First round in the bank, few interesting results, some decent games - would say Gawlas/VVDV was the pick, some comedy (if you haven't seen the Meulenkamp fuck up, do check the PDC's Twitter). Sixteen games today, let's blast through them.
de Sousa/Raman - Brian wasn't great yesterday, but he didn't really need to be as Schlichting couldn't really score heavily enough to truly threaten him, de Sousa is a big step up in class and I'm a touch surprised that the line is so far in favour of Jose that we can get 5/1 on Raman. On 2022 form I think it's nearly worth looking at, and that's despite Brian not having played as well as he did when he was topping the WDF rankings. But I won't actually bet it.
Heta/Gurney - Daryl looked OK yesterday against Schmutzler, but the scoring was a bit pedestrian which pulled the averages down quite a bit, to the point where it really ought not to cut it against Heta. I'm surprised the market is as close as it is - Heta's been better than Gurney for some time now and we can get 4/5. That represents decent value on 2022 data, but that's a small sample, and is very nearly worth it full stop. Wouldn't hate the bet, particularly given Daryl wasn't great in round one.
Ratajski/Williams - Lewis was in a tricky one against a surprisingly decent Dennis Nilsson, but still managed to average 90 despite one or two really bad legs. Krzysztof has been a bit up and down of late, so it's hard to know what we're going to get. From July onwards the line of 1/3 looks perfect, on just this season maybe Lewy has a bit more of a chance. Wouldn't be lumping the Pole in any accas, let's put it that way.
Noppert/King - Weird one to call this, we've not actually seen Danny this season yet, and Mervyn hasn't been at the races at all this season, only averaging mid 80's to get by Janos Vesgo. Think we have to bet this one, 0.25u Noppert 4/6, on data going back to July this looks better than 70/30, if Noppert has been away with injury this could be an issue, or he could be a bit rusty, but as King doesn't look brilliant we can go with it.
Dolan/Springer - Niko looked really fantastic yesterday in giving us the one win we got, Jermaine hit a nice big out to turn the tables a bit but the German got home in the end. Brendan's going to be a different challenge, and maybe we can consider going Niko again. 11/4 is near the same price as we got yesterday against a stronger opponent, but we have a data point now and Dolan's not got off to a fantastic start in 2022. I'll pass and maybe regret it.
Petersen/Huybrechts - Oh, PDC, how you get weird shit like this with Devon being seeded and Searle being out in round one. What joy. Still, it is what it is, Kim looked strong against Hempel who's struggling to kick on this year a touch, and rightly comes in as a near 2-1 favourite in the market. I think that's tiny value, not quite enough to truly punt as Devon seems to be doing just enough. Only the case where the line should be about 2/5 and not 8/15.
Wade/van der Voort - Vincent had a big checkout show yesterday and topped a hundo in the averages, Wade is going to have a test here you would think if VVDV shows up again. Long data says this is a flip, 2022 data says Wade 55/45, market says we can get 13/8 van der Voort. I think the way Vincent played yesterday negates the data from the 2022 Pro Tour events, and we can bet - 0.25u van der Voort 13/8
Aspinall/Smith - First game back for Nathan after injury issues, so tough to get a read. Smith was acceptable against van Trijp, not really getting out of second gear and not needing to. We're definitely not betting Nathan given the uncertainty and the price, do we want 3/1 on the Canadian? Computer says no. Aspinall was playing good the second half of 2021. If we could see that Smith had a 30% shot in that data, I'd go with the flier, but we can't, so I won't.
Cullen/Razma - On to the evening session, Joe's in as the #1 seed, Madars was in an up and down game against Jones, not really doing anything to give us a great deal of confidence in the level of play he has at this moment in time. Market is giving us 4/1, I mean I suppose that's value, but with Joe's results of late I think there's enough not in the data along with other intangibles to not back against him.
Suljovic/van den Bergh - I jumped ahead a little there, oops, still, not editing now. Two former Premier League players, Dimitri looked very good against Lukeman not giving him a chance, now he faces Mensur who is projecting as a 30% chance however we look at the data. We can get 11/5, that seems on the nose.
van Duijvenbode/Kurz - Dirk could do with a bit of a run here after maybe dropping off a touch of late, Nico came through a bit of a weird match where he seemed to win all the scrappy legs, and a lot of them were very scrappy. Dirk's 4/9 with Hills calling it a lot closer than most other bookies, that feels about right to me. There's a small arb available if you can get the Hills price.
van Gerwen/Barry - Michael will want to get back on the Euro Tour winning trail sooner rather than later, and he's facing Keane who looked strong in a comfortable win over Ron Meulenkamp. Market thinks 80/20, oddly this isn't an auto-bet on Keane - long data says he only has an 18% shot. I'd have guessed a bit more, then we could bet. Oh well.
Price/Edhouse - Ritchie came through what was a very tough game on paper against Ryan Searle, but Ryan didn't look to have his top game available and Edhouse took advantage. This is actually a worlds rematch, if you recall there Edhouse swept set one and took the next two to tiebreakers, so he does know how to get legs on the board against Gerwyn, but Price did like the Euro Tour last year and has a good record in this venue, so I think I can ignore it.
Clayton/Kciuk - Didn't necessarily expect that match to be the game where the other Krzysztof made a bit of a name for himself, but it was, 6-1 over Cross who couldn't hit doubles really. Clayton is an entire different proposal, odds putting Kciuk with just under a 20% chance look pretty much correct.
Wright/Woodhouse - Peter steps up now looking to carry on accumulating titles, first opponent will be Luke, who easily despatched Andy Boulton in a game where many observers, myself included, expected it to go the distance. The market indicates they don't think it'll go the distance, long data however indicates that maybe we should give this a poke, with Woodhouse rating to win just over one in four. 2022 data isn't so kind but that's small sizes and we've got a read that Luke is doing alright from round one. We'll take the small shot, 0.1u Woodhouse 5/1, one of those we expect to lose fairly frequently, but not often enough that it's a bad bet. We've been saying Luke's been due a breakthrough performance, maybe today is the day?
Smith/Whitlock - Final game, Simon rolled over Horvat who really didn't put up any resistance, and if Simon had been a bit more clinical in the first leg, Dragutin wouldn't even have had a double. Smith's not been playing bad, but is a bit surprisingly on the bottom of the Premier League right now. I think this is nearly worth a bet on Simon - Whitlock still looks to have something in the tank, rating to win almost exactly one in three over long form, and about 4% more than that on 2022 form. 12/5 is awfully tempting. If he'd played a little bit better yesterday that might have tipped the balance towards a bet.
So three plays, some others that are close, so if you've got slightly different opinions, maybe you can find some more plays to go with.