Day 2 = dumpster fire. Day 3 - better?

Good god, apart from smashing Fulham, nothing went right yesterday. There's two main risks when you go with a long shot in this game - either your guy doesn't turn up and can't win, or the other guy plays towards the top end of their game, and you can't win. That happened every time. Even in the one that was priced fairly close, Gilding didn't play bad apart from a couple of missed doubles, but Brendan averaged 103 (albeit that is inflated by winning four legs in 13 darts and another in 14 - if those are all last dart in hand he averages a much more reasonable 94). Kuivenhoven, Menzies didn't show, Wade was unplayable, Petersen didn't show, Sedlacek missed doubles, Rowby was ok but didn't quite score heavy enough and Clayton kept him at arms length. Fortunately these were all (Gilding aside) small plays, so the relative bankroll damage is minor and we are only down half a unit from where we were at the start of play. Last 16 quickly:

Price/Aspinall - Marked up fairly close, getting 4/6 on Price against a non-PL player seems a rarity, but it is what it is. Liking Nathan's work, but if anything the value is on Gerwyn, who I've got at 65%, which isn't enough for a play, but it's close.

Humphries/Dolan - Kind of a similar price here, Luke's a tick or so shorter, but 2-3 percentage points less likely to win than Gerwyn is. Odd that. The line's close enough that neither player looks like even a break even bet given the vig, Dolan needs 40% and I have 37%, Humphries needs 64% and I have 63%. No thanks.

Cullen/van Duijvenbode - I can't split them. They are adjacent to each other on my scoring charts. Maybe Dirk has the slight edge with ever so slightly better consistency, slightly contradictory to the market giving Cullen the tiny edge, but it's all close enough that there's nothing to go with here.

van Gerwen/Clayton - God I want to bet MvG after yesterday's performance. 113 average (after going 2-0 down and averaging under a ton at the time), four four visit kills, top of my rankings, and he's only 4/5. This is really, really close to a bet, I see it 61/39 MvG, but I get the sense that my model's underrating Clayton slightly, so I think that's just enough to dissuade me from taking the bet. If it was 10/11 I'd probably go with it, it's that close, those extra couple of percent would make the difference to me.

Williams/Rock - Ooh, this is going to be a fun one to call after Scott got the big upset (without playing all that well), Rock took out Ratajski and comes in at shorter than 1/2. Which is fair, I've got Rock smack bang in the middle of 70% and 75%. Big chance for both.

van den Bergh/Schindler - Crowd is getting on Martin's side a bit, which might account for the market being as tight as it is, with us not even being able to get 6/4 on the German, and normally not close. Or maybe it's the market recognising he is good, I see it 53/47, so no bet.

de Sousa/Wade - Jose forced to a decider by Dennis Nilsson. Weird game, Dennis was nowhere in the legs that he lost so there was a huge average disparity. Wade looked good and enters as about a 60/40 favourite, I think that's slightly too favourable as I've got the Portuguese ace up at 46%, but as we can only get 11/8 in comparison to Wade's 4/6, and given their respective opening performances, I can pass this one.

Searle/Chisnall - Dave took out the dangerous Heta with a fine showing, Searle wasn't really troubled by Kcuik, lines are close with Ryan having the marginal edge. This seems a bit wider to me, I have Ryan at over 60%, so we're in basically the same situation as the van Gerwen game in terms of line offered and match edge. I don't see any consistency issues (both are a bit high, Dave is higher) and I don't have any feeling that Dave is being underrated, so 0.25u Searle 4/5 for just the one play of the day.

I should be back for the quarters.