Saturday 31 December 2022

And then there were eight

Good job if you managed to pick out all of the quarter finalists, I certainly didn't. We're up ever so slightly, I don't think there's any tips we missed on which I'd want back, other than to have waited to bet on DvD yesterday, although that obviously wouldn't have affected the bottom line. One thing I will say though, this popped up on my Twitter feed yesterday:


Honestly? WHY DIDN'T ANYONE MENTION THIS BEFORE? I had literally no clue that Clemens was running through some sort of injury. Kevin's mentioned in replies that it was talked about in German media briefly, but that's it. We've got god knows how many darts "journalists" out there, you would have thought someone would have picked up on this, heck, if you can churn out god knows how many exaggerated pieces on Aspinall's issues which turned out to be a complete nothing burger, you can at least mention that a top 32 player and number one of a major darting nation is playing hurt. Google Translate shit if you need to. Seriously now, if I had known this even so much as 48 hours ago, I increase my bet size against Soutar to a standard play and make more profit. Do some work people.

So, quarters, let's go:

van den Bergh/Clayton - Is clearly the closest game in the market, and feels the closest on paper. Dimitri's had a pretty easy ride of things so far, whereas Clayton was given a real test by Rock, and by Dolan to a much lesser extent. It feels like a sharp step up in class for Dimitri, not so much for Jonny, it's unchartered waters for Clayton, whereas Dimitri's been here a couple of times before and lost a couple of times before. I'm seeing Clayton at 56%, which feels about right, the market typically has Clayton at 8/13 and 4/7, with one marginal place a bit shorter, that's clearly not enough, but there's no real value in Dimitri either, best we can get from conventionals is 13/10 which looks a perfect line, couple of randoms are pushing 7/5 but we'd need a fair bit more than that, 7/4 I might start looking at it.

Price/Clemens - One of two games that is priced (lol) up very one sided, Gerwyn's not really been stretched with de Sousa doing OK but never really getting close, whereas Clemens had a tight game against Williams before being a bit too good for Soutar in the last sixteen. Clemens is pretty much freerolling here, and looking the best he's done for quite some time (see above), Price meanwhile is obviously defending a ton and would be expected to win this. Looks to me as if this is just shy of 84% for Price - that translates to 1/5, which is where he's at pretty much across the board. Clemens appears to be 7/2 in most places, if we assume that he's been playing below par for a fair bit of the year and give him an extra 5% winning chance, that is still not enough. Easy enough one to avoid.

Smith/Bunting - The second closest one in the market, but still one where we've got a 75% favourite, or there abouts post-vig removal. Smith is like Clemens in that he had the one test in the round of 32, but was easily too good in the last sixteen against Cullen, doing to Joe what we expect more people to do to him. Stephen's been a real surprise, but playing to a level we know he can do, looking excellent against an opponent in Chisnall who was firing on all cylinders, then being ruthless against a woefully below par Luke Humphries. Conventional bookies are typically putting Smith at around 3/10 with Bunting just the other side of that 75/25 marker. I think there's a bit of value in this one, as I only project Smith in the low 60% range, albeit with Bunting having slightly more inconsistency. If I bump Michael's chances up slightly to 65%, then I think there's enough in it with the way Bunting's playing to take a small stab here - 0.1u Bunting 5/2

van Gerwen/Dobey - Michael continues to look good with a third straight ton-plus average, taking apart van Duijvenbode who looked a bit disappointing on paper, while Dobey has improved each round, from mid-80's in the first game (which was all that was needed) to 95 against Ando then 102 in a really polished display against Cross in the last sixteen. van Gerwen is, as you would expect, a huge favourite, pretty much 1/6 in most places with Dobey 4/1 almost everywhere, although the exchanges have things tightened up and offer a bit better value. I'm seeing it 80/20 - Dobey's an underdog, but he is in no way drawing dead, he does after all have a TV win over van Gerwen this season, albeit over a much shorter format. I'm going to have a cheeky small bet on Dobey on the exchange where we can get 5/1, but I can't recommend a play in this one.

Will likely be back after the quarters in the evening on NYD, not sure if I'm going to try to get to a match on the 2nd so the morning might not work for analysis.

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