirk/Main - Snapping off either player against Collins at odds against. Robert's figures are worse than Jack's.
de Decker v Griffin/Fisher - Would imagine that Mike comes in as a solid favourite. Hard to say how much, perhaps 4/9 or 2/5, that kind of area?
Taylor/Michael v Lukeman/Verberk - Would think Lukeman would have a small edge over Michael. Maybe slightly more over Taylor. Neither's by much. If Verberk comes through, reassess everything.
Blades v Jones/Taylor - Blades would be close against Jones. Very small edge, 4/5 or so. If Taylor comes through, would guess he's 2/1.
Brown/Carlin v Jackson/Rafferty - No clue. Maybe Carlin, if he played Rafferty, would be 8/11? Seem to be saying that things are 60/40 a lot, but that's how it seems to me.
Thomas v Barstow/Wenig - Based on the Super Series, Barstow against Thomas would be too close to call. Lukas isn't that far behind.
Borland v Davis/Doets - Assuming Kevin comes through, he should be matched up very evenly against Borland. Maybe William's got a tiny edge.
McEwan/Bialecki v van der Wal - Don't think Jitse's too impressive. Complete anyone's game situation. If either of the first round players look good and we can get evens, go with it.
Lovely v Heaver/Pronk - Eddie and Jason seem like basically the same player.

UK Open round 1-3 bets (part 1)

OK, here we go, and here's how it's going to work - all 25 first round games (it was 26, but Hempel's withdrawn so van der Wal gets a bye, as does Joyce, given that Reyes must have some sort of prop bet going on a game of hide and seek with Wesley Harms), and any second and third round games where both participants are known already, I'll list here. Any games that are dependent on previous results will be in a second post, which I'll edit in running tomorrow morning/afternoon as and when we know who's playing who and as and when any profitable betting opportunities arise. Will go through board by board as that seems the easiest way to do it, if a match is in round two or three I will prefix it with (2) or (3):

van Peer/Schindler - Hmm, I was kind of expecting Martin to be a big favourite in the master computer, but looking at since the summer, it doesn't see a great deal to be excited about here, if anything it thinks we should go with van Peer. I think I can pass this one, if I look at just this last weekend then Schindler's about 80%, but at 1/3 I can't see the value.

Claydon/Baggish - 0.25u Baggish 8/15, Claydon doesn't have a great deal of legs won in the data, and he's scoring a fair bit better in the legs he lost, but Danny's got much more of a chance than two in three, it's more like high 70% or low 80% sort of range dependent on the sample you use for Baggish. Definitely worth the shot at better than 1/2.

(2) Beeney/Ashton - Odds look fine to me. Aaron's live, but I'm only seeing about a one in three shot, dropping below that if we use a greater sample. He's looking like he's improving, and Lisa's not had a great start to the year, but we can't even get 7/4 on Aaron. Stage experience may also be a big factor.

(2) Soutar/van Barneveld - Ouch, Alan is around 5/4. I thought we'd get a bit better than that based on name value alone. That line honestly seems fine to me.

(3) Hopp/O'Connor - Pretty tight one. Max projecting as the small favourite, maybe 55-60%, evens seems kind of tempting but it's been that long since Max did anything of note. Will pass it and probably regret it.

Mathers/Shepherd - Seems extremely flippy to me, Gordon having a small (<55%) edge on recent data, rising a bit to just under 60% on larger sets which'll primarily affect Kirk. Appears similar to the game above where we can get evens on Gordon, but I'll pass it again. Kirk's at least got to be confident given how he claimed his card.

Koltsov/Rusty Jake Rodriguez - Data loves Koltsov. Absolutely loves him. The market has it as a flip though, and Boris getting that advantage is from relatively few won legs, and I know from betting him in the past that he can have plenty of legs where he does fuck all which won't be reflected in the won legs stats. Overall scoring is comparable, and the model was only showing Boris up at two in three anyway, so both players being slightly odds on I think is safe enough to avoid.

Lerchbacher/Williams - Not a lot of data on either, and it seems fairly close all round, too close to call and too much variance. Jim's just odds on and Zoran's just odds against, so I think we can pass.

Nentjes/Burnett - Hmm, data is pretty close across the board here, and we can get a fairly good line on Richie. Goes against the Geert hype, and against what we saw at Q-School, but a small stab seems indicated, 0.1u Burnett 12/5. Will go small given there's a lot of variance in the data, but seems worth it.

(2) Atkins/Brooks - Line looks alright. Data's pointing out Martin has an edge and we shouldn't buy into the WYC hype, edge is somewhere in the 60%'s dependent on where you draw the line, so 8/11 isn't quite enough.

(2) Kleermaker/Jones - We can get a good price on Kleermaker here which we're going to take, 0.25u Kleermaker 4/5, he's up at 60% on a long sample and nearer to two in three over longer form, I don't see what's changed to make us think that this is as close as it is. We can't even say that Jones has done something of note recently, as he hasn't played.

(3) McGeeney/Beaton - 0.5u Beaton 2/5, this is simply being hugely unimpressed with Mark, he's done little since 2019. Steve's probably declining slightly, but still projects, since the Matchplay when we have 80 won legs on Mark and twice that on Steve, to win 90% of the time. 2/5? Yes please.

(3) Smith/Rydz - Extremely flippy. Too close to call, both players fluctuate from high 50%'s chances one way or another. 7/5 isn't quite enough to snap off on Ross here.

Griffin/Fisher - Appeared tricky to call given lack of data, Rhys is 4/6, he had a few extra points at Q-School, but is enough to translate to easily more than 60% wins? I wouldn't hate the bet but will leave it.

Jackson/Rafferty - Nathan's only a small favourite here, which is tempting. Only question is just how out of match practice is he? He wasn't overly impressive on scoring in the data where I've seen him in my data, so I think I can find enough reasons not to bet. Matt didn't do anything interesting at Q-School to make me go for it either, but should be competitive enough.

Kay/McDine - There's quite a differential in the scoring at Q-School. Simply not convinced by Keelan at this stage and Kevin's got a big experience edge. 0.25u McDine 8/15, won't go crazy on it but I think this looks fairly safe.

Rowby John Rodriguez/Raman - Rowby is a huge favourite in the market here, Brian is 7/2. That's big in a two horse race to six. Rowby's better, for sure, and the numbers reflect it, but while Rowby's tightening up consistency, there's still enough of a combination of Rowby having his all to frequent bad days with Brian coming up trumps to go small, 0.1u Raman 7/2.

(2) Kenny/Meikle - Ah, two card holders who made the worlds, so good data here. And the data loves Meikle, 70% or more. As such, 0.25u Meikle 4/6.

(3) Wilson/Brown - Intriguing one this. Keegan's not been doing it for a bit, and James rates to take this 60/40 over long data, getting up to 70/30 over shorter data. We can get odds against, so we'll take it, 0.25u Wilson 11/10.

de Vos/Zonneveld - Looks pretty tight on paper, only question is if what we've seen from Geert over fairly limited numbers of legs won is sustainable. I'll give him the benefit of the doubt and say maybe, he was certainly competent enough a few years back, so maybe an effective flip in the market is correct.

Lukeman/Verberk - Won't be betting this one. We're very limited on Lukeman, but the small amount we have seen is more impressive than Verberk, who played quite a bit last year and didn't look too good. Market has it about 2-1 in favour of Martin, which I think is an accurate enough assessment.

Taylor/Michael - Fair bit of info to look at with these two, it seems a tough one to read, probably close to a flip with Michael having the fairly small advantage in my dataset. The market's putting John in the 60/40 sort of ballpark, which I think is close enough that we can ignore the game.

(2) Rasztovits/Jacques - Peter seems a fair bit better than Michael, and is priced up such that the bookies think he's winning about 65%, that's good enough for me to give the game a wide berth.

(2) Waites/Brown - Scott is correctly a big favourite in both the market and in my model. Steve should not be able to get close, but there's no value on Scott, he's just too short.

McGuirk/Main - Jack looked alright in the first round of matches, Shane was a bit flashier at Q-School, but eventually didn't get the job done and Jack did. 0.1u Main 6/5, feels like there's just about enough there to take a poke.

Heaver/Pronk - Pretty even on scoring in the first week of Pro Tour. Half a point or so in it, but Jason's very even in won/lost scoring split whereas Lorenzo has an enormous differential. All in all Jason is slightly odds on, think that's probably about right.

Peters/Williams - Luc's got a chance here. Market has Lewis at a little bit longer than 1/2, that might be drinking a bit too much Lewy hype juice, sure, he's probably favourite but maybe not that much. Don't think it's worth the Peters shot though.

(2) Siepmann/Evans - Very tricky one to evaluate. Long form data - David has a huge edge. Recent data - Steffen has a huge edge. Market - can't split the two. Frankly I don't want to, if I knew that David had put last weekend behind him already, then this would be very easy, but we don't, so it isn't.

(3) West/Lowe - The projector is throwing out Steve as a favourite, both on recent data and longer data. OK then, I'd have thought that'd be the other way around. There's enough weirdness that I can avoid it, looking at the raw data I can see why it looks odd, but with the market saying around 60/40 in favour of Lowe I can avoid it.

(3) Boulton/Klaasen - Tricky one. Jelle's been doing good stuff and on recent data he's a 2-1 favourite, although over longer records, where Andy was having a nice end to 2020, Andy is up to the high 50% range. It's evens take your pick in the market, and we don't need to. So we won't.

McEwan/Bialecki - I don't know a great deal about these two, and I certainly have little in terms of main tour level data, but everything points to Sebastian having maybe a little bit of an edge, so 0.1u Bialecki evs, small given this is more of a hunch than anything, but I think there's enough of a feeling to go for it.

Barstow/Wenig - Two players who were close at Q-School but didn't quite get over the line, seems very evenly matched with Chas maybe having the tiny advantage, as he's 8/11 we can just look to the next game.

Murnan/Dennant - 0.25u Murnan 8/13, looks good to me, Dennant had some good scoring at Q-School and was maybe a bit unlucky not to get a card, but Murnan's been absolutely flying. No brainer.

(2) Worsley/Gilding - Think Andrew is better here. 75/25 on long term data. It gets to more like 60/40 on more recent form, understandable given Jon's made a semi, but still Goldfinger should take it. Much more experienced as well with course/distance and a higher ceiling as well. And we can get a good price - 0.25u Gilding 4/5, yum yum.

(3) Henderson/Edgar - Actually listening to a bit of Edgar TV right now, oddly enough. Hendo is the dog here, 60/40 since the Matchplay, more like 2-1 in Prime Time's favour of late. We can get odds against on Matt which is a steal, 0.25u Edgar 11/10

Davis/Doets - Really don't have a huge amount on Joe, but Kevin's shorter than 2/1 on. That doesn't seem unreasonable, he really ought to get past Joe comfortably enough, I've got the sense the line's accurate.

Gawlas/Vos - Adam's shorter than 2/1 on as well. Maybe that's a bit too soon, Gino's no mug, but Adam was a fair bit better than Vos was at Q-School, likely has the higher ceiling, so it doesn't seem out of line.

Edhouse/Mol - We've got a bit of data on Damian and it doesn't look good, not really in Ritchie's league at all. 1/3 I think is close enough, if it was a bit closer then I'd definitely look at a bet on Edhouse, but I can't see Damian realising even 25% of wins.

(2) Leitinger/Sedlacek - Karel's even shorter than Edhouse is. With these being card holders, we can actually do some extrapolation, and it's saying 80/20 to Sedlacek. Simple enough no bet.

(3) Pipe/Humphries - Big clash of styles here, but may be a tough one for either player to edge. Recent games say it's another flip, longer data says 60-65% win chances for Cool Hand, and that's more or less bang on the odds we're offered, so let's move on.

Jones/Taylor - Another one sided game in the market with Jake being priced at 1/3. Dom wasn't too far off Jake on the averages, and it's a name I've seen a bit more than Jake, so maybe there's a bit of value here? 0.1u Taylor 12/5, get a bit more funking power going on, I really can't see Jake being that good that he should be that short.

Hudson/de Vreede - Pete didn't average that much more than Ryan at Q-School, but it was enough, and he's got the card, and has had the card before. Still ends up being priced fairly closely, if Ryan (who's been about) was a bit longer I could certainly see it being worth a nibble, but 13/8 just isn't tempting enough.

Brown/Carlin - Carlin's been around for a while and was very close to getting his card straight back, and the back end of his tour card run translates to being slightly better than what John's done so far. Market sadly agrees, pricing Gavin at 4/5, so no bet.

(2) Murray/Kciuk - Interesting match up between improving card holders, and over the long haul they can't be separated. Maybe Ryan is all the better for getting a bit more stage experience that Krzysztof hasn't got yet. The market gives Ryan a small edge, 55/45 or so, that's fair enough, let's carry on to the last game.

(3) Evetts/Webster - Market can't split the two. Ted has the tiniest of tiny edges. Both players in the region of the best not to make the worlds. Maybe there's tiny value on Darren, he's ever so slightly odds against, but it's just not enough of an advantage. It's not like Darren did anything last week to get us excited.

Conditional games coming up soon.

Monday 1 March 2021

UK Open draw out

Few interesting games straight off the bat, but first, did I ever make a post analysing the amount of times players drift left? Not sure why else Mardle would have blocked me on Twitter, but oh well, I guess I'll just have to live without his insights into the game.

UK Open draw is done. Disappointing six withdrawals, most we kind of expected but Krcmar missing out is unfortunate, was fairly quiet this week but certainly someone who could have done some damage. Larsson was another odd one, the rest we knew about. So, let's look through each game:

1) Aaron Beeney or Lisa Ashton v Darius Labanauskas - Darius should be extremely comfortable to make round four, but the second round game has got a fair bit more interesting, Ashton went 0-4 and didn't score too great, down in the bottom ten. Same as Beeney, but Aaron having picked up some confidence boosting performances and wins will certainly help.

2) Keane Barry or Geert Nentjes/Richie Burnett v Luke Woodhouse - Interesting section. Burnett didn't make it out of Q-School after a fairly solid Challenge Tour season in 2020, but did end up fairly high up the averages, that said, Geert was looking a fair bit better and probably has to be the favourite. Barry is a step up in class again, scoring a good point and a half better last week than Nentjes was, with Woodhouse ranking closer to Nentjes than Barry. Maybe Luke's experience will count for a little bit.

3) Max Hopp v Willie O'Connor - Hopp appeared quiet this weekend, but quietly put up some good scoring, certainly a fair bit better than we've seen for a while, nearly a whole point better than O'Connor, so maybe Max has a bit of an edge, although it seems like forever since we saw him bink that Euro Tour title, and Willie's definitely done more notable stuff in the interim period, so would say this'll be fairly flippy.

4) Nick Kenny or Ryan Meikle v Kai Fan Leung or Joe Murnan/Matthew Dennant - Looks wide open this one. First game might be a bit one sided, Meikle had a good weekend statistically scoring above 91 compared to Nick's scoring just under 89. On the other side, KFL showed flashes in 2020 and wasn't really off the pace this week, but Murnan's been looking extremely strong of late, and should be favourite to get to round four - although Dennant is a pretty huge banana skin, being one of the top players who didn't get a card in terms of averages. Could be the case that Murnan gets progressively easier opponents in each round.

5) Jonathan Worsley or Andrew Gilding v Scott Mitchell or Lewis Williams/Luc Peters - Another real interesting section. Worsley made names for the right reasons in the first Super Series with a big semi final run, but that seemed like a variance special as he was under 88 scoring for the week, so a clear three points below Gilding who's shown glimpses that he might be getting back to his best. On the other side, Mitchell got a bye and while he's not got a huge amount in the bank to date, certainly played well enough that he should be able to handle either opponent in round two - Williams had some great results but was very up and down, so if there's more down then Peters might be able to quietly pull through, although Williams first made his mark in this event. A Gilding/Mitchell round three game would be too close to call potentially.

6) Harald Leitinger or Karel Sedlacek v Mike de Decker or Rhys Griffin/Sean Fisher - Harald had a pretty disastrous Super Series in terms of scoring, ending as one of three players to score under 80, so Karel should be comfortable enough. On the other side it's hard to look past de Decker, whose scoring was extremely close to Sedlacek's - I don't know a great deal about either of the first round players, Fisher just getting a spot through Q-School and Griffin just getting one from the Dev Tour, in Q-School Rhys was several points higher than Sean so I guess we go with him and then de Decker to advance?

7) James Wilson v Keegan Brown - One of a few straight up third round matches. Brown didn't have a brilliant Super Series, ending at around 89 in scoring with a fair bit of inconsistency. Wilson was also hugely inconsistent, but was right up there with an absurd winning average and could easily have made a bit more money with a couple more solid legs here and there. Keegan's probably done a bit more in 2020, last year wasn't great for James at all, but on current form it should go the other way.

8) Steve West v Jason Lowe - Now here's one where we've got two players who had bad weeks. West was horrendous, finishing way, way down the scoring list and barely scratching above 80, which is not a good sign against someone ordinarily as solid as Lowe - but Jason didn't exactly have a great time of things, but he does have a big negative consistency score so was maybe running into some tricky opponents? His scoring's still way down on what it was last year though. Probably still favour Jason.

9) Kim Huybrechts v Ryan Murray or Krzysztof Kciuk - This'd be a good one to view. Kim looks to be getting close to his best, which is a dangerous level of play that can deal damage to anyone. Murray was quietly good in 2020 and made a bit of a name with a fine worlds performance, while Kciuk was definitely improving rapidly towards the end of the season, but at least on last week he was a bit below Murray, but very close to say the least. Probably Ryan edges it, but I can't see either troubling Huybrechts.

10) Brendan Dolan v Maik Kuivenhoven or Boris Koltsov/Rusty Jake Rodriguez - Interesting international section. Koltsov and Rusty duked it out at Q-School and gave us a lot of data, Rusty actually having better scoring than Boris, although Boris clearly got the better results, and in the Super Series Rusty also had much better scoring. He was looking very good. Maik was tracking extremely similar to Boris last week, scoring is basically identical albeit a fair bit tighter on consistency. Would think if Rusty shows up, he can easily get through to Brendan, and he wasn't scoring that far behind Dolan this week, so maybe he can pull off a big run?

11) Ryan Searle v Robert Collins or Shane McGuirk/Jack Main - Really don't think anyone troubles Ryan here. He's just too good, although the Super Series probably has to go down as an off week, hopefully he makes the requisite adjustments. Collins is in from the Dev Tour and drew a bye, but looked pretty bad at Q-School so either McGuirk or Main have got to fancy their chances. Jack got the card but Shane scored a bit better, and of course got the nine, and was pretty darned close to getting a card in any case, so maybe he should be a small favourite?

12) Ryan Joyce v Cristo Reyes - Hard to call. We've seen fuck all from Reyes forever and he wasn't at Bolton last week. Joyce was and his scoring was fine, although maybe a little bit below the average we come to expect from him. It's really hard to believe that Reyes is in any sort of match condition and will surely be pretty rusty, sure, if he shows his best he can certainly handle Ryan, but I can't see that happening.

13) Mark McGeeney v Steve Beaton - Steve's got to be happy with this draw. In this round having dropped out of the top 32 for the first time since possibly ever, McGeeney's scoring was well below par at Bolton, Steve tracking pretty much exactly ninety a turn which is seven more than Mark was. Beaton's enormous experience and relative level of current performances will surely see him through this one.

14) Ron Meulenkamp v Eddie Lovely or Lorenzo Pronk/Jason Heaver - Jason had a bit of a rough start in terms of results to life with a tour card, but his scoring was steady enough and was maybe a little bit unfortunate. Pronk scored a little bit higher but was very unbalanced, having a few very good legs but plenty of poor ones so maybe Jason's consistency will see him through. Lovely has a similar profile scoring wise to Heaver, but about a point higher all round - not really quick to finish, but got enough to get some results and move through to a first round bye. All depends if Pronk turns up, if not, Lovely against Heaver could be tight and a bit attritious. Ron scored over 90 which is a bit better than any potential opponent, although not by that wide a margin, he certainly wasn't having a great run late in 2020, but if he can turn things round back to 2019 form, he should be fine.

15) Madars Razma v Zoran Lerchbacher/Jim Williams or Gordon Mathers/Kirk Shepherd - Seems wide open does this section from round one. Zoran's scoring in the opening weekend wasn't great, but in Q-School he was about a point higher than Jim was, but I think most people would probably take Jim over what we've seen from both players across their career. Mathers and Shepherd both won cards, and their scoring across the recent Bolton weekend was basically identical. Way too tough to call that one. I would think the winner of that game gets through to face Madars, who had a very good weekend statistically and, importantly, seemed to iron out a bit of the ups and downs from his game, so I think the Latvian will make round four.

16) Ted Evetts v Darren Webster - This should be a fun one. Darren's been on the decline for a bit now, and seemed to lack scoring pretty badly at Bolton and didn't get good results at all, but at the same time, it's about half a point better than Ted's was, but Evetts I think has the higher peak round about now. May well be tight.

17) Wayne Jones or Martijn Kleermaker v Jeff Smith or Berry van Peer/Martin Schindler - Urgh, tricky one to guess is this. Jones didn't play Bolton so we don't have a great line on him, while Martijn didn't look at the races either, so I think we may just ignore that one barring great odds one way or the other and look to the other set. Schindler's looked incredibly solid of late, a long way ahead of van Peer, and has just got that little bit extra scoring power in the winning legs than Jeff has, so I'd take him to nick it, and probably go all the way through to round four.

18) Justin Pipe v Luke Humphries - If both players are firing, this ought to be good, Luke's on my list of players to finally bink this season, while Pipe had a decent 2020 and was at least trending in the right direction. Both were scoring 91 at Bolton, so should be tight, think Luke should have the edge though.

19) John Henderson v Matt Edgar - Ooh, Bolton rematch from when Hendo nicked one against Edgar in a decider. Hendo's had a pretty horrid last twelve months, and was scoring a fair bit worst than Matt, who was quite a bit up and down with some occasional bad legs (he goes into this on his channel), so I think Edgar is the favourite, assuming he can keep things together.

20) Adam Hunt v Martin Lukeman/Maikel Verberk or Scott Taylor/John Michael - Real mix of players here - Lukeman's got a card for the first time, looked pretty competent at Q-School, was maybe a little unfortunate at Bolton but was lacking scoring power. Verberk is here from the Challenge Tour, but was under 85 (in conventional averages) at Q-School, so will take Martin there. Taylor is also in from the Challenge Tour, but we have to compare having good form at this event with looking pretty ordinary at Q-School, albeit not much worse than Michael was, and John's scoring at Bolton was nothing really to shout about. So maybe take the two domestic players and then Lukeman to edge through to Hunt? Adam was meh last week, but was steadily improving in 2020 and should be able to handle this just fine, he does have a lot of experience at this stage.

21) Josh Payne v Keelan Kay/Kevin McDine or Brian Raman/Rowby John Rodriguez - Er, OK then, Kay is here from the Dev Tour, but scored in the 70's at Q-School, McDine blew a card but was a good five points higher so will take Kevin there. Raman also has a Dev Tour spot, was comparable to McDine at Q-School, but was a few points behind Rowby, whose scoring at Bolton was just fine, so I guess we take the Austrian to come through? And then probably beat Payne? Josh's performance in the Super Series wasn't anything to write home about, Rowby was a lot better.

22) Damon Heta v Steffen Siepmann or David Evans - Well, Heta's winning, Evans was well below par at Bolton and Siepmann's been his usual steady self, but that isn't a level that can threaten Damon at all. If David can't improve sharpish Steffen could take it, although I do think David is clearly the better player, he just needs to show it.

23) Steve Lennon v William Borland or Joe Davis/Kevin Doets - That first round game would be a lot of fun to see, two Dev Tour qualifiers, Doets maybe being in the conversation of one of the best players without a card these days while Davis made the world youth final, Kevin should have a clear edge though. Borland didn't have results at Bolton but his game wasn't hugely below par, Kevin is certainly in with a good chance of getting through that one as well. Lennon should be a step too far, he continues to put up very good numbers but just lacks in results, Doets wouldn't be drawing dead but would fancy Steve to take it.

24) Jim McEwan/Sebastian Bialecki or Jitse van der Wal/Florian Hempel v Derk Telnekes or Geert de Vos/Niels Zonneveld - Christ, this is a mess. McEwan I know nothing about. 86 standard average, just missed out at Q-School, meh. Bialecki outscored him, is in from the Dev Tour, certainly seen the name a few times, probably has the edge. van der Wal binked a Challenge Tour last year but did little else throughout the year, but was right next to McEwan in the Q-School averages, but a fair bit behind Hempel, who did come through it. Probably Hempel > Bialecki in round 2, but it's tight. de Vos and Zonneveld both got cards at Q-School, Geert not really performing on the scoring there but binking it outright while Niels scored a lot better and ground it out through consistency. Odd that the scoring at Bolton was the other way around completely. Derk didn't have a good Bolton, and has always seemed to be the sort of player who's done a bit better with results than scoring. Who knows.

25) Jesus Noguera or Pete Hudson/Ryan de Vreede v Alan Tabern or Adam Gawlas/Gino Vos - Nice international feel about this one. Noguera has had his moments on tour and scored a pretty respectable 89 at Bolton last weekend, which is about half a point better than Hudson did, who got a fairly mediocre average at Q-School, but it was still a little bit better than Ryan's. Alan was comparable to Pete, albeit a bit more explosive, which was easily outdone by Gawlas, who ended up in the top ten of averages of all of Q-School, cracking 91 at Bolton, solid start. Vos was averaging 87 at Q-School, which isn't too bad but I can't see him being able to trouble Adam, who may well be the pick to take this round four spot, certainly seems to have the most upside.

26) John Brown/Gavin Carlin or Matt Jackson/Nathan Rafferty v Martin Thomas or Lukas Wenig/Chas Barstow - Another mess of a section. Carlin nearly reclaimed his card, but not quite, but the averages were fine, actually higher than Brown, who only just crept onto the tour, so maybe Carlin, with the greater body of experience, actually has the edge here. Rafferty was unfortunately unable to try to win his card, and if he did, he might have had a very good chance, Jackson was close to getting a card, but not quite, would fancy Nathan here. On the other side, Thomas had a very nice opening weekend at Bolton, although his scoring was a little bit lower than Barstow, who was incredibly unlucky not to get a card and was averaging like a madman. Wenig was in a similar spot, but just slightly lower than Barstow in the averages - but still higher than Thomas. Real tough to call.

27) Andy Boulton v Jelle Klaasen - This is a lot clearer, and may well be one of the ties of the round. Boulton and Klaasen have both done well of late, Boulton's been playing at a consistently high standard for some time now, while Jelle is trending back up after a fair bit of a dip, and this last weekend both were scoring in the 91-92 region per turn, ending up on the first page on my sheet, so I'd expect a high standard of play with Andy maybe having the small edge.

28) Andy Hamilton or Ritchie Edhouse/Damian Mol v Gary Blades or Jake Jones/Dom Taylor - Fun mix of names here. Hammer was not great at Bolton - alright in his winning legs, but way, way down in his losing legs, to the point where he was outscored by three points per turn by Edhouse. What Mol can do is going to be interesting to see, he was just a few hundred quid off winning a card from the Dev Tour, but was right in the middle of the bunch at Q-School. Edhouse maybe? On the other side, Blades looked maybe the best he has done on tour this past week and was a bit unlucky to not return with any cash - he was a good three points higher than Jones at least, who was four points higher than Taylor in the Q-School averages. I do think Gary can take this, and may be able to nick the third round tie as well.

29) Ross Smith v Callan Rydz - Oh boy, what a tie this is. Smith is in the fringes of lists for who'll next bink a Pro Tour event, while Rydz got removed from those lists a few days ago. Smith's scoring at Bolton was just fine, but Rydz was a fair bit better, so you've got to take Callan on current form.

30) Michael Rasztovits or Peter Jacques v Ciaran Teehan or Brett Claydon/Danny Baggish - Hmm, interesting section. Rasztovits drew a bye and will face Jacques, we saw Michael at Bolton and while he picked up an alright win or two, he was a bit below Jacques' standards so I've got to favour Peter. Teehan looked a fair bit better in terms of results at Bolton, but the scoring was down at Rasztovits' levels, so he could be in trouble here, Claydon performed a bit better, and Baggish was a lot better again, so I'm thinking Danny just takes this good draw (which he wasn't getting recently) and takes it into round four.

31) Martin Atkins or Bradley Brooks v Scott Waites or Steve Brown - Should be straight forward. Brooks had a real bad weekend at Bolton. Atkins was a little better, but probably has a lower ceiling than Brooks does, so Bradley can take it if he finds it, but if not, Martin will advance. Brown was also having a rough time, while Waites was continuing the good stuff he was showing in the latter half of 2020. Scott should cruise here.

32) Michael Mansell v Alan Soutar or Raymond van Barneveld - Here's what the TV will pick up on. Barney obviously binked, but Soutar played better. In terms of scoring, Alan was half a point better, just running into tough opponents. Both players are way, way better than Mansell, at least on current form. So whoever comes through this behemoth of a second round tie ought to be comfortable to get another win. Soutar will surely be the value.

Tips will come once I've seen lines.