And on the seventh day, God watched Liam Maendl-Lawrence v Marko Kantele and realised he'd made a terrible error

Jesus christ what was that, and let's remember the game finished 6-2! If LML had have hit a couple of doubles at some point they could still be playing now. I for one cannot wait for the "how many nines can be hit during leg 2 of that match" Youtube mashup, but for now, let's look at day 2, in terms of the Matchplay it seems pretty cut and dried, Barney is in, Beaton and Dolan are 99.9% in barring a Barry final or a complete random bink, and it's down to whether Pietreczko can win two more games, otherwise Huybrechts completes the field. Probably staying steady as we thought.

Bets:

0.1u Mansell 16/5 vs Cross - Mickey looked very good, the secret is clearly not out given almost unprecedented movement from the 11/5 I took on Thursday evening to 6/5 just before the off and evens when it transpired he won the throw, not doing much of anything wrong in round one (guess the second leg was sloppy), that's enough to make me take the flier against Rob, Hills are offering better than 3/1 implying less than a 25% chance, I project on year long stats just closer to 40% than 35%, which is enough to take a punt at anything up to around 11/4, 5/2 might be marginal.

0.1u Sedlak 10/3 vs Cullen - We've still got limited data on the rising Czech star, but I think we've got enough to take a small flier at better than 3/1 odds (on 365). 50 legs in the database now with scoring safely above 87 is not fantastic, but it's within close enough order to what Joe's been doing in the past twelve months that it wouldn't shock me to see him win this three times in ten or something like that, which makes a bet with implied chances below 25% seem worth the shot - particularly after a clinical display with only one missed dart at double and a three figure average.

0.1u Pietreczko 11/4 vs van den Bergh - 365 at least have that price, and that's more than enough to take. Ricardo is not in the Matchplay hunt for no reason, he has developed and improved rapidly over the last 12-18 months and Dimitri certainly isn't an unbeatable prospect, Ricardo wasn't really tested by Herz and he'll need to get out of the first gear that he was in during that game, but I'm seeing overall nearer to a 40% chance than a 35% chance. With the market saying he's barely got more than a 25% chance, that's an easy play.

0.1u van Barneveld 16/5 vs van Gerwen - Exactly the same scenario as the match written above, except better - Barney has, as far as I can see, closer to 40% than 35%, Hills are saying under 25%, we go with this, it's not like RvB doesn't have a habit of pulling out a win over MvG. The game against Killington was underwhelming, and if George had been a bit more clinical in leg four it might have become more interesting, but Barney now knows he is in the Matchplay and can play without any added pressure, which I think can only help in this sort of game.

Nearly bets:

Bunting > Smith - Moderately quick turn around for Stephen here, going into the end of the afternoon session after being last on yesterday, standard in ending Woodhouse's Matchplay hopes was fine, he continues to be underrated and is only fractionally under 50/50 to take this one. 13/10 isn't quite in the realms of wanting to punt on the Bullet, but if we get some steam on the European Champion and it gets up to 11/8, maybe 6/4, that's getting close to the right value to take the stab. I'm probably just going to set 2.5 in the exchange and if it gets matched then great, if not, no big deal.

Clayton > Wade - James ended O'Connor's Matchplay hopes with a really solid display, running out with four straight five visit kills to end it, but there's a little bit of a combination of Wade possibly being overvalued on the basis of yesterday and Jonny being underrated - I'm seeing him up at winning more than two times in three. A price of 4/7 is no presently of interest, but even a small shift to 8/13 would probably make me go for it with a small flier, and 4/6 I'm probably talking regular bet sizing. Another leave the offer out in the exchange and see what develops I think.

Barry > Smith - We've got a lot of underdog shots already and I am nearly tempted to add another, with Keane being extremely steady in a strong 6-2 win over Huybrechts, who really, really needed to win that one. Do think his quality continues to be overlooked for understandable reasons, and a best price of 3/1 isn't a massively fair reflection, I've got him slightly over 30%. Maybe we should add this as an official play as the upside is there and there is a bit of an edge I can perceive, but I think I'll just leave it as one for the reader's judgment and just say not to put Michael in any accumulators as this is at minimum a banana skin type of match.

Schindler > Rydz - Callan got back into the winning habit against Burton, but didn't put up anything massively impressive, he had one good leg but was certainly assisted by Stephen allowing him two really cheap breaks of throw in the early stages. This could easily be in the no bets section, as I'm only seeing Schindler at 60/40 in projections and we can only get 8/11, but if we're thinking that Callan is still in overall poor form and Martin will perform in front of a partisan atmosphere, then perhaps we can move a projection enough where the odds we can get actually equate to value.

Not bets:

Chisnall/Joyce - Ryan out early again, after a pretty comfortable win over Evetts which looked one sided but he didn't need to do a great deal to look at after Ted missed a few doubles. Dave is playing well enough that he should be fairly comfortable here, maybe he's a couple of percentage points better than what the 4/9 price suggests, but that's no big shakes and I'd need longer than 1/2 before I'd even start thinking about it.

Rock/Dolan - Brendan got a surprisingly easy win over Scutt, helped in part by Connor missing 9/11 shots at double (albeit that was clumped in two legs he lost with some being in a leg he won), but looked steady enough in all areas without ever really doing anything which makes us think he can seriously trouble a player of Josh's calibre. Rock projects at just under 75% to win the game which is more or less bang on the price of 4/11 I can see.

Heta/van Veen - Gian continues to look fantastic with a demolition job over Kist averaging near 104. He's not quite at Damon's level yet, but still has more than a 45% chance to win this one, which is sadly reflected in a best price of 13/10 which really isn't of interest, market seems to be catching up quickly as the price we took yesterday evaporated quickly, although the market lines were nowhere near as dramatic as in the Mansell/Campbell game.

Aspinall/Lukeman - Martin kept thin Matchplay hopes alive (more importantly it's pushed him up into the provisional worlds spots which he surprisingly wasn't in) with a solid enough start and end to a match against Hall, with a 3-4 leg blip in the middle severely damaging the average which can't be repeated against someone as good as Nathan. He's got chances, but they're only about one in three according to my projections - Nathan's 1/2 so no interest here.

van Duijvenbode/Gilding - Weird game for Andrew yesterday, looked in no real danger against Pilgrim at 5-2, then Darryl hit back to back four visit kills to ask the question before Gilding scraped home 6-4 with a six visit break featuring finishing and set up play Pilgrim would want back. Nothing really doing in the betting here, Andrew is obviously live but Dirk is obviously better, I've got Gilding at just better than one in three at around 35%, he's 7/4, line looks good enough.

Searle/Clemens - Gabriel had a pretty darned tricky opening game against de Sousa but didn't look in trouble, not allowing Jose more than five visits to the board in opening up a 4-1 lead, de Sousa did rally a bit but Clemens got the job done in the end. The market is maybe underrating Ryan ever so slightly in a vacuum, with me seeing him between 55% and 60% to win the game and the price of 4/5 putting him at the bottom of that range, but Clemens is improving and the game is in Germany, so dropping a projection by just a point or two is more than enough of an adjustment to make this a clear no bet.

Humphries/Kantele - Marko's game will go down in history for all the wrong reasons, and this looks way too tough an ask for the veteran Finn, the market is putting him longer than 8/1 to clinch this one, which doesn't seem unfair, I've got over 100 winning legs at a decent level on Kantele and it barely gives him a 10% chance. Luke should have very little trouble here, maybe we can think about a 6-0 scoreline but Marko did at least have a couple of five visit kills to finally finish that marathon off, so not unreasonable that he can get a hold or two.

Noppert/Wilson - James surprised quite a few yesterday with a real nice display against Whitlock to end the Aussie's Matchplay chances, 6-2 is no mean feat and Wilson did get three four visit kills in the process. If he can repeat that, and tighten up some of the iffier legs he had, then maybe he'll outperform what is projecting as a 23% chance significantly, we know his peak game is a lot better than what he has been showing more often than not for some time now. If not, then the 3/1 price will look perfectly justified.