Tuesday 26 December 2023

Round 3 thoughts and tips

OK lets go:

Williams (3-1 v Muramatsu, 3-0 v Noppert) v Schindler (3-1 v Wattimena) - This isn't a bad game to start off with in the slightest. Scott's outperformed his form over the year by a decent amount, and Martin's not the toughest seed he could face, although I do not mean in any way that Schindler's bad or that this will be an easy match, he looked pretty decent against Jermaine. Market has this one moderately close - Scott hasn't played bad, but over any sort of longer term form Martin is the better player by some distance, Williams floating around with, at best, a one in four shot or just a marginal fraction better. 0.25u Schindler 8/15 looks a solid play, may be slightly better available on fringe books or exchanges.

Chisnall (3-1 v Menzies) v Clemens (3-1 v Leung) - Not a bad follow up game, both player will think this is a decent game to get into the last sixteen with the draw opened up through to the quarter finals. Chizzy's the better player and I don't think anyone's going to dispute that, but the extent is questionable - year long, this looks Dave a fraction over two in three, but drag down to a bunch of differing shorter samples and Gabriel gets up to just over a 40% shot. I think the right amount is probably somewhere between those two figures, so I don't think Chisnall being priced at 8/13 is in any way unreasonable. That's definitely the way I would lean if at all, Clemens at 7/5 offers zero interest, just a question of how much you trust Clemens' game as to whether 8/13 on Dave is value.

Cross (3-0 v Tricole) v de Graaf (3-2 v Edhouse, 3-1 v de Sousa) - Extremely hard to look past Rob in this one, despite a pretty mediocre showing in round one where Thibault dragged him down to his level a tad. Jeffrey's been a great story and he's got solid wins against two so-so opponents, but Cross is a different level. I can't see any sample where the Swede is even projecting at a 10% chance, such is the level of difference in quality. I'm not going to recommend any plays, we've seen enough from de Graaf that it's reasonable to believe that he's playing a bit better than historical trends, and that might be enough to make a typically available 1/6 on Cross lacking the sort of edge we want to call the shot, but this looks at least "acca safe".

Campbell (3-2 v Ilagan, 3-2 v Wade) v Littler (3-0 v Kist, 3-1 v Gilding) - Real hard to call this one with any sort of accuracy given the level of hype on Luke, we were thinking last time to go with Gilding out of general principle, and I think looking back at the lines in question and the actual match, that would have been the play, but what do we think for this one? Really hard to look past Luke on this one. Looks like around 70% to 75% season long, don't want to drop too much further in sample as it runs into sample issues moderately quickly, but that pushes Matt's chances down further. 3/10 on Luke doesn't seem unreasonable in that context so I'll just move on.

van Gerwen (3-0 v Barry) v Veenstra (3-0 v Robb, 3-0 v Huybrechts) - This is purely down to whether we have the belief in Flyers' game to take 6/1. For that to be neutral EV we need 15% chances, and he's showing a touch over 20% season long, rising slightly with samples starting around the UK Open, but dropping off more towards where there's no value whatsoever. It is clearly not safe to put Michael into an acca, but I'm not sure I've been quite convinced by what Richard's done in the first two rounds, even though he beat Huybrechts without dropping a leg, to actually say to fire on him, even at 6/1. I'm probably just being a coward though.

Smith (3-2 v Doets) v Razma (3-1 v de Decker) - Similar sort of price in this one - do hate it when they load their uncompetitive games into evening sessions because big names, but what can you do, if you've got that banger of a Thursday afternoon session you're not complaining in the slightest. I'm actually more inclined to take the shot on Madars here, this is despite the worse odds (more or less 5/1 everywhere, a tad longer in some obscure books) and relative worse performance. I'm seeing Madars at a touch over one in four season long, and it bumps up to around 30%, or on occasions more, if we get smaller samples. Smith being pushed by Doets in the first round makes me think he can be pushed again, and Razma has that game where he can be unplayable for a set, have that happen at the right time and who knows. I'll take the shot here, 0.1u Razma 5/1, clearly better stuff is available on exchanges, I've just taken 7.2 on Betfair, so shop around with what you actually use, but the Latvian looks more live than the market suggests by a fair amount.

Hempel (3-1 v Slevin, 3-2 v van den Bergh) v Bunting (3-0 v Joyce) - We're seeing kind of a similar form trend to what we saw in Florian's last game, where he looks completely out of it season long, but then there's a jump at a point, round about April onwards, where Florian loses some shit data and looks a lot more competitive. That said, we're not going to use that data. Stephen looked unplayable in his first game, and it is extremely believable that a price of 1/4, which on full season data is not even -EV, is not an inaccurate line with how Bunting's form is peaking over the last two to three months. Not going to entertain thoughts of taking Hempel at 7/2.

Cullen (3-0 v Penhall) v Searle (3-1 v Goto) - This should be a fantastic game, and one which the market is finding hard to separate the two players in, only giving Ryan a tiny edge. Feels like we've talked a lot more about Searle this year than Cullen, and it's actually hinting to a betting shot with Betfred giving 5/6, and others saying the not overly different 4/5. Cullen's only at around 42% season long, and if we cut down to more form based samples, things get better, post UK Open Ryan's up closer to 65% than 60%, from June onwards it's 70/30. Everything that isn't data based makes me think Ryan's solidly better, the data at its worst for Ryan says a bet is still better than break even, form bases look good - 0.25u Searle 5/6

Smith (3-1 v Zonneveld) v Dobey (3-2 v O'Connor) - What a fantastic game to finish up a tremendous session. 16/17 matchups should be tight like this one, and I'm not finding any sort of sample where there's a significant difference between the two players. Maybe over the course of a full year, Chris is slightly better, but we're talking no more than 55/45 at best. Market is finding it equally tough to separate them with neither player being so much as evens anywhere. Just one where we ignore any bets, sit back, and enjoy the fireworks. Can get 7/1 on the game going to a tiebreak - I've seen worse random punts.

Price (3-0 v Scutt) v Dolan (3-2 v Mansell) - And then we go to what might end up being a damp squib, especially seeing how Brendan needed everything to get past a tenacious Mickey Mansell in the previous round. Can't really look at a bet in this one. Dolan is only showing at around 13% season long, which is right at the mark where the current price looks around correct. It does tail up ever so slightly as we get form based, which is to be somewhat expected given Gerwyn's game was best in the early season, but we're not entertaining a bet, Brendan will have had some time off and the efforts of the sudden death game should be in the past, but Price in a long game is that much trickier than a short one.

Humphries (3-0 v Evans) v Pietreczko (3-0 v Suzuki, 3-2 v Rydz) - Another evening session with two one sided games on paper, sigh. Would it really hurt to have the sessions moderately balanced? Oh well, it is what it is, Ricardo got through Callan keeping things a bit closer than many thought it would be, Luke had no problems as expected. Ricardo is 9/2, which is a bit kinder than I expected given that he doesn't show above 20% in any sample I'm looking at. Then again, he's not showing at below 15% in any sample I'm looking at either, so meh, next game please.

Evans (3-0 v Adams, 3-0 v Aspinall) v Gurney (3-1 v Beaton) - Interesting one. Ricky's on a complete free hit after getting the big upset, while Daryl played extremely well in his opener, and may see this as the platform to set up for a bit of a run as the draw's opened up. Daryl is favoured, and I don't think many would disagree with that assessment, but it's only around 60/40 season long, although it does push up in more form based samples to around a two in three chance. Gurney's 4/7 - that seems pretty much slap bang in the middle of both of those thoughts, and the extremes of either thought don't look great value, so I'm happy enough to move on from it.

Heta (3-1 v Lukeman) v van Peer (3-2 v Woodhouse, 3-1 v Rock) - Could be another interesting game - Damon had a weird game where it looked like he was coasting with Martin looking completely out of sorts, but then sorting things out quickly to make a game of it, whereas Berry's had to come through two very tough opponents (for the respective rounds as a minimum, but I think in general), and now gets a third which doesn't feel like an enormous step up from players he has already defeated. I'm only going to look at the full year data given the context of Berry's sample size with the key games (Challenge Tour, Dutch Open) being front loaded, and it looks about a 2-1 sort of game in favour of Captain Hadouken - so there may be a touch of value in the Dutchman, with any smaller samples saying that's probably the peak of Damon's winning chances. I guess I should be taking 5/2, but I'm getting a combination of a sense that it can't be third time lucky for Berry, that and Damon's getting a TV game together. Then again, with the quarter now open with Noppert out, he might choke. Decisions, decisions. I'll leave it for the reader to make.

Clayton (3-1 v Lennon) v Ratajski (3-1 v Hughes) - Hard one to call on the stats this. Clayton should have been out already if Lennon could hit doubles, and Ratajski didn't have things all his own way either. Find it really hard to separate the players on year long stats, Clayton pulls out a little bit on slightly shorter form based samples, get even shorter and it leans towards Ratajski, either a moderate amount or a big amount dependent on whether you include the Matchplay or not. The market, unbelievably, has this one super tight, with Ratajski being best priced at 11/10. Oh wow. Clearly we don't touch Clayton ever, if you trust form, then I don't hate a bet on Krzysztof, I'll refrain on account of we need to get down to quite small samples before Ratajski's edge explodes. If you like form, pile on.

Williams (3-0 v Madhoo, 3-0 v Wright) v van Barneveld (3-1 v Szaganski) - Is it fair to say Jim's come through a tougher opponent than Barney already? Maybe. Is it fair to say that Jim's better than Barney? That's moderately tougher - he's slightly better full year, but it's floating close enough to 50/50 in any sort of long sample that it's neither here nor there, but when we cut down to shorter samples, it does look like Raymond's playing the slightly better stuff, and when we get to something like post-Matchplay it's more like 60/40, although of course Jim's had a Pro Tour final since then. Market failing to split them seems fair enough to me to be honest.

Krcmar (3-1 v Brown, 3-1 v van Duijvenbode) v Anderson (3-0 v Whitlock) - This one is extremely simple. Ando rates as no worse than 90/10 in any sample I see, that's how good he has been. Boris has been fine, but he's not done anything special, Gary was barely tested in his first game, will be nicely rested, the odds are there to pile on, 0.5u Anderson 2/9 is there on Betfred/Chandlers, 1/5 looks equally fine, 1/6 is probably still a play but I'd trim the sizing.

That's the lot, will be back when I can see what the two Friday evening round four games are I would guess.

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