Each way value 2 - Electric Boogaloo

One thing I did do before PC9 kicked off was to copypasta the Betfair market, what I'll do now is scan through and tier the players and give some thoughts as to the respective values. I think it was mostly a full field barring Suljovic, who I assume would be priced up in and around the 100/1 stage at this point, so I'll group him in that conversation.

>10% chance

6/1 van Gerwen, 7/1 Price, Wright, 8/1 Clayton

You're probably not going to be picking any of these each way, but with the general parity that's in the field right now, either of van Gerwen and Price look decent value. Wright and Clayton maybe not so much, I've stated a few times that Clayton's best work has been in unranked events, as such he may be undervalued, but he's basically on a par with Wright over the last six months, so I'll drag Wright out from the "probably value" conversation.

>4% chance

16/1 Smith, 20/1 van den Bergh, Cullen, Anderson, 22/1 Heta

Heta seems like the clear value out of this selection. He remains in the top five of scoring across the last six months and is a threat to go deep in any event he enters, so he'll remain on our safe each way list. Of the rest, Smith and Anderson have basically the same stats, Ando slightly better so be inclined to lean that way of the two - DvdB is about half a point behind these and Cullen's a further half point back. Maybe Joe's at the stage where he is overrate, van den Bergh the same?

>2% chance

25/1 Cross, 33/1 Wade, Humphries, Searle, 40/1 Rydz, Noppert, Aspinall

We're now getting to the stage where you're going to want to start to look at the draw and lean towards those players that are in favourable quarters - of those big four, it's often the case that two of them are in the same quarter given the relative position of Clayton, leaving one of the quarters potentially easier - and one harder. Aspinall is the pick of these despite being the longest, he is actually up at third in scoring in the last six months now which is quite remarkable, although we have noticed him picking up form at the back end of 2021. Cross is also top 10, and you can throw a blanket over Rydz, Humphries and Searle in the top sixteen. Noppert is right on their heels, but Wade is a fair bit further back. These don't seem too badly priced, although Wade seems unbackable at that price.

>1% chance

50/1 de Sousa, Ratajski, Chisnall, Dobey, van Duijvenbode, 66/1 Gurney, Lewis, 80/1 Barry, Bunting, Schindler

There's a real hotch-potch of names here of varying quality, form and history, so let's pick through the best bets. Dobey of these seems clear, he is only behind MvG, Price, Aspinall and Heta in the last six months so keep piling on (although he's had a bit of a downturn in the last couple of weeks by the looks of things). Ratajski remains in and around the top sixteen levels of scoring, with Schinder and van Duijvenbode at around the same marker. This kind of shows how much the market has caught up with Martin. All of these seem clearly better value than a Cullen or a Noppert. Bunting's a little bit further back, de Sousa and Chisnall are about half a point back again, so pick Bunting of those three clearly, that leaves Gurney, Lewis and Barry. The first two are identical in scoring (albeit with different profiles, Adie being more inconsistent) at a step below Bunting, so are easily avoided despite Daryl appearing to be on an upsurge, then that just leaves Barry, who while he has all the potential in the world is clearly overly hyped at this stage and you can't consider him.

>0.5% chance

100/1 White, van Barneveld, Clemens, Whitlock, Dolan, King, chuck Suljovic in here, 150/1 Ross Smith, Hempel, Williams, Hughes, O'Connor, Joyce, van der Voort, Soutar, Huybrechts, Evans, Rock, 175/1 Scutt

Here you're looking for a combination of decent recent form, a good draw, and ideally having been there before. Scanning down the scoring as to where we first see anyone on this list, Rock and Dolan are the first names to come up. Rock might be slightly getting the Barry treatment in that the hyping is getting a little bit silly, but he is playing that well, and while Dolan may be not quite as good as he was twelve months ago, he's still in with a shot. Barney's below 92 in scoring, but can easily win on any day he wants so I don't think 100/1 is necessarily bad. Williams obviously already has a bink this year and the numbers support him, he's a bit more consistent than Barney and less than a quarter of a point behind. Outside of these, there's not a huge number of great picks - Smith and Huybrechts are the next two names out of the pot, you'd obviously prefer Kim given that Ross hasn't had a great start to the season, Kim's got the A-game to go deep in one of these. White and Suljovic aren't far behind, but their level of play is a couple of points off what it was in 2019 and they've gone some time without results, so it's hard to back them. O'Connor and Hughes are the only other names on the list scoring above 90, they both have Pro Tour binks, Jamie's nowhere near the level he was when he first moved to the PDC but at least looks to be trending upwards, while O'Connor was always swingy but appears to be bringing his best game more often. Quite a few of these names are only just under 90, but I think you can look at any of these and come up with a reason not to back them.

<0.5% chance

Everyone else, not going to list them all. I'm just going to roll through the rankings list and see who comes up. Gilding is the first name out, he was 300/1 before PC9, but there were already a couple of articles out pointing out he was in form, and then he's hit a final, so he may now be a bit too short. Sedlacek, if getting a call up, looks to be worth the play assuming over 200/1. Rowby was 200/1, same as Vandenbogaerde, they look pretty similar statistically, Rodriguez seems to have tidied up his consistency quite a lot and Mario's got a world of experience in floor tournaments. Other players over 90 in scoring have been Wattimena and Krcmar (both 200/1), Boulton at 300/1, Doets and Brown at 250/1, Menzies at 200/1, then Lowe and Mitchell at 250/1. These don't seem like exciting names, but they're either solid floor competitors, in form, or off their peak but we know have course and distance in these, albeit some time ago. Obviously you need to look at the draws at this stage, you're going to have to beat seeds at some point, but clearly pick your poison - aim for the player that's got a non-seed round one and then a weaker seed round 2. It doesn't matter if van Gerwen is on your board, but why throw yourself into that option in round one? Give other players a couple of shots to get the KO, it does happen. Heck, he's lost to Gary Blades this year.

Below the 90 scoring you're really punting, so you want to look for something else. Luke Woodhouse isn't far off, and is someone you feel just needs something to click to get going. There's a clutch of players immediately after in Labanauskas, Meikle, Lennon and de Zwaan who all have something a bit special - Darius has finalled before, Ryan is seemingly always putting up big averages, Lennon always seems to run into big names although his scoring has dropped of late, while de Zwaan looks to be trending up after a horrible 2021 and we know what he can do at his peak. Continuing to scroll, Rusty isn't a bad punt I feel, he knows how to win tournaments (albeit not on the main tour next) which is a very useful talent to have, while right behind him is Martin Lukeman, who's picked up some very nice scalps and raised some eyebrows, it wouldn't be that ridiculous to suggest things could come together and he could make a tour semi final. The only other name I'll throw out here is Glen Durrant - his game is still a long way off, but he has broken that huge losing streak now, and didn't look anywhere near as bad as he has done since winning the Premier League. Sure, I'm going to wait until I've seen more than a one off, but if we can get in ahead of the curve at 400/1, then it could be juicy if everything goes right.