Sunday 26 September 2021

Gib quarters

Can't be disappointed with the Noppert bet. If anything, I'm disappointed I didn't go larger, even though it would have resulted in a larger lost. Grabbing four match darts as a 3/1 dog seems to indicate we were on the right side of the line, all we can do is keep doing that and the results will come. Quarter finals starting in about an hour, we have these games:

Whitlock/Dolan - Should be quite close. I'm seeing Dolan as a small favourite - as is the market. I've got a touch over 55%, so with him at around 5/6, there's no advantage either way. Big opportunity for both players here.

Ratajski/Suljovic - Bit surprised Mensur won earlier so easily, but that's that, this should still be a tricky match up and Ratajski is correctly a small favourite. 8/11 is close to worth it, I'm seeing it right in the 60-65% range for Krzysztof, but we won't go with it. Ratajski's not looked fantastic this weekend after all.

Price/van Gerwen - Oh boy, this should be good. The bookies can't separate them at 10/11 the pair, if it was a bit more weighted in favour of MvG I'd probably take Price who I see at a shade over 55% to claim it. But it isn't, so we won't.

Wade/Aspinall - Another game where the bookies can't split them. I can't either. So we won't bet this one either.

I won't be back on for the semis and finals, but with the pricing as it is I'm guessing there won't be any value whatsoever.

Gib last 16

Solid day yesterday. Two safe bets were extremely safe, Smith-Neale pulled the huge upset to get us well into profit (although looking at the stats I'm not sure how), Krcmar got us pretty close to another and was unfortunate to find Wade playing as well as he is, Hempel didn't work but Gerwyn was playing fine. Eight games this afternoon, let's see if we can find any value.

Whitlock/Evetts - Ted wasn't great but just about did enough to take down van Duijvenbode, while Whitlock was just hitting steady five visit kills to take down Michael Smith in eight. Simon should be comfortable here, the 4/9 he's quoted at looks to be an absolute perfect reflection of where the match is at.

Rydz/Dolan - That was some performance by Callan yesterday to take out the former world champion. That's title winning form. We'll see if it continues, Dolan wasn't brilliant yesterday but steady enough to take out a bit of an underperforming Mervyn King. Rydz is only a small underdog in the market - maybe he should be a fraction longer, but it's not enough to bet on Brendan (57% when he's 4/5 isn't enough edge), I suppose factor in yesterday's games a bit more than larger data and it's fine.

Smith-Neale/Ratajski - Krzysztof was opportunistic against Searle yesterday in a match he had to win, Searle being very close in lots of legs and missing many doubles. Smith-Neale took advantage of Clayton doing the same really, but with a pretty mediocre statline in comparison. ASN is 10/3, that seems like a fair bit of an overadjustment, I wouldn't have thought that if Ratajski were to play Clayton instead he'd be a huge underdog, so I'll leave this alone.

de Sousa/Suljovic - Both did what they had to do yesterday, Jose whitewashing a pedestrian Kenny Neyens, while Mensur was a bit fortunate to edge out Kim Huybrechts in a game that was worth a lot more than the additional grand in prize money he immediately won. Jose is 4/9, it should probably be slightly shorter (I'd say 4/11), Mensur is not as close to Jose as the market thinks, but it's not enough of a gap to bet either.

Price/Heta - Should be a fun one, Gerwyn hitting five visit legs for fun, Heta was a bit up and down but did enough to take out Adam Hunt while never really being threatened, being up 3-0 and 5-1. This is not a bet, the Heta side seems a bit underrated, but he's not got chances to warrant being even 2/1 and there's only 5/2 available, so let's move on.

van Gerwen/Noppert - Michael dispatched Rob Cross easily enough, just the one great leg to finish it, while Noppert was embroiled in a couple of sticky legs in the match against Harrysson but hit enough five visit kills to keep the qualifier at arms' length throughout. We're going to shoot 0.1u Noppert 3/1, I really should go a quarter unit here given I see Danny at over 40% to take the match, but maybe Michael outperforms his season stats comfortably with having finally broken his title duck, and blitzes him with a 108 average or something silly like we know MvG can do.

Wade/Clemens - James was really good against Krcmar, neither player letting anything easy get away, just the two legs in the entire match which dragged on past fifteen darts, and just the two breaks of throw in the whole game. Gabriel booked his European Championship spot taking down Devon Petersen who just let Gabriel win too many easy legs. Wade's about 60/40 in the market, this looks spot on to me.

Cullen/Aspinall - Joe strolled past Joe Murnan who really didn't put up much resistance and only won the one leg in a mutual clown show of doubling, Aspinall meanwhile played maybe the best he'd done all season with three four visit kills against Edhouse, and could have averaged much higher than the 102 he did but for one leg where neither could hit trebles. The market has this close to evens with Joe having the tiny edge, I think that's a fair enough assessment.

So just the one flier on Noppert, they generally seem to have where the name players are at correctly enough these days to not leave a huge amount of value on the table. Should be able to check in before the quarters.

Friday 24 September 2021

Gib day 2

At football tomorrow (that sounds nice), so will blast through tomorrow's schedule for bets:

van Duijvenbode/Evetts - Well, Ted got through, but that was a dumpster fire. Maybe not the dumpster fire of the round, but it was not good. Line looks perfect, Dirk should win this 75% of the time. Whether he does or not, I don't know, he's not looked brilliant in 2021 compared to his 2020, but against Ted's performance today it may not matter.

Dolan/King - This will be a real good game to watch. Maybe not one for the casual, but for the purist, they could watch this first to whatever number and double it. Seems like King should actually have the slight edge in this one. Market agrees. Moving on.

Noppert/Harrysson - OK, Andreas beat Keane Barry, so I guess that's a thing. Did he do anything impressive in the process? No. 0.25u Noppert 3/10, would go more but for fear I've completely misread this.

Heta/Hunt - Oh god Hunt. Just gone for a quick check on Adam's stats, and he seems consistent, so maybe he's lost a bunch of close games on variance. Seeing Heta at 80%, will take a bit of 0.25u Heta 2/5, looks alright to me. Only on Unibet so take it while it lasts.

Suljovic/Huybrechts - What do we even make of Mensur right now? I know what we make of Kim, he continues to play great stuff, should have whitewashed Koltsov, but meh, who cares, job done. Market is even. Not going to push my luck with Kim, but it's really close.

Smith/Whitlock - Simon was clinical enough, Michael is a huge step up in quality though. Whitlock is still with chances, I see him as having just short of a 40% shot. Sadly, so does the market.

Wade/Krcmar - Boris just smacked up a World Cup winner with a near 98 average, and he's only being rated as having a 25% shot against Wade? Sure, I'll take a small piece of that, 0.1u Krcmar 3/1, only not going larger given there might be a bit of uncertainty on Boris' match sharpness and that Wade always tends to overperform against his rating. But Boris should take this 35%. That's worth a punt.

Ratajski/Searle - This will be real fun to watch. I can barely pick a winner, maybe seeing Krzysztof as having a 10/11 edge. That's roughly where the market is at, they're on the Searle bandwagon, so it is what it is.

Clayton/Smith-Neale - We don't have much on Adam, but what we do have makes me think it is definitely worth a tiny shot given the price, 0.1u Smith-Neale 13/2. Again, only on Unibet, so grab it.

Petersen/Clemens - Surprisingly evenly matched on my stats, but Gabriel's been a bit underwhelming, still he got a good result today. Market has Gabriel as a 1/2 favourite, that is, shall we say, excessive, but Devon just feels like the dictionary definition of a confidence player, so I'm not going to take him at odds against, especially given the vig in the market.

Wright/Rydz - Should be a fun one if Callan can bring his peak game, but the market indicates he won't do so on a regular enough basis to make it worth a bet. Wright being around the 75-80% range? Seems fair.

Price/Hempel - 0.1u Hempel 5/1, he's very much in our betting circle of trust, it's a big ask, but I'm seeing 30%. He is that good. Gerwyn likely wins, but this is definitely worth the punt.

van Gerwen/Cross - I really wish van Gerwen hadn't have won at the weekend to give him confidence. Then again, with Cross only barely longer than 2/1 and only being at 39% chances, and not looking brilliant today, maybe it's for the best.

Cullen/Murnan - Joe on Joe violence, you love to see it. Market I think is probably fine, it is probably underrating Murnan by a few ticks, but certainly not enough to go for him to pull any sort of upset, given he only barely scraped through today.

Aspinall/Edhouse - This one is kind of similar. Edhouse is probably a bit closer than the market suggests, but it isn't worth the punt. He's 36%, he's 5/2. It's close, but it's not enough.

So we're taking two solid favourites, but not with enough confidence to go yolo on them, then three dogs to see if we can spike on one of them. This is the sort of day that goes wrong a large amount of the time, but if we have our favourites hit then we're close to freerolling on some good upside plays. Let's see what happens.

Gib second session bets

lol nentjes

After a bit of a delay, oddschecker is up and running, as is dartsdata which took until the third game to appear but at least had the data. Why they don't switch everything to Dart Connect is beyond me, but it is what it is.

Bunting/Hempel - Hempel's pretty good, and the market seems to be respecting that despite the big name opposition, he's only 7/4. I think that's worth taking, he's only averaging slightly lower than Bunting and actually projects as a tiny favourite based on winning legs - 0.25u Hempel 7/4.

Parody/Neyens - No real data to go on here. Neyens is only 60/40 in the market. I feel this should be a Kenny bet, but we just don't know enough.

Searle/Schindler - What a matchup this is. Close to a Schindler bet. The market seems to be recognising that he's much improved, not giving us better than 13/8, but Ryan is still a favourite at 55%, which doesn't give us quite enough equity to consider betting on Martin, particularly given that Ryan will have accumulated a lot of stage experience in comparison to Martin in the last twelve months.

Jones/Whitlock - This should be a pretty easy Whitlock win. It's not worth the bet though, I'm seeing 79% chances, 4/11 is kind of tempting but there isn't the edge to recommend a play. Seems safe to acca.

Koltsov/Huybrechts - Here's an edge though. Kim's averaging a full five points more than Boris is, which is equating to an 80% chance to take the match. We can get 4/9 in a couple of places which is around the 70% implied chance margin, so we'll go with it - 0.25u Huybrechts 4/9, it's very tempting to go half a unit and with a slight bit more edge (and if Koltsov wasn't so swingy), we would.

Rydz/Hewitt - Rydz is 1/9 lol. I half want to snap off a tiny play on Hewitt, but I won't, I don't think he's quite ready to take on someone of Callan's calibre.

Edhouse/Beaton - Bookies can't separate them. Understandable, they're both scoring 89 a turn for the season and I can only see it 55/45 - in favour of Edhouse. 10/11 take your pick isn't tempting.

Humphries/Clemens - Gabriel is still playing fine darts, it's just Luke's pulled away with a great 2021. Humphries is 4/7, this seems a little harsh on Clemens who I'm seeing with just a shade over 40% chances, but it's not worth the bet.

So two more tips added, let's hope that Florian can undo the damage from this afternoon.

Gib first session bets

Bookmakers are being cowards and not putting up lines for the domestic qualifier matches, but as mentioned in the previous post, I doubt we see any value in them, so let's whack through the other first session games. Bit short of time, so will do the evening session on my lunch.

Harrysson/Barry - Hard to know where he's at really given he didn't travel to Iceland for the Nordic Tour.  I like Barry, but I don't think he's quite at a level where we're taking a best price of 1/3 against someone who will have come through a qualifier of a reasonable standard.

Kleermaker/Murnan - Two matches between understated players here, Martijn has quietly been getting fairly close to major qualification, while Joe has got a decent record as well, most notably at Q-School. We can get 13/10 on Joe here on 365 which looks a little bit of an outlier (others have it closer to evens, only looking at three books as oddschecker haven't got their shit together), I have Joe as a slight favourite but not really enough to take it. I'd be all over 6/4.

Hunt/Nentjes - Adam's not particularly young now but definitely a player on the rise, Geert has a bunch of potential but yet to really show it, I'm getting Geert as a very solid near 2-1 favourite here, and Adam is the favourite in the market, so 0.25u Nentjes 13/10 on 365.

Murray/Evetts - Bookies can't separate them. I can't either. No value, but should be a decent watch.

Kovacs/Cross - Rob is a best price of 1/16 lol

Henderson/Krcmar - With the World Cup being unranked and mostly pairs, Hendo's decent form isn't in my database, so it is showing Boris as a tiny favourite. We can't get better than 6/5, so this is less of a bet than Murnan should be.

Expect later tips around 1330 UK time.

Thursday 23 September 2021

Gib stuff to come later

I can't find any details about the HNQ, so I'll wait to see who comes up there before making a fuller post. There's lines up for the other 12 games, hopefully oddschecker will get in gear later today. Given who the HNQ's have got, I wouldn't be entertaining a bet against either Mervyn King or Callan Rydz. Probably not against Adam Smith-Neale given the competent level he's played at on the Challenge Tour. Kenny Neyens I might think about, but just checking his Challenge Tour stats, he looks to be playing at a decent enough standard to keep the other guy down.

Some real spicy first round ties. Murray/Evetts could surprise. Searle/Schindler is obscenely good, with the winner to play Ratajski who needs the points after losing first round last time. Koltsov/Huybrechts might not be bad if Boris turns up. Bunting/Hempel might be a dark horse for match of the round. Hunt/Nentjes might end up being surprisingly entertaining as well. Not interested in his first round game, but Cross getting MvG in round two ought to not be bad. Assuming he gets through as well, Keane Barry getting a good test against Danny Noppert should give us a decent indicator of where Keane's stage game is at. Hendo/Krcmar has a lot of potential, Humphries/Clemens is a nasty draw for both but one with a lot of potential against one of the weaker seeds in Petersen in round two. Not a bad draw at all.

Expect some bets later this evening.

Thursday 16 September 2021

Bit of a break

Been a while since a post, been busy with other projects, but quickly new FRH rankings:

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

Grats to Gerwyn for some great darts where it mattered to bink Hungary, Smith's final moves him up to eighth, Humphries' semi pushes him well above White (would have been above with a first round exit, but still), while de Sousa is extremely close to Anderson now and is within striking distance of the top five. A good run in Gib may be enough. Dolan is up to the top 25, while Lewis Williams is in the top 100 for the first time, Gawlas isn't far behind. Adam'll be there after the European Championship for sure.

Scotland won the World Cup. Real feel good story for Hendo, as well as the Austria team, going to be fun seeing them all in the Grand Slam for sure. Some decent games, but there's been some right stinkers as well. They really need to expand the field to 40 and add an extra session for a prelim round to both allow more teams in, as well as to filter out those who we want to see there, but really can't cut it. China and Italy didn't even get darts at a double, let alone win a leg. Can we not expand the field to include a returning New Zealand, Latvia, France (Tricole +1 wouldn't be horrible) and some other emerging nations? At least if you trim off the worst, you don't get horrible mismatches in the last 32. All talk about making it pairs only, I don't know, I'm on record as not being a fan of the format, but for a one-off event like this, I think it'd be fine to do it, although you do miss the backstage shots of the guy who isn't playing in the singles right now.

Can't see decent quality results anywhere immediately for the England Open. Looks like Brian Raman got most of the cake, would be good to see him at Lakeside. Real shame for the WDF that they've had to kick the Masters down the can for another year but with the Netherlands being an idiot country then I don't think they have too much choice.

Won't be watching any of the Nordic Darts Masters. Busy this weekend, not ranked, nothing of real interest. Bring on Gib.

Sunday 5 September 2021

Any quarter final value?

Probably should have gone for those two marginal shots, oh well

Cullen/Humphries - Nope, nothing here. Line has Joe as a small favourite, this looks spot on.

Dolan/Price - Great win for Brendan earlier, but it doesn't get any easier, Price is nearly a 75% favourite in the market, which is a little bit too short (I've got Dolan at 32%), with the vig in the market we can't consider betting on Brendan though. Maybe if you see him win the bull and you can get on some sort of handicap?

de Sousa/Gawlas - Yeah, probably comes to an end for Adam here, but he's played some really great stuff and if the vig levels off, it's not too far off a speculative tiny punt. Jose didn't play great earlier, or yesterday for that matter, if he's only in second gear and pacing himself then fine.

Wright/Smith - Hope nothing's seriously up with Borland, but we won't speculate. Smith was meh against an equally meh Barry, this looks about 60/40 in favour of Wright on paper, oddschecker has literally just put the line up and it looks to be shaded a bit more in favour of Wright, but nowhere near enough to consider taking Smith.

If we look at semi finals, Price should be about 4/7 against Cullen, 1/2 against Humphries, if Dolan does pull the upset then the semi is going to be extremely close either way. Maybe shade Cullen as 10/11 against evens, the other way around against Humphries. de Sousa against Wright ought to be 4/5 JdS and 5/4 Wright, whereas if Smith were to advance Jose should be 8/15 perhaps? Could be sneaky Jose value. We'll see.

Quick last 16 post

Thanks Adam Gawlas!

Cullen/Cross - Priced fairly even with Cullen having a tiny edge. This seemed fair at a first glance, and is fair looking at the numbers, 52/48 in favour of Cullen.

Wade/Humphries - We've seen this one quite a few times this year and always gone with Luke, who is 11/10, which I think is enough of a line correction not to bet it. Luke should be the tiniest of favourites, but it's even closer than the match above, so there's not the value despite him being odds against.

van Gerwen/Dolan - MvG's pretty short here at a first look, shorter than 2/5. This is quite close to be honest, Dolan is 5/2 which relates to a fair win chance of 29%. I think it's more like 37%, but I'll hold off on pulling the trigger only on account of Michael looking good yesterday, that gives me just enough pause to think he might outperform the model slightly which would remove any value.

Price/Heta - Pretty similarly priced matchup here, I'm not quite sure what that says about Heta in relation to Dolan, or Price in relation to van Gerwen for that matter. This one looks fine though, Price should win this just over two in three.

de Sousa/Aspinall - This is again fairly close to a bet. 4/7 on de Sousa implies about a 64% chance to win, I see it at 70%. There's not quite enough of a combination of the market still not liking de Sousa and still liking Aspinall (who's still fine, just not in the top 25 of scoring this year) to go for the bet though.

Gawlas/Williams - Huge opportunity for both here, line is thinking 60/40 in favour of Lewis. That might be a little unfair on Adam, but not enough to be betting it, should be more like 6/5 instead of 6/4.

Wright/Borland - This one does look priced correctly. Borland's done us good this weekend, and if you ended up taking a flier on Mensur being rusty as well, you got rewarded, but Borland 5/1 appears on the money. I see 19%, that's close enough.

Smith/Barry - Probably a highlight this one as long as Keane shows up. Not for betting though, I see Keane as having a little less than a one in three shot, and he's 9/4, so meh. No thanks.

Should be back for quick quarter thoughts before the football.

Saturday 4 September 2021

Hungary round 2 bets

We went 2/3 yesterday, although the third one (and the first one to be fair) were a lot closer than they needed to be. Keegan didn't do it, you can't afford to be giving anyone three legs in more than eighteen darts, come on lad.

Today:

0.1u Gawlas 9/2, he looked good yesterday. 96 average, every leg in fifteen darts or less, sure this is a big longshot ask and I'm only seeing him at 25%, but the performance yesterday makes me think he might be able to nick it enough to make this value.

0.1u Hempel 5/1, this is kind of similar, a speculative long shot, I'm seeing Hempel just shy of 30%, so 5/1, what the hell. He's going to need to up his game a lot from yesterday, but clearly can.

That's it. No real value at all. Just a couple of long shots where they seem to be overvaluing the favourites. Don't expect these to work too often, think we end up 0/2 quite a lot of the time, but we only need to hit one to make a solid profit, and it's all about picking players we think win more than the odds suggest.

Friday 3 September 2021

Hungary bets

Disappointing lack of lead time to pick out bets, I know the draw was a bit later than usual, but they knew the home nation qualifiers in advance so there's no excuse for the bookies. Quickfire round it is:

0.25u Borland 1/2, this seems a bit of value, William's extremely underrated and Johan isn't really that good

0.25u Brown 10/11, only seems like small value given where I think Richard is at, but this is a big event for Veenstra, and maybe he's half thinking of hightailing it to Niedernhausen?

Gawlas seems really close. If you see 7/4 then go for it, I'm only looking at two books because loloddschecker and can't see better than 13/8.

0.25u Hempel 4/9, not quite as close as I'd thought but still enough value to take the bet.

The rest look pretty much on point, disappointing lack of value but there we go.

Thursday 2 September 2021

Hungary draw thoughts

Feel sad for Noppert, perfectly understandable he's withdrawn, as one of the few players that remain in our Betting Circle of Trust, it's a potential missed opportunity but darts takes a back seat at this sort of time. Hope we see him back for Gibraltar. Also a shame that, given they did the home nations qual in advance, we've got a first round bye to O'Connor, but hey! The European Tour is back! Let's analyse!

Cullen v Nentjes/de Vos - Geert on Geert violence! You love to see it. Seems a pretty close one on paper, Nentjes looks like he has the slight edge, 10/11 for him would appear to be a fair line. Joe's got to be reasonably happy with this draw. If he were to face Nentjes, he'd be an easy 2-1 favourite.

Cross v Strbik/Smith - Rob got the last minute seed callup, and has a particularly tricky opponent - assuming Ross Smith gets through Peter Strbik. We don't know a great deal about Peter, looks to be a Euro Tour debut, no signs of any form anywhere. Got to think Ross cruises through, and from there, it's a dead coin flip.

Wade v O'Connor - Can go straight to round two here. Willie's been a bit quiet this season, but it's a decent opportunity here, nick this one, and it's not unreasonable - Wade's 65/35 - and he's in with a very good shot of getting to a major. James probably thinking this to be a middle of the road draw, sounds about right.

Petersen v Humphries/Razma - Luke probably the strongest player in the first round, so it's a bit unfortunate for Madars to get this draw, especially given the fuck up in communication re: the World Cup "yeah, Latvia are in, oh, wait". Luke a bit stronger than a 2-1 favourite, and he'd be about the same against Devon, so I guess Petersen is hoping for Razma to pull the upset?

van Gerwen v van der Voort/Gurney - Nice looking section here. First round game seems too close to call, seem to have comparable form, and you'd think that both would be treating this as a final. You'll probably get tips to go against MvG in round two, but it's all going to depend on the price. Michael should still win this two times out of three.

Dolan v Soutar/Rucska - Was an interesting interview with Jozsef on the Weekly Dartscast this morning, and he got the draw he wanted. Don't think Alan's quite the same player from when they played previously, and as such should advance easily enough. Dolan in round two should be a great match up, definitely excited to see this one, Brendan ought to have a 60/40 edge there.

Price v Veenstra/Brown - Another exciting debut here, this time for Richard Veenstra, and it's a decent test against Keegan Brown. We've got a bit on Veenstra from the Challenge Tour, pity he has to miss weekend two (maybe if he loses he can dive into events 9-12?), and Keegan probably deserves to be maybe a 60/40 favourite? Price should be extremely comfortable in round two, something like a 4-1 favourite.

Heta v Whitlock/Webster - Boy, this first round match would have been pretty spicy five years ago when Webster was having his second wind, now maybe not so much, he's declined a fair bit while Simon's not quite at the same level but certainly hasn't had the same amount of dropoff. 70/30 for Simon. Round two, if Whitlock does win, has a lot of automatic story, Damon should have the edge, but not by a huge amount, approaching 60/40.

de Sousa v Vegso/Murnan - We've seen Janos a couple of times previously and he's looked alright, albeit not in the sort of form which we think will cause Joe serious problems. Murnan's been throwing at a 90 clip all season and should be a solid favourite. Against de Sousa, not so much, that's another 4-1 type of match.

Aspinall v Lewis/Brooks - Decent opportunity for Adrian here, who needs the ranking points for multiple reasons. Bradley managed to pick up a Development Tour and should be full of confidence, but Adrian's been playing substantially better. Bradley's got next to no twelve darters and can't finish in fifteen anywhere near often enough. Adie should be something like 1/4, and actually a slight favourite against Nathan.

Clayton v Krcmar/Gawlas - This is a real interesting first round game. Krcmar has been around for ages and looked really good in the time where he's taken steel tip seriously, whereas Gawlas is at the other end of his career, showing flashes but still fairly inconsistent. Actually seems quite close on paper, Krcmar has the edge but it's not by much at all. 55/45. Clayton ought to take the next round three times out of four, so a strong favourite as you'd expect, but not automatic.

Ratajski v Jagica/Williams - Another domestic qualifier I don't know anything about. Not on dartsdatabase. Complete random. Williams has looked a fair bit better than I thought he would do this season, and is probably not drawing dead against Krzysztof - it'd be a big ask, but one in three doesn't seem unreasonable?

Wright v Hempel/Jones - Jake really seems to mostly be making up the numbers on tour having won his tour card, having a huge string of first round defeats and mediocre scoring. Shame, maybe he's more of a second year guy, but he is here, albeit going to be a huge dog to Florian, who should take this more than three times out of four. Wright ought not to have huge trouble, but I can't see this being priced as the 2/5 that I think it ought to be, especially if Florian gets dragged down to Jake's level, so could be a bit of an underdog shot on Saturday?

Suljovic v Engstrom/Borland - Johan's been around for a while, hasn't looked great this year. Borland should have no trouble. Suljovic we're a bit clueless on, as he's been absent for so long, so maybe there's a fair bit of rust that needs shaking off? I don't see Mensur as much better than 60/40 in any case, so this could be one to monitor.

Smith v Beaton/Michael - Steve could do with picking up cash here. Michael much the same, albeit for different reasons. Steve should be too strong, but John's doing enough to have a bit more than a one in three shot. Michael on the other hand just needs to do his job and he should reach the last sixteen, Steve would have a bit more than a one in four chance, but not by much.

van Duijvenbode v Lovely/Barry - Big shot for Keane here, Lovely got through the associate qualifier but hasn't done much on the Challenge Tour and just plodded at low-mid eighties in orthodox averages. No trouble for Keane. Keane against Dirk is incredibly interesting, Dirk's got somewhere between a 60% and a two in three chance, but that should have great pace and be a preview of late round major matches for years to come.

Bets will be up once lines are posted. Can only see outrights at this stage.