Grand Prix bets

Always a difficult thing to judge, as it's so reliant on doubling percentage which will throw off my projections a bit, but not that much, I think you can bump the good doublers ever so slightly, but not by a massive amount, and it's pretty hard to get any sort of useful data. You can't actually use DartConnect for this either - sure, you can work out if it says the player's taken out 40 in 1, 60 in 2 or 156 in 3 what double they've taken and how many darts they've used with either complete certainty or some level of it - but what if it says 40 in 3? Sure, they're likely 1 in 3 attempts, but what if they shank into the 5 with the first dart and they've only actually had two darts? Or, with a more realistic example, 76 in 3? Is it T20-miss-D8, or is it 20-whatever-double? You just don't know.

So, bets:

0.25u King 4/6 - I'm primarily going to use a best of 11 guide here. That's kind of the same length of match in the quick first to two here, at which Mervyn would be 70%+ against Kleermaker. Seems decent enough.

DvD/Humphries line looks close enough. Probably shaded a bit in favour of a bet towards Dirk, but the double stats I've seen aren't favourable so pass.

Close to a Bunting bet. Getting 6/4 seemed a bit of an outlier, but Gurney is actually favoured, although 5/4 would be about where I have it so not so much of an edge. Gurney has course and distance as well, so the format ought to favour him slightly.

0.25u Smith 8/5, Ross is super underrated, and I'm not sure where we're at in terms of Cullen, whether the #1 Pro Tour ranking is overrating him in comparison to what he's done on TV. Projection calls it a flip so we take that price.

Chisnall is really close to a bet, 3/4 seems nice when he's around the 65% mark. Suljovic, however, is really solid doubling and is upticking following his final, Dave historically had some doubling issues and the format multiplies the chance it is an issue, so I can just about talk myself of it.

I wish we could get slightly better on Heta (ooh, that rhymes). 11/8 is real close to a match I see as a pure coinflip. Stylistically however Wade is an awful matchup and Wade's doubling is as solid as it gets.

The line looks round about right in Price/Smith. 9/4 is maybe underrating Smith a tough, I'd say 7/4 would be a fairer spot, but it's really hard to bet against someone who's won the two Euro Tours without any real trouble at all. If Smith doesn't do anything daft like lead off with 3+ missed doubles throughout the game, which is always in his locker, maybe he pulls it out.

I was expecting Dimitri and Ryan to be matched up a little bit closer and hence we could take Searle at 13/8 - but Dimitri is actually projecting in the 55-60% range, which doesn't give us enough of an edge. I was talking to someone earlier and saying that this is a real good section for Ryan, this might be the hardest game before the semi finals, and he's not without a chance.

Labanauskas/Dolan - Looks like the market has adapted to Dolan. Maybe over-adapted slightly, I see this as bang on 60/40 in favour of Brendan, and he's 4/7. No real value.

Was thinking that maybe this'd be a spot to jam on Callan Rydz at 2/1 against Jonny Clayton. But it isn't - the line is actually perfect. Oh well. Maybe it's worth a tiny spot given Jonny has a little bit of waivering form, but I can't possibly recommend it.

Vinny up against Gabriel is a really intriguing one. I want to shoot on van der Voort here. He's 5/4, and the line in my view should be the other way around. One to monitor, if it shifts to even 11/8 or so then I think it is worth a stab. The games from Dolan onwards are Monday so I can jump in if the line does move.

The market can't separate Aspinall and Ratajski. Kryzsytof is very close to taking a shot, it looks like a 55/45 game same as last time, but Nathan looking better in the last month, coupled with the projections not being enough in favour as needed, makes it a pass.

0.25u White 9/5 - we've not seen anything real decent from either player in 2021. Anderson didn't show anything threatening in Copenhagen, and the Matchplay wasn't brilliant either. Stats say White is actually playing better so we'll take the shot, knowing full well this could go wrong given how flaky both have been in getting results.

If we could get a bit longer on Cross, I'd gamble against Wright. Over this short a format a recent world champion shouldn't be quite so long as he is. But there's not quite enough here, I'm seeing 65/35 in favour of Peter, and I doubt the line would ever drift enough to take even a small gamble.

0.1u Noppert 7/2, this is basically the same sort of punt we've taken numerous times before, the analysis hasn't changed. I'm going small again like last time even though we have the advantage for a quarter unit, but there is enough of a chance in such a short race with the format that van Gerwen plays well enough that Noppert has no shot, or that Danny makes one error and puts himself into the same situation.

I feel sad for Glen. He's longer than 5/1, and it's perfectly justified.

That's the lot. Congrats to Thibault Tricole for getting the cake in Denmark, looks like Veenstra has a decent shot of getting a win today.