Well that was quite the silly tournament

OK, two things that kind of need addressing/fixing ahead of next year's Euro Tour:

One is the fact that both of the tour card holders from Czechia were missing this weekend. That really, really sucks from a perspective of a home fan. The tricky thing is how you fix that in a fair way given the countries that are going to be hosting a Euro Tour. If you just go back to how it was with the top two in one of the orders of merit getting in automatically, that would be fine for Sedlacek and Gawlas, and likely fine for half the events, but for the German events, it just gives Clemens plus one other (Pietreczko, despite losing his 30 grand from his bink last year just now, looks like he'd just about hold in the automatic Pro Tour invites, so probably Hempel) getting an absolute shit load of opportunities for nothing. Maybe if you say that two of the ten from the tour card holder qualifier must be from the home nation? If you switch it down to eight going through automatically as opposed to ten this could work. If you get two out of the eight from the host nation, then just take the eight final round losers and have them play down to two to fill things out to ten. If you don't get two, then look through who got through to the furthest round in the qualifier and add them in - playing off as necessary. Clearly for countries where there are very limited numbers of card holders from the country in question, this would not necessarily be needed. It also has the effect of further limiting spots for domestic (UK) card holders - so maybe pull those two spots from the Pro Tour list and only invite 14 instead of 16? It's a tough one to work fairly for sure.

Then we have the situation we had with the replacements coming in. This was ridiculous. Before the draw came out, Ando and Joyce (again?) withdrew, and in came Razma and Hempel. This is fine. Then, after the draw, Cross dropped out, and was replaced directly with Huybrechts. This is not fine at all. What should have happened is that whoever was the highest ranked player on the Pro Tour should have slotted into Cross's seeding position, and then Huybrechts fills the empty first round spot. I can't work out who that would have been - I'm guessing it was one of Clayton or Gurney, but who it was is irrelevant. The thing is that Huybrechts became a de facto seed, and had to beat one standard qualifier to win £4k in ranking money. Razma and Hempel needed to win two. Which of these paths is the easiest - Ratajski then van Gerwen, Soutar then Ross Smith, or sit on your arse then Luke Woodhouse or Marko Kantele? If you said anything other the last one, go home, you're drunk. This of course became even sillier as Huybrechts went on to reach the final, where he thankfully lost, otherwise he would have made the European Championship where not only did he not qualify for a single event, but he didn't play a top 32 player at all until the final. No disrespect to Woodhouse, Drtil, Wattimena and Zonneveld, but if you can show me an easier path to a European Tour final, I'd be delighted to see it. Then we had Price dropping out after the event started, and then being replaced by Kuivenhoven. Nope. That shouldn't happen. After the event has started, you don't replace anyone. That's bullshit. RvB should have got a bye for that one. You could argue Price didn't play a game yet and can be replaced, but I'm not having that. What would have happened if Humphries had beaten Littler then felt a nerve twinge in between the semi and final? If Huybrechts would have got a free win then, then van Barneveld should have got a free win on Saturday. The tournament has started. Nobody would take the event seriously if, say, Paul Krohne had decided to go watch the event yesterday and said "I'll sub in, cue my music!" in such a circumstance. 

Still, the Euro Tour is done, and we've got 25 of the top 26 (van den Bergh excepted) in the event, and nobody outside of the top 40 in FRH in it, so the PDC have got the stacked field they always wanted, even if it just looks like a redo of the Grand Prix or Matchplay, give or take a Wattimena or Dirk. I'll look at those games in the coming days, but for now, an FRH update:

1 Luke Humphries

2 Michael van Gerwen

3 Rob Cross (UP 1)

4 Dave Chisnall (DOWN 1)

5 Luke Littler (UP 1)

6 Michael Smith (DOWN 1)

7 Stephen Bunting (UP 1)

8 Damon Heta (DOWN 1)

9 Jonny Clayton (UP 1)

10 Chris Dobey (UP 1)

11 James Wade (UP 2)

12 Gerwyn Price

13 Dimitri van den Bergh (UP 3)

14 Peter Wright (DOWN 5)

15 Ryan Searle

16 Ross Smith (DOWN 2)

17 Josh Rock

18 Mike de Decker (NEW)

19 Martin Schindler (DOWN 1)

20 Danny Noppert (DOWN 1)

Aspinall is the player to drop out, but is within a Pro Tour final of getting back on, not that there are many there to work with. This does include first round European Championship final money - Dimitri would be a couple of places higher up otherwise. As stated, the entire Euros field is inside the top 40 - Wattimena climbs up there, while looking back a bit further, Wesley Plaisier is now into the top 60. Check back later in the week for Dortmund thoughts.

Prague day 1

OK so life has been hectic, what a week for the low countries with de Decker binking the Grand Prix, Plaisier binking not only the World Masters but a first Pro Tour to boot, and both finalists in the world youth being from the Netherlands. That, and MvG binked the other Pro Tour that took place. I'm a bit behind on entering data to be sure, I've got PC27 in the database but not PC28, which I will try to put in tomorrow, but that would either require doing it while at work or typing like a madman after work before the Leeds game, as well as copying whatever I need to from the last Euro Tour, and oh yes I'm out all day going up to Scotland on the Saturday which doesn't help matters at all. So don't expect much.

Tomorrow, I'm not going to touch the games including the Czech qualifiers, there's a couple that I've heard of, and one who was even in the FRH rankings prior to today, but yeah, if odds to show I doubt I look at them. But for what is on? I'd look at Ratajski on VC but he seems palpably short, Dolan's form is short that Clemens at longer than 1/2 seems actually tempting, maybe Clayton is a touch undervalued against Dimi, maybe Menzies ought to be a punt but who knows how much we are underrating Peter at this stage, and maybe Smith is a tad undervalued as well? I'm suggesting nothing, I will try as hard as I can to catch up on everything before round 2, but assume I won't. 

Grand Prix days 3-4

What a topsy-turvy round one that was. Littler gone, van Gerwen gone (in straight legs no less), Dobey gone, Smith gone, Wright gone, Bunting gone (which should have been Humphries gone, but hey ho). It's been madness, and is likely going to give us one of two things - the most open major we've had in some time, or another routine Humphries win. First we've got to get down to the quarters so eight games to look at.

Humphries/Pietreczko - This one has the potential to be a bit LOL, Luke dodged a huge bullet (see what I did there) after losing five legs to start his match before winning 6/7 to claim a remarkable win, while Ricardo got a good last set against Barney, despite what can only be described as some Grand Prix moments. Should be routine, seeing Luke at over 80%, the market has it even more one sided but there's nothing that makes me feel good about Pietreczko's chances to pull the almighty upset.

Clayton/Smith - Jonny had a good win on paper with a solid average against Edhouse, the 2-0 set score maybe playing closer than it appears, while Ross looked pretty darned good himself (just looking at the numbers) in a one-sided rout of van Veen. Looks like one where Ross should be favoured, let's put it in the 60% to 65% range, the market has it a bit tighter but nowhere outside of real fringe books is offering us close to the numbers that we'd want to see before firing on Ross in this one.

Cross/Schindler - Rob was able to get through a back and forth tie with Littler, putting aside some bad form he's had in this event to get through, while Martin didn't have a great deal to do against Dolan, dropping just the two legs and looking fairly comfortable. Would say this looks about the same as the last one, with Cross favoured, but Martin's form is real so I'm going to call this 60/40 in Rob's favour, which aligns exactly with his 4/6 pricing.

Aspinall/Joyce - Nathan was the only player on day one to be forced to a deciding leg, this was by Searle, who just didn't score enough in the last leg until it was way too late, while Joyce got a good win early on against Rock, the first set appearing close but Ryan came through strongly in the second set. This is showing in projections as a coin flip, but Joyce is available at 11/8, and he was someone who we were considering in the opening round. I guess it's a case of if you think Aspinall is not right and the data is mainly from when he's been right, then go with it, but if you think he's back to his best and there's enough data in the sample from where he's not been 100%, it can take things out of having an edge. I don't try to gauge players where there's been injury issues so will just pass what might be a little bit of an opportunity.

Anderson/de Decker - Gary needed every bit of his match with Smith to get over the line, Smith missing I believe a match dart or two, while Mike also went the distance in a fantastic match (especially on the doubling) with Heta, if you've not seen that one, stop whatever you're doing and go watch it right now, it's a match of the year contender (and Heta definitely did miss a match dart in that one). Gary is strongly favoured in the projections as you might expect, being closer to three in four than two in three, both have a bit of freedom having been in bad spots in the first round so that sort of intangible I feel offsets, the market has Gary at 2/5 which doesn't seem unreasonable in the slightest.

Price/Wade - Gerwyn came through a very tough opponent in Noppert, who was 2-0 up in the deciding set but was not able to generate more than the singular match dart, while Wade could have made things easier against Wright, squandering a 2-0 lead of his own in the opener which Peter took, although as Wright only took one further leg after that I doubt James will be that concerned. Price is better here, and I've got projections showing him as getting close to two in three chances. Maybe that's a bit harsh given Wade's form, and the market certainly has it a little tighter, and while I don't think the 4/6 available on Price is in any way bad, I'll give Wade's levels right now enough benefit of the doubt to not take the bet here.

Gurney/Cullen - Now we see the two players with probably the biggest upsets of round one - Daryl won ever leg against MvG and the numbers looked pretty darned solid, while Joe was able to come from a set down to take out Chris Dobey who just couldn't get away after the opener. This I feel is an OK spot for Daryl, but Cullen's doing enough to keep this at around a 55/45 sort of game, the market's in more or less the same spot so an easy no bet here.

Chisnall/van den Bergh - Dave had the joint most routine win of the opening round, not dropping a leg against Menzies (go full time already ffs), while Dimitri got embroiled in a high quality game against Woodhouse and needed to come from a set down to take the spoils. Dave has been showing enough for some time that he looks solidly better and I'm floating a projection as around a 2-1 favourite. Maybe Dimi is one that can up things slightly on TV, and he did look really good in round one (not that Dave looked bad), so maybe there's enough slight intangibles that a 4/6 line for Dave isn't quite enough to take Chizzy to reach the quarters.

So still no bets, but a few things you might want to consider if you want to push things out a touch.

Grand Prix day 2

We continue...

Chisnall/Menzies - A right banger to start, Chizzy being pretty much the number 1 seed on the floor getting almost all the cake, while Menzies is probably the best player right now without a title to his name and now just pushing on to majors after not quite reaching the Matchplay. I can barely separate the two, maybe having Cameron a percentage point or two better, but with it being a debut I think just calling it a coin flip is completely fair. With Menzies being the odds against player at 11/10, there's nothing of value to look at in the opener. (note - this was written up yesterday due to oddschecker being useless in terms of the order of games shown, Menzies' price appears to have drifted a bit since then, but not enough to consider a bet. At least on 365, as now oddschecker seems to have canned the game completely)

Woodhouse/van den Bergh - Luke continues his consolidation within the world's top 32, and has a decent shot here against a player who is much more widely known in Dimitri, but who compares very closely statistically and the UK Open winner, who may not have even been here if it weren't for that win, can't really be separated in terms of projections, so lines which put Woodhouse as a tiny underdog don't seem unreasonable.

de Decker/Heta - And we get back to back Belgian involvement, Mike also looking to push up into the top 32, building on a first Pro Tour title a couple of months ago, but faces a tough opponent in Heta, who's claimed a couple of Pro Tours himself this season and sits in that tier of players who are not elite, but almost as good, which is enough of a differential over de Decker to put Damon at approaching 60% chances to get through. This is another one that oddschecker isn't pricing up because reasons, but 365 have Damon at 8/13, which is round about where I'd expect things to be and doesn't show any signs of value unless there's a complete outlier/misprice I can't see.

Wright/Wade - Two veterans of the scene who are having resurgent seasons, Wright having shown he's still relevant by picking up a Euro Tour and looking much stronger since then, while Wade hasn't really converted into results (although he has had some good runs), he is scoring better than he has done for quite some time, which translates to a high 50% projection for this one against Snakebite. I'm happy to pull that down to maybe 55% given there is evidence that Peter's playing better than a larger historical set of data, which would put things right at the 4/5 Wade line, which we naturally won't be touching.

Price/Noppert - Two players now who've been somewhat underrated throughout this year. While Price's numbers have tailed off slightly, it's still not far off elite levels at all, meanwhile Noppert may be the most underrated player on the circuit, with a title to his name this season (which is more than Price has) and numbers which are only one place behind Price when it comes to overall scoring, which puts him as an underdog for me, but not even 55/45, this one is that tight. The market is shading things a bit further in Gerwyn's favour, but we'd realistically need to be getting 6/4 before I'd look to fire on Danny, and we can't even get better than 11/8.

Smith/Anderson - Ah shit, here we go again. Repeat pretty much everything I said in the Matchplay. Anderson is really good, Smith not so much, Michael may be not doing as well as he should on the Pro Tour compared to TV, but I can't think he's mailing it in or anything, that doesn't seem like his nature. Fortunately, this time, we won't be piling in, I still see Ando as a good favourite, but only around the 2-1 margin, after possibly factoring in maybe Smith playing better in major events, and with prices hovering shorter (often more than one or two ticks shorter) than the 4/6 I'd probably want to be able to bet Ando, we can ignore this one and just hope we get a good game.

van Gerwen/Gurney - Michael may be getting back to his best, having broken a fairly long title drought with a Pro Tour in mid September and a Euro Tour the weekend afterwards, and translating that to numbers the count of players who are outscoring him at the moment is very small indeed, we're talking legitimate world championship contenders and that's it. Gurney's doing alright for himself, and this is a tournament he's done historically alright at, but this is one of the few games that feels like a real mismatch, with the only pertinent thing being whether Daryl is closer to a one in three shot or a one in four shot over what is a very short format. With him being priced around 9/4, the bookies seem to concur with that approximation.

Dobey/Cullen - Chris is playing so well at the moment that only Anderson and Humphries are outscoring him in the sample I'm using, that's just how good he is. Picking up multiple Pro Tours, including on the recent three day stint, he faces Cullen, who seems to be one of the most out of form players in the tournament, and given some of his social media posts and other thins said this year, may not be in the place he needs to be to truly threaten Chris, who's projecting about the same as MvG is in the previous game. And, annoyingly, the market's doing more or less the same in this one as that as well.

So nothing today, and with nothing yesterday, I very much doubt that we see a spot generated in the tournament where we'd want to bet, but I will look at the last sixteen after today's games just in case.

Grand Prix day 1

Alright, all the warm ups are done, we had a solid three days of Pro Tours to get final data, now let's look to see what we like. I'll split round one into two posts, if only because of time limitations, I don't want to get half way through Tuesday's games only for the early start to force me to get out what I can. So let's go. These are always harder to judge with the double start, and a short format not used anywhere else, but we'll go with what we have.

Rock/Joyce - Interesting one to start. Rock's maintaining steady form, albeit not quite at the levels we have seen in the past, but it has got him titles at Pro Tour and European Tour levels this year, but Joyce isn't too far behind, despite not having had a phenomenal 2024 with his biggest result towards the rankings coming at the back end of last season. I've got this one as fairly close to being good value on Ryan here, I think his winning chances are well into the 40% range, maybe slightly nearer 50%, so 6/4 would ordinarily be worth a look. However, some recent withdrawals from events and non-entries make me wonder whether there isn't some intangible I'm not aware of that might be affecting his game. I'll pass on it, but if you're confident in Joyce don't let me stop you.

Dolan/Schindler - Complete opposites of form here, Schindler bagging a second Euro Tour title to end September, while Dolan seems a long way removed from that Pro Tour bink he got in May, with scoring well below 90 and a projection where I think 30% chances of winning this one might be generous, although it is a tournament he has had some successes at previously, albeit at a different venue. Market tends to concur putting Schindler at a best price of 1/2 so we can move on quickly.

Clayton/Edhouse - Jonny continues to make his resurgence, climbing back up the scoring charts and generally being in a bit of a better spot than his game was earlier in the year, while Edhouse just keeps doing his thing, nearly having a bit of a Pro Tour breakthrough recently, but not really getting the raw levels of numbers that Clayton is, and as such to me only has a touch more than a one in three shot. I'll give Ritchie some benefit of the doubt for getting better results than the stats might otherwise suggest, and if that can translate into getting the double in quickly, who knows? Clayton at 4/7, from what I've just written, seems pretty much the correct ballpark.

Aspinall/Searle - Nathan looks to be back on the mend following his recent injury issues, but I'm still not confident he's at 100%, meanwhile Ryan might not be in the greatest of spots after missing all those darts to make the European Tour breakthrough we've been thinking has been coming for a while, hopefully I'm wrong and we don't see another Dirk sort of thing where it takes a while to get back to that point. The market has Searle as a small favourite, I think that's fair enough - the data I have gives this as completely 50/50, but the majority of that data is from a fully at the races Aspinall, so shading the line towards Ryan is completely reasonable.

van Barneveld/Pietreczko - Raymond had a pretty nice Pro Tour midweek, getting close to the business end of tournaments and showing a good standard of play. Ricardo meanwhile is hard to call, with any number of form and injury related things being sent to try the pundits - showing some flashes like the Euro Tour final but those are still somewhat the exception and not the rule for me. The projections actually put the two fairly close, although there is a consistency issue of biblical proportions, so I'm just going to ignore it and say that Ricardo at a widely available 7/4 does not seem like the sort of number I would be interested in, and I don't think we can guarantee that Barney is anywhere near that much better right now either.

Humphries/Bunting - We get a repeat from last midweek - there the world champ just edged things 8-7, so pretty tight and it ended a streak of three straight Pro Tour finals for Bunting, who looks to be in red hot form as well with the numbers in the data set I'm using just cracking the 94 mark, putting him truly up with the elite. This one could genuinely go either way - Luke's better, but it's not by that much at all and it has the feel of a real 60/40. Sadly Stephen is only as long as 13/8, so we can't consider anything here.

Cross/Littler - Back to back games which could easily be tie of the round, with Littler getting a right bastard of a draw in back to back majors. Cross has had a solid if unspectacular year (at least compared to Luke), but has picked up a Euro Tour and remains in that cluster of players that are just off the true top 5-6 right now, so absolutely still with the game to challenge anyone in the world. Littler should be favoured, but not by a huge deal, I'd have projected a fair line at around 8/11, which means the Littler hype is real and Cross at 7/4 is fairly close to being in betting consideration.

van Veen/Smith - Our final game of the evening sees van Veen, somehow still without a title, against Smith, one of the biggest scorers in the game and very much in that Cross tier of those who can threaten just about anyone, not least Gian, who's scoring a bit less than Ross is in the data and calling this one a 60/40 (in Smith's favour) would probably be overestimating how often Gian should win this, that's just how good Ross is. There may have been some places originally offering 4/5 on Smith, those have now gone but 8/11 doesn't exactly scream out as a -EV bet if you must have something tonight.

Tuesday picks ASAP.

Brief post-Basel update

Didn't see a whole lot of great value on the rest of the tournament. Fuck knows how Searle didn't win that, some real good wins from the locals, and Schindler's now got two of these. No Leicester field shocks, although Rydz did make it interesting for a short while, quick FRH update:

1 Luke Humphries

2 Michael van Gerwen

3 Dave Chisnall (UP 4)

4 Rob Cross

5 Michael Smith (DOWN 2)

6 Luke Littler

7 Damon Heta (DOWN 2)

8 Stephen Bunting (UP 3)

9 Peter Wright (DOWN 1)

10 Jonny Clayton (DOWN 1)

11 Chris Dobey (UP 2)

12 Gerwyn Price (DOWN 2)

13 James Wade (UP 1)

14 Ross Smith (UP 1)

15 Ryan Searle (UP 3)

16 Dimitri van den Bergh (DOWN 4)

17 Josh Rock

18 Martin Schindler (NEW)

19 Danny Noppert

20 Nathan Aspinall (DOWN 4)

Three days of Pro Tours for the final tune ups before Leicester, always worth watching for the most recent form reads. With the tournament seemingly starting on Monday, I've got some time to get pieces together after the Pro Tour and before the event starts.

Quick day 1 bets

Sedlacek/Williams - close on Karel but no

Woodhouse/Nijman - line seems accurate

Ratajski/Stoeckli - Krzysztof probably safe but silly odds on line

de Decker/Hall - line is fine

Razma/Fehlmann - 0.5u Razma 2/9, Alex didn't impress me, Madars is playing well this week

Gilding/Prez - half tempted to do the same but Andrew is less convincing

Hertig/Meikle - same, Ryan too inconsistent to be really sure this is value

Rydz/Dolan - don't think there's quite enough there for a form based Callan punt, which is something that seems dangerous in and of itself

Edhouse/Wattimena - possible small Jermaine value if you don't believe that Ritchie outperforms his numbers, which we see moderately often

Ostlund/van Duijvenbode - think this is close, some places offering 1/4, Dirk is close enough to back, Ostlund isn't convincing but did get through a much harder qualifier than the domestic lads so will give some benefit of the doubt

van den Bergh/Wade - looks close enough to correct for me

Cullen/van Barneveld - maybe Barney's fractionally overvalued but it's neither here nor there

Menzies/Clayton - Cameron slightly favoured in the market. Doesn't seem wrong to me

Wright/Veenstra - Peter not being available at even 1/2 might be a bit too much of a hype train, but Veenstra hasn't really shown quite enough to make 7/4 that enticing

Walpen/Aspinall - 9/1 for someone who has played on this stage at all might actually be enough if you combine him actually winning legitimately and Nathan having a flare up and playing awfully

White/Smith - line might be slightly harsh on White. But only slightly.

Basel day 1

PDC have upgraded the place to the nation's capital. News to me. Still, the quali is in the books, very surprisingly Bellmont didn't make it through so we have Walpen and three pretty much unknowns in the event, will blast through the first two rounds. I think I mentioned before but I am away for football this weekend so updates, if they happen at all, will be brief.

Rock v Edhouse/Wattimena - Good first round game between two players kind of in similar spots but one is actually in the majors right now, Jermaine could sneak in with a very deep run but it seems like too much to ask for right now. Reads about 60/40 Jermaine, going 70/30 more form based, might play a bit tighter than that in theory, and Rock would only just about have 55% against Wattimena in round two.

Cross v Gilding/Pres - Know nothing of Pres. Beat a few known players in the quali but couldn't average much more than 95, and that tourney was in June so who knows if it's relevant. Gilding should be fine and then between a 2/1 and 3/1 dog against Rob, fairly routine stuff I think.

Humphries v Wright/Veenstra - Peter will look to continue a bit of a purple patch, Richard is a tough opponent though, getting 45% in longer data and 40% in shorter data, which may be even less in reality with how things have been going. Luke should naturally be a substantial favourite, more than three in four in the big data set but Wright may well be pushing things over 30% on form.

Littler v Ratajski/Stoeckli - Bruno's a new name, didn't manage much below a low 80 average today, so can't think Krzysztof will have too much trouble, I think the next match is a redo from earlier this year, the Pole has enough to be pushing up to near a one in three shot to make the Sunday.

Bunting v White/Smith - Seems like forever since we've seen Ian, and this is an awkward draw, not seeing much better than 30% and that's form based, Michael goes above 75% the more data we take, and we'd expect Bunting to be a small, 55/45 sort of favourite in round two if Smith comes through.

Schindler v Ostlund/van Duijvenbode - Anton won the quali back in July, beating nine dart hero Cor Dekker to get here, but we're lacking data on him, the qual numbers were not great, he clearly can't have done much of anything in the SDC and Dirk should be fine to face Schindler, against whom he might actually be a small favourite and heading the right way.

Smith v de Decker/Hall - Mike's going along solidly and does actually need a win here to lock up a Grand Prix spot, although the permutations to put him out would be freakish. Hall could do with a win for the worlds, he's within a couple of grand so a win here and a good midweek would set him up nicely for the final stretch. but he only looks maybe one in three, possibly down to under 30% more recently to do that. Mike against Ross is weighted in the number 2 seed's favour as you would expect, but Mike has enough to be no worse than 40/60 such is his level of play.

Pietreczko v Cullen/van Barneveld - Joe's another one who looks like he should be in the Grand Prix but is not guaranteed, not a great draw and current form is pushing Barney up from just the right side of a coinflip to just over 60%. Ricardo had a terrible game midweek and withdrew last weekend, so I'm assuming he's turning up for the wages and nothing else.

Noppert v Menzies/Clayton - This one should be fun. form player from all year against someone coming back into form, Clayton creeps up from the low 40's to high 40's as we get more form based so this should be tight, and I find Menzies and Noppert pretty much impossible to split so this really is anyone's section.

van Veen v Rydz/Dolan - Callan had a little bit of a run midweek, but it's surely too little too late for Leicester as he needs to bink. Dolan could do with one more win to lock a spot up, and that seems maybe unlikely - he's only 45/55 on long data, but more form based Rydz jumps out to more than two in three. Wild stuff. Rydz is 40/60 against last week's finalist regardless of sample so that swing says more about Dolan than anythin.

Price v van den Bergh/Wade - Probably hard to find value here. Wade's a touch better, going from low 50's to high 50's as we get more form based, while if he was to play Price it goes from 60/40 in Gerwyn's favour to a coinflip, James is another with a decent midweek run.

Dobey v Woodhouse/Nijman - Luke is the last man in Leicester right now but has a bastard draw to try to get the points he needs to make it safe, Wessel playing so well that he projects over 60% which pushes up to near 70% as his form takes hold. He's that good that he's basically only a coin flip against Dobey!

Heta v Razma/Fehlmann - Alex was unable to seriously threaten the scorers in the qualifier, sticking to low 80's which isn't going to cut it against Madars who had a fine midweek, but will need to be on top form against Damon, who is showing as almost a 3-1 favourite, the Aussie just being that much better than the Latvian.

Searle v Hertig/Meikle - Ryan's gone back to showing flashes and then not doing much in between after a spell where it looked like he might be gaining some consistency, but he shouldn't need much in round one against a qualifier who didn't get out of the seventies for averages. So we should get a Ryan derby, where Searle is not projecting as big a favourite as I thought, around 60/40 on the bigger sample which actually goes down, but this feels like a consistency weirdness line.

Chisnall v Walpen/Aspinall - Marcel is the one guy we really know who came through this afternoon, and had one good game where he got into the 90's so showed some upside despite mostly looking as average as the rest of the players that got through. Aspinall is hard to call right now, midweek really didn't tell us a great deal as to where his health is truly at, so this seems like a section to simply avoid. Chizzy, a midweek winner, probably isn't concerned.

Gurney v Sedlacek/Williams -  Two players in round one where it seems like we've talked about them a lot less this season than in previous ones, but Karel is perhaps surprisingly projecting the better, about 55/45 regardless. He's also slightly favoured over Gurney, which is perhaps a weird one as it feels like Daryl has been playing better (heck, he's got himself in the seeds here), but this is probably the one section of the draw where all three outcomes are in play.

Bets tomorrow.

Quick update

I'm going to save FRH updates until after ET12, it's a bit too quick of a turn around so I'll let another three events get into the books before updating. For that ET12, expect limited updates as I'm away for football from the Friday evening, there were limited updates for ET11 but that was more personal reasons, that and with the limited punts found in round 2, I didn't expect to see anything in round 3 given the level of chalk involved.

One thing I will say though, is that MvG's gone from nothing since forever to two wins in a week. And a confident MvG is a dangerous MvG. The numbers will take some time to catch up, but he clearly can't be discounted from anything as of right now.

The great escape - round 2 bets

OK, we backdoored a profit in that one, Darren missed some doubles early, got back into it a bit but then kept doing the same and couldn't get it done, Bialecki was breaking for fun but just couldn't hold and then lost a decider, thankfully Clayton and our smaller shots got us out of things for a tiny profit on the day, which given how the last few months have been going, we'll take, it was amusing this evening to get some bonus Joe Cullen content on X but I'll leave that one for you all to investigate if you've not seen it already, will do same sort of format as yesterday given much of the descriptions were already in the bank on the Thursday.

Yep:

0.25u Heta 9/10 v Wright, he's on form yes, but this is looking 65/35 even on the smaller sample size. With a known very, very good player, we can take this one.

Meh:

van Veen > Barry - Line might be slightly underestimating Gian. I've got it at 70%, maybe a couple of points more in more recent samples, so 1/2? Why not?

Dobey > Williams - 4/9 is not the worst line I've seen. I'm thinking nearer to 4/11, but this isn't a three in four shot for Chris.

Clayton > Chisnall - This is close, 6/5 doesn't seem much, but the projections are generally floating closer to evens than I thought they would do when averaged out, and there is a good trend and a solid win this evening. Will probably go with it privately.

Clemens > Humphries - He really, really isn't a general 3/1 dog, he's better than that, but laying Luke appears maybe suicidal.

Lol no:

Pietreczko/Zonneveld - Stats since May are basically in line with the odds. Bring in earlier and it says bet Niels (who played real solid today), but I can find this an easy avoid.

Searle/Bezjian - LOL,

Gurney/Hempel - Market has this really close, although giving Daryl an edge, I'm not sure he even deserves the edge he has, but it's not by a huge amount.

Bunting/Dekker - Can't see Cor being close to competing, but probably has enough that 1/8 is not a complete auto print money.

Schindler/Williams - Current line seems close enough to me, Martin's showing at 65/35 on longer samples, more like 60/40 on more up to date samples, Jim's 6/4, easy move on.

Rock/Wade - We can pass on this one, we think Wade's closer to Rock than you might think, and the line is nicely in concurrence with this.

Noppert/Aspinall - Not touching Nathan out of general principle for the time being.

Price/Nijamn - Seems fair. Full data has Wessel at just shorter than 6/4 as just about perfect. Shorter data has things as closer to a flip, so my lean would be on the Dutchman, but without a huge deal of edge.

Smith/van Barneveld - Two players with a bunch of data. They've got this close enough to right, maybe Ross is ever so slightly underrated, but not so much there's anything worth investigating and that's understandable in an RvB game.

van Gerwen/Lukeman - Michael is just that much better at 1/4. He's probably not 80/20, but Lukeman doesn't have anywhere near the equity to start to consider a yolo shot.

Cross/Gilding - Yeah, Rob being ranked a bit better than a two in three shot seems fine. Maybe there's a trend in Andrew's game that he might be tiny value (saw similar in the first round game), but we won't be investigating it.

Hungary round 1 bets

Yes:

0.25u Beveridge 13/10 vs Barry, anything less and I might only go 0.1 but 365 give the price. Seeing him between 55-60% dependent on the sample, and the number gets better on form. That's enough for someone odds against like this.

0.25u Bialecki 7/4 vs Zonneveld, again 365, the numbers I've got float from being 55/45 the wrong way to 55/45 the right way - may be getting into a little bit of a sample size issue with Bialecki and he is a little bit more inconsistent, but he's a known competent player against someone who is good but not elite, and 7/4 is a decent number.

0.1u Bezjian evs, this is a pure FDI related punt. I know nothing of these players, or what sample Lendel has, but if he's saying 70/30 I'll trust him for a small stab.

0.1u Clemens 6/5 - Going to have a little stab here despite Dirk seemingly getting back to where he should be at. Longer data is putting things as a flip, which is neither here nor there, but a more form based sample is giving more than 55% for Clemens, nearer 60% even, so I'll take the small shot.

0.25u Clayton 13/8 - Long data says this is evens. Since May we've got Clayton scoring more than Smith and projecting over 60%. We'll snap off that price on Ladbrokes and just hope Smith doesn't do for us yet again.

Close:

Nijman > Jehirszki, 1/8 has got to be close to value surely?

Vegso > Dekker - Shame Janos is so hard to judge. I think Dekker is better but he's not 4/11 better. Probably.

Wenig > Wade - Think giving Lukas only a 25% chance in the market is being slightly unfair, but I'm not a huge believer right now so will give it a pass as things are definitely trending more towards Wade than away from him.

Cullen > Wright - Almost tempted to say that Joe is still doing enough despite strong trend forms, given he's nearly 2/1 in the market. Long data says 50/50, more form based says 40/60, got to think that the actuality is closer to the line again, certainly wouldn't be going with Peter but it's just so, so hard to trust Joe in this one.

van Barneveld > Edhouse - 10/11feels like it's nearly there. Long data says 55/45 which is no edge to talk about, but more form based (using since May for this) puts it closer to 60/40, which is near the point where we'd consider it, Ritchie often doing better than the numbers suggest is enough to just say no.

Nope:

Hempel/Rydz - Find it hard to give either player any edge at all. Nobody's longer than 11/10 either.

Dolan/Lukeman - Again, too close to call, is a little bit more swingy around 50/50 based on sample but not much, and again neither's better than 11/10.

Williams/Soutar - Yet another one where the market is very close and the projections are also too tight to pick a winner. Market slightly favours Jim and I'm slightly favouring Alan but it's not enough to even put in the close category.

Woodhouse/Williams - A similar story, except here I'm getting a few points in favour of Luke, and the market has him narrowly odds on as well. Maybe he could be a tick or two shorter, but there's no real edge here.

Ratajski/Aspinall - Not touching it as I can't believe a single think about how healthy Aspinall actually is. Ratajski may well be the play and the number doesn't look awful but this is very much at your own risk.

van den Bergh/Gilding - Easy one to pass. Market line is pretty much spot on with the bigger sample. The smaller one makes it closer to a coin flip so maybe Gilding should be worth considering, but that doesn't feel intuitively correct.

Hungary thoughts

Alright, we're fresh off the back of a couple of Pro Tours, where we didn't have surprise winners (although it was MvG's first win for a surprising amount of time), but two with a few people making surprising deep runs, and that leads up to this weekend's return to one of the Euro Tour's (now expended for 2025!) newer destinations in one of darts' more rapidly developing areas. Hungary it is, and we've got 48 players who will be hungry (here all week) for a ranking title, let's scan:

Chisnall v Smith/Clayton - Blockbuster section to start, Smith's still, I think it's fair to say, never really built from his world title, has had a quiet season outside of that annoying Matchplay run, but should be cranking the form up as we get to the business end of the season. Clayton's also been quiet, and still isn't playing anywhere near his actual ranking, but has shown better signs in the last two to three months. Chizzy continues to be in great form, nearly adding another Pro Tour this week and looking to make it three out of four Euro Tours, so despite being the only player here without a major, is likely the favourite over either second round opponent at this point in time.

Gurney v Hempel/Eydz - Florian's someone it doesn't feel like we've heard a great deal from this season, but he does have a moderately recent Pro Tour semi final and that's enough to put him provisionally in the worlds right now, a win here would be more than handy as it's by no means a lock. Rydz has been in a lot of these and continues to be up and down, scoring alright (a tad better than Hempel), but not really making any real deep runs, so this should be competitive. Gurney isn't the worst draw either could have got, but at the same time Daryl, still playing in and around that top 32 level, won't mind having got the pick of these either, as he should have some edge here.

Heta v Wright/Cullen - Oh boy, another big section here. Wright is at least showing signs of staying relevant with his recent addition to his Euro Tour tally (although for the love of god please give him next year's Premier League off to concentrate on ranking events), which is more than can be said for Joe, whose numbers are not rallying in the slightest, safely behind Peter (who's only recently just got back above scoring of 90 a turn), he's flashed with a couple of finals this year but those seem the exception and not the rule and is correctly an underdog for this one. Damon should win the second round game, twice winner on the Pro Tour this year and statistically in and around the top ten by any metric, the question for him is more if he can make the deep run in a major that'd shove him into Premier League contention. A first Euro Tour of the year wouldn't hurt though.

Searle v Bezijan/Czoka - Going to struggle with this one. There's plenty of known Hungarian players. Only one of those came through the quali. These two aren't any of them. The quali was back at the start of June, so I'm not sure how much use that's going to be in gauging this game at all. Got to think this is by a country mile the biggest game for either in their careers, and a likely nervy one given it should be winnable for both. Unlike the second round with Searle, quietly having a very solid scoring season but still looking for a breakthrough at this level of play. This'll probably be the easiest he'll ever have it to get to the final day.

Price v Jehirszki/Nijman - Kind of the same problem here, except the qualifier has drawn Nijman, the youngster who is having a very impressive season, his level of play being that of a top 32 talent, and if he's able to punch through at senior level and win a title (having already booked one final this year as well as destroying the Dev Tour), his real ranking should rise to match. It's a shame for him that he's drawn Price, perhaps surprisingly without a title this year despite scoring numbers that are only bettered by old rival Ando and a couple of Lukes. Gerwyn will certainly take nothing for granted, but he will be a favourite - albeit in no way a guaranteed winner.

Dobey v Woodhouse/Williams - Good first round tie this one, Luke is just about doing enough to make the Grand Prix and is statistically round about where his ranking suggests he should be, whereas Scott hasn't really done a huge deal since that worlds run, but is putting up steady numbers, albeit a tad off Luke's level and not really translating into results, being some way off Leicester but at least looking safe for Minehead. Dobey however is playing truly elite level darts, there are only a small handful of players who are doing more statistically than he is, and it is surely a matter of time before he adds a real major to his resume, or a first Euro Tour for that matter. Are there easier draws? Yes. Will Dobey be concerned? Not a huge amount.

Noppert v Ratajski/Aspinall - Weird one. Krzysztof is looking pretty good, steady as ever, and still good enough that he can win titles. Nathan on the other hand withdrew last weekend, claiming he's not ready to return from injury yet and won't be back until he's properly healed, which took until all of Tuesday when he showed up at the Pro Tour. Nathan did nothing on either day so who knows what to think, against a competent operator like Ratajski you think it'll be a hard ask. Noppert is a very efficient second round opponent, who does much of what Ratajski does, but is just a little bit better on all areas, and it is maybe a surprise he only has the one title this year. Should be a hard fought game, but one where Danny has the edge.

van Veen v Beveridge/Barry - Darren's onto the Pro Tour but has yet to really make an impression after being a name that was there or there abouts for some years - he has one board win and that's it, and this is actually the first time he's made it through a qualifier this season. The numbers are pretty steady, so maybe it's been a bit of misfortune here and there. Keane is actually having a bit of a stinker of a season as well - at least at senior level as the Dev Tour is going alright, currently outside of the worlds looking in, scoring worse than Darren is, and off the back of a 6-0 reverse last time he was on stage. Don't think either will give Gian any serious problems, he's not playing quite as well as he has done at points in the past, but still extremely good and a tier above either of these, clearly in the discussion as to who'll be the next to win a first senior title.

Smith v van Barneveld/Edhouse - Real interesting first round game here. Barney showed he's more than good enough to win titles in 2024, because that's exactly what he did, while Ritchie was one dart away from getting to a final just this week, this is one that feels close on paper but one where RvB has the better numbers by a substantial enough clip where he should be favoured, although Edhouse is one of those players who maximises what he can do in terms of getting legs and then results. Smith is perhaps cooling a little bit these past few weeks, he's not in the top ten of pure scoring as I recall he was earlier in the year, but top sixteen is still clearly where he is at, and he's gone close at this level a couple of times this year to breaking through (although, of course, obviously already a major winner), and this isn't the worst section of the draw to start a run, although he will definitely have to work to open his account.

Pietreczko v Bialecki/Zonneveld - Sebastian hasn't really kicked on in 2024, although he's at least looking alright at the secondary level and does have one win on the Euro Tour this year. Niels looks very safe for the worlds despite seemingly having not done an enormous amount of note, seemingly not hitting a quarter so far this year but scoring a very steady 90 per turn which should be enough firepower to handle Bialecki right now. Ricardo has had a few flashes after a bit of a wretched run since he got his Euro Tour title almost twelve months ago, but having run to the final two weeks ago, there are signs he is picking things back up, not just in terms of that result, but the numbers are looking better than they have been, and while Niels is going to be a tough ask, this isn't one that Pietreczko can be written off in by any stretch of the imagination.

Bunting v Vegso/Dekker - The one home nation qualifier we know something about, Janos having made it through a through Eastern Europe qualifiers dating back as far as 2016, and I think he may well have won a game or two, but it's not been for a while as he's a new entrant in the FRH rankings. Cor is making a second appearance of the year having got to Riesa where he looked alright against Jose de Sousa, if he can replicate that level he should be OK to make it into round two, but in Bunting either of them is going to face far, far too strong an opponent, playing at a level where he can realistically win any tournament he enters and straight off a 8-7 final loss to Littler in midweek.

Schindler v Williams/Soutar - Jim continues to be frustrating in that his numbers are great, but he keeps missing enough of the tour that he can't really push on to get into the tricky majors which you feel should be within his grasp. The numbers are a bit down on last year though, and not streets ahead of Soutar, who did become a Pro Tour winner this season which has sparked confidence albeit also not really close to the Grand Prix. Tight game, could go either way, Schindler is a better player than both and is playing like someone with the belief gained from winning a title, but the differential is not enormous and I could legitimately see any of the three advance here.

Humphries v van Duijvenbode/Clemens - Maybe the biggest game of the season for both, with the two standing at 17th and 18th in the Pro Tour rankings for Leicester, albeit there is a bit of a gap to Woodhouse in sixteenth. The numbers are very tight, Dirk is scoring slightly better and with slightly more consistency, but it is real tough to call it. They'd have a great chance against most seeds, but the draw has not been kind to them when they really needed it to be, with Luke looking to up his already stellar levels as he winds up to defend his world title at the end of the year.

van Gerwen v Dolan/Lukeman - Meanwhile, Brendan is in one of the last few Pro Tour spots for Leicester, almost entirely on account of nicking a Pro Tour in May, his numbers are just fine for sure but he does seem to have a bit of a habit for fairly early exits, which is something Martin, whose statistics appear more or less identical to Dolan's, will be hoping to exploit, although in a situation where he's going to need something really special to get into anything he isn't already provisionally qualified for. May be the tightest match of the day this one. MvG returned to the winners circle on Wednesday, this after a surprisingly big gap that only sees him seeded fourteenth for this event, the numbers are still looking fine, albeit there's probably half a dozen players who you can legitimately say are playing better than he is right now - albeit these two aren't really in that conversation and van Gerwen ought to come through to a mouth-watering last sixteen clash this Sunday.

Rock v Wade/Weing - James is still hanging around that 20th spot or there abouts on most metrics, probably playing the best he has done for some time, and the good Matchplay run has certainly helped to stabilise his ranking. Lukas is newly on tour this year after being a name to watch about for for a couple of years, but has flattered to deceive with a fairly poor return and sub-88 a turn scoring seeing him some way off Ally Pally and also a way off being competitive in this opening round tie. Josh has wins at both Pro Tour and European Tour level this year, but the figures are not quite as astronomical as they were at peak Rock hype levels, and while they're better than James' numbers, it is not by anywhere near as much as you would think, so this could be a good competitive second round game, assuming Wenig doesn't play spoiler.

Cross v van den Bergh/Gilding - Final games, and we open with two UK Open winners, Dimitri is having a little bit of a resurgence after getting his, but is still barely in the top 32 in terms of scoring, is not in the top 32 of the Pro Tour rankings, and again has somewhat of a deceptively high actual ranking. Gilding is actually ahead of him on the Pro Tour rankings, but I'm not sure how as his numbers are nearly a couple of points per turn worse than Dimitri's and he presently sits outside of the Leicester places. Still capable of some good numbers (he had one really good game midweek against Nijman if you don't believe me), but just not often enough at this stage. Cross is going to be a tough nut for either of these. Still perenially underrated, he may just have drifted out of the current top ten on form, but a Euro Tour final win over Humphries this year indicates what he is capable of - which is usually going to be enough to win this one.

Will wait for lines for a bit longer and then post up bets.

Antwerp last 8

Weird session, and annoying one for the betting, Bunting losing a decider and Pietreczko putting together a great performance from nowhere, also saw Littler out and Humphries needing a decider, sets us back some more, but let's see if there's anything in the quarters:

Dobey/Woodhouse - Feel as if Luke's a tad undervalued here, I'm getting him in the high 30% range, whereas a price of 7/4 puts him in the low range, the vigless line says pretty much 2:1, so maybe there's a hint of value there, but Chris continues to look really good and Luke couldn't even average 90 today and needed a big comeback, so I think I can pass on this one.

Wright/Chisnall - Peter's playing a lot better than he has done over the past couple of weeks, but I really don't think it's enough that we should just abandon the large data which puts Chizzy at getting close to having a 65% chance to win the game, and there's nothing in the afternoon session that wants to dissuade me. I will temper the bet sizing given Peter's form, but still go with the 365 line, 0.1u Chisnall 4/5

Pietreczko/van Duijvenbode - Looks to me like the line is close enough on this one. I'm getting Dirk at just above 70% to take it, and the lines are typically in the 1/2, 4/9 sort of range. Maybe if Ricardo is regaining some form after a pretty extended spell of doing nothing, so we can maybe draw the projection in a couple of points, but that just brings things from "maybe the tiniest value on Dirk" to "no value on anyone, so we'll just ignore this one as well.

Searle/Humphries - Luke nearly went down to one Ryan, can he dodge another? Searle's good, and has enough that he's limiting Humphries' win projections to less than two in three, albeit only just. Everything is showing around the 9/4 sort of range, which might be undervaluing Searle slightly, but it's not by a great deal and going against the clear best player in the field, I don't want to push rather small edges.

Doubt I'm back before the semis with the NFL on, but if Wright does turn Chizzy over I wouldn't be surprised if going with the winner of Dobey/Woodhouse turns out to be a correct play.

We got a win! Then we gave it all back 20 minutes later. Antwerp last 16

Yay Clemens, ffs Schindler, two bets are for exactly zero (which, given how poorly we've been doing this year, actually increases our ROI lol), lines are all out for the last sixteen so let's dive straight into it.

Rock/Dobey - Yep, nothing, Dobey's projecting a tiny bit better and the odds reflect that.

Woodhouse/van Veen - Appears extremely close to me, maybe there is the tiniest of value on Woody at 5/4 but we're talking extremely fractional.

Bunting/Wright - 0.1u Bunting 8/11, there's not a big edge here but there's enough of an edge, I'm seeing it 65/35, happy to bring that in a couple of points because Wright is seemingly playing well, but with a good player like Bunting we can go.

Chisnall/Clemens - Looks a 55/45 in favour of Chizzy, market concurs, we move on rapidly.

Noppert/Pietreczko - 0.25u Noppert 1/2, this looks for all the world like a 1/3 or worse (for Ricardo) game, we will take the Coralbrokes numbers while they are there.

van Duijvenbode/Littler - Littler hype is perhaps a tad too much. I've got this as about 65/35, and Dirk is available at 5/2, which is close to tempting. Then again Wattimena is possibly a better player than DvD right now and Luke annihilated him.

Searle/Smith - Two fairly evenly matched, fun to watch operators. Seeing Ross maybe 55/45, market is also slightly favouring him, next.

Humphries/Joyce - I think the market may be underestimating Joyce's chances by a touch, but it's not enough for me to bet. Certainly wouldn't be putting Luke in an acca as while I think he'll win, obviously, the line doesn't look like value.

Should be back for the quarters.

Antwerp day 2

Weird to day, but I'll take that day 1 despite being 0-2 Happy enough for Dolan to get into a 5-4 lead in a first to six, and Schweyen, from 4-2, couldn't do much in leg 7 but had darts at double in all the remaining legs and may just have had a bit of finish line syndrome. Seems rare that they both fail from there, and it does look like alright identification of value, even if it didn't pay off this time. Real quick for day 2:

Bets:

0.1u Clemens 5/2 - projection has him right in the middle of 40% and 45%. Consistency is a little bit worse, so let's rail it in to 40%, At that price though (Hills), it's worth taking the chance I think, looked alright yesterday which is always a bonus.

0.25u Schindler 5/6 - massive overreaction to Wright winning something. Martin should take this nearly two times in three. Nearly every line on oddschecker has moved in Schindler's direction making finding the best price problematic (missed evens on 365 ffs) but this looks to be it. Through to 8/11 looks good.

Nearly:

Owen > van Veen - Robert has huge inconsistency which is going to drag down an otherwise tempting nearer to 45% than 40% projection. But how much does it do for a man playing well these last few weeks when 7/4 is available? I'm not convinced enough.

Dobey > Doets - Should be nearer 1/4 than 1/3. If Kevin can regain form quickly this likely becomes bad rapidly, but no real signs of that.

Chisnall > Wade - Dave might be fractionally undervalued. Would need more than a tick's movement to actually bet it though.

Wattimena > Littler - 3/1 is available, and he's playing well enough that I see him just over 30%. This is a true test of where he is actually at though, I get the sense Jermaine may slip up in key moments on occasion though.

Nope:

Joyce/Soutar

Rock/van der Wal

Heta/van Duijvenbode

Smith/de Decker

Searle/Cullen

Bunting/Williams

Price/Woodhouse

Noppert/van Barneveld

Humphries/Edhouse

Pietreczko/Gilding

Antwerp day 1

Alright, second of two back to back Euro Tours now, and we're into Belgium, the host nation qualifier took place earlier today so we've got fairly recent data on players we might otherwise not know a great deal about, let's see if we can find some bets, with oddschecker only offering partial coverage at this stage, we're just going to look at 365, Betfair and Laddies for best prices, if you can find better on something marginal or on an outright tip, don't let me stop you.

van der Wal/Bialecki - A bit of an odd one in that the card holder is probably the lesser known of the two players, Sebastian's talent had been well known for several years now but the breakthrough onto the main tour we're still waiting for. Jitse won a card at the start of the year, hasn't done a great deal, has an unimpressive record in terms of legs won-lost in the database, and despite 2024 seeming like a quiet year for Bialecki, there's enough to make me think he's easily 60/40 here. 365 have it at 4/5 which I think must be worth considering.

Kantele/Williams - Marko's another one with a quiet 2024 after a really good 2003, finishing a distant fifth on the SDC circuit which he dominated last year, but getting deep enough often enough that we have some data on him, enough to make us think that Scott, who has similarly not really done a great deal this year, should set off as something like an 80/20 favourite, which is a slight bit more favoured than the markets I'm looking at,  but not by a huge deal which we can think about betting on.

Tobback/Soutar - Tobback is a name I know very little about. It's not completely unfamiliar, but it is one of the two names that is new to the FRH rankings, so he's certainly not known from the last couple of years, and is not in my database (although IIRC the biggest Belgian WDF event had zero DartConnect etc coverage), so if he's better than an unknown, I don't know about it. The qual showed pretty consistent 85 sorts  of averages after the first couple of rounds where you can easily get dragged down by bad players, so maybe there's just enough there that Soutar, who has had a fine last few months, maybe isn't the auto print that I thought he might be at 15 in places.

Woodhouse/Bogaert - Luke we know all about, but we go back to the HNQ well for this one and this is someone I deffo know nothing about. The qual is all we have to work with, and it shows slightly more, he did get up to 87 once, but otherwise it was mostly the same as the previous guy's - nothing that should  trouble Luke in the slightest, but enough that 1/7 is not a gimmie given potential weirdness.

Ratajski/Owen - Back to players with cards here, Krzysztof we know all about, Robert's a bit less of a known player but is best known for a great UK Open run a few years back, both had an alright cameo last week, and the projection comes in surprisingly close at 55/45 in favour of the Pole, although we can temper that given Owen has fairly wild inconsistency. Everywhere pricing this at 7/4 doesn't seem unreasonable.

Wattimena/Raman - Now we get to a card versus non-card game, although it feels like it shouldn't be one, Jermaine has been doing decent work for some time, although not really threatening to get back to where he used to be when he was on the verges of the top 16, while Brian was extremely high, if not #1, in the BDO/WDF system (fuck knows what it was at the time) when he got a card, which he didn't really capitalise on. Raman is still clearly a more than competent players and the numbers in the quali show that, but can they rise to the level of that which Jermaine has been playing at for some time? Market had what I thought was a good line at 2/1 Raman, until I did a fact check on Jermaine's numbers and they're a LOT better than I thought they were, so I'll gladly avoid this one.

Clemens/Lukeman - Back to card on card violence between two players on the outside looking in of the Grand Prix, Clemens the last man out as is with Martin about 4k behind, so a big game for both. I'm getting this about 60/40 in favour of the German who is still unbelievably looking for his first PDC title, the market in some places has it tighter but not by enough to start to consider betting.

Gurney/Edhouse - The afternoon session finishes with two players who by contrast are looking really good for Leicester right now. Daryl had a great run last weekend and will be looking to replicate that if he can, but Ritchie is playing well enough that I'm only seeing this at around a 55/45 edge for Gurney. The market is giving Gurney a bigger edge than that, which I guess is understandable in the circumstances, but nobody I can see is offering up a comparable line the other way where we can think about taking Edhouse for value.

Schweyen/Doets - Last of the home nation qualifiers here, Francois is one of the two (Raman being the other) who was already in the FRH rankings, having got to the last two Belgian Darts Opens, losing 6-3 to de Sousa last year and doing a fair bit better in 2022 where he lost 6-4 to Klaasen. The quali showed some bright spots, particularly in the last two rounds, which makes me think that Kevin, while talented, could be tested here given his recent mediocre form. There's enough of a combination of factors here that I'm going for a small yolo stab, 0.1u Schweyen 11/4

Clayton/van Duikvenbode - To the other end of the spectrum we go, between two players who have been struggling for form throughout the year but may be turning things around more recently. I'm finding this one very close, maybe too close to call, Dirk projects ever so slightly better, albeit with a consistency disadvantage, so I'm happy to call this one a coin toss. Best price of 11/10 on DvD is frankly not the slightest bit tempting.

de Decker/Veenstra - Another Belgium/Netherlands game, this one between de Decker, who made the breakthrough at Pro Tour level about a month ago, and Veenstra, who has enough game that he can clearly do the same, even if he's not one of the top 3-5 names I'd list right now. Mike is actually projecting safely over 60% in this one, so while I thought a price of 4/7 was initially a "wait, what" moment, it's not unreasonable in the slightest. 

van Barneveld/Kuivenhoven - An all Dutch affair which I want to say we've seen moderately recently, but I can't pick where, there is a clear known player and experience differential, but the actual edge in terms of quality right now is really hard to judge given a huge consistency difference in RvB's favour. Fortunately nobody is offering any sort of line on Maik that I'd even start to think about.

Menzies/Wade - Both players clearly well known at this stage, Cameron being boosted by Edgar tipping him up in a recent video (to be fair Matt was correct on all his players named), let's get staright into the numbers, Menzies projects 60/40, so the game is a very easy pass given the market.

Gilding/van den Bergh - Match up of UK Open winners here, although I would guess one might be slightly better received than the other. Taking into account all the factors and statistics this looks like one where Gilding pulls it out one in three times. Market is slightly more bullish on Andrew, but it's really only fractional.

Dolan/Wright - Thankfully finishing with a bunch of card holder games, Dolan should be safe for Leicester but would like another win or two to make things safe, while Wright did another one of those weekends just to keep those of us writing him off on edge. But it doesn't allow him to catch up to Brendan's numbers - which still give the History Maker a 55/45 edge. Will only go with a small stab on 365 because confidence can be huge, but 0.1u Dolan 2/1

Cullen/Rydz - And we finish with two players who are infuriating to read or project. So we'll keep it short. Projection gives Rydz the edge, but only just. We can't beat 11/10, so not going to touch it.

So just the two plays, but a fair bit there to think about.

FRH ranking update

The last ome of these was from before the Matchplay, so it's been a while and there's been some big moves as a result of this update incorporating a major as well as several other events.

1 Luke Humphries

2 Michael van Gerwen

3 Michael Smith

4 Rob Cross

5 Damon Heta (UP 1)

6 Luke Littler (UP 3)

7 Dave Chisnall (DOWN 2)

8 Peter Wright (UP 2)

9 Jonny Clayton (UP 2)

10 Gerwyn Price (DOWN 3)

11 Stephen Bunting (UP 1)

12 Dimitri van den Bergh (UP 1)

13 Chris Dobey (UP 1)

14 James Wade (NEW)

15 Ross Smith (UP 5)

16 Nathan Aspinall (DOWN 8)

17 Josh Rock (DOWN 1)

18 Ryan Searle (DOWN 1)

19 Danny Noppert (DOWN 4)

20 Joe Cullen (DOWN 1)

Ando is the player to drop out for Wade, although he's less than a grand outside and should be back in with a decent result soon. Aspinall's layoff is mostly causing his drop, while Noppert has mainly had a few players just above him have a big hit since the last update. Wright's back into the top 10 after his win at the weekend, Clayton is mainly using the win he had right before the Matchplay, while Littler continues to have a much better depreciation curve than most, although his worlds money is now being worked on. Lower down, Menzies is into the top 40, and the impressive Dom Taylor is closing in on a top 64 place. Expect an update on Thursday ahead of Antwerp.

No more updates today

Disappointing 0-3 yesterday, often happens when you're taking all underdogs but still annoying when it does. Also way behind on tracking the event - yesterday was a nightmare in terms of travel which severely limited the amount of time I had  to notate the games, and then much of that was taken up by trying to decode yet another sportradar failure in the Dobey/Mansell game - we got there in the end, but at so much expense of time. Without that I might have been able to push through and get the remaining games in, but it's not been possible. As such I'm not going to recommend any plays, as I can't see how well half the remaining field has done, which is kind of important when, looking at data prior to Saturday, we have a lot that looks on a first glance to be marginal.

Looking at things on a raw level, Schindler, Noppert, van Veen, Ratajski, Kenny and Searle look a bit undervalued. Take into account what you have seen yesterday and do with it what you will. I'll be back probably tomorrow with a FRH ranking update.

Round 2 punts

There's not a lot there, but we'll go with these three for small plays:

0.1u Burton 23/10, Betfred offering the first two lines, this is needing less than one in three to work, so even if a projection of just into the 40% range is a few points too high for whatever reason, it's still good

0.1u Wade 2/1, here we've got about the same percentage projection. James is playing well and saying he only wins one in three seems a decent underestimate 

0.1u Whitlock evs, frankly I could go larger here, but with Simon struggling with inconsistency and getting results, I can get behind a bit of caution. That said, Pietreczko hasn't been ripping things up either...

Only other one that seems close is Chisnall, 4/6 looks a good price, Taylor's good enough that Dave should not win this two out of three times, but he's safely over 60%.

Edit - Reduced the Whitlock price to evens as I could only see 11/10 on the spread firms

Real quick round 2 projections

These take into account nothing in terms of context. Use at your own risk.

GvV 55%

Joyce 64%

Gurney 58%

Dobey 70%

Smith 80%

Noppert 53%

Searle 59%

Heta 71%

Chisnall 63%

Insufficient data on Hopp

Price 65%

van Gerwen 58%

Schindler 66%

Whitlock 68%

Bunting 70%

Littler 90%

Hildesheim day 1

Just going to post the bets here, and then any game where I was thinking about it, but chose not to fire. That's more for your purposes, if you're somewhat more bullish on a given player and just want a bit of reassurance or another data point that you're not completely nuts. If I'm not mentioning a game, assume that I'm thinking the line is close to perfect.

Plays:

0.25u Gilding 4/9, we've got enough data on Engstrom from at least the Nordic tour that the projections can be relied upon and it's giving Andrew safely over 80%. It feels like Johan should be a bit better than that, but I can't bring things based on feel that much back when 70% would be break even.

Near misses:

Kciuk > Owen - This is mostly lack of data. We can get 7/4, which is not a terrible price for a somewhat known commodity against someone like Owen. The only problem is we know nothing recently. Even the qualifier for this was three months ago. There he was generally mid to high 80's, creeping into the 90's once, which is getting enough to at least consider it.

Mansell > Ehlers - This is much tougher as Mansell is 1/4, it's lack of data on Ehlers really. What he did in the quali makes me think that he has some qualities, but not enough to hold it together to win six legs against someone as good as Mansell. Again, the quali data is old, it's even further back than the eastern Europe one referred to above.

Beaton > Slevin - We're real close on this one. Just a spot where the best line feels like it's a tick or so short of giving the edge we need on Steve, who I'm seeing as more or less bang on two in three, so 8/13 is nearly enough.

Burton > Krcmar - Kind of the same spot really. I can barely separate the two, I maybe give Stephen the odd percent over 50%. With some places offering 6/5, it might be worth a look.

Woodhouse > Edhouse - Again, very close. I'm getting this as basically 60/40, only problem is that the two of them seem polar opposites in being able to convert performance into legs and match wins, which is just enough to make me not take an otherwise interesting 4/5 line.

de Sousa > Hopp - Better than 1/2 seems kind of tasty. It's a question about Hopp really - peak Hopp should be nowhere near 2/1, but we've not seen peak Hopp since forever, the quali was a mix of B-game and stinkers, and his Challenge Tour record this year is less than inspiring.

Kuivenhoven > Wade - Yes, I know, it sounds insane. But the projection is calling it only 60/40 in favour of Wade, so if it weren't for Maik having extremely wild inconsistency stars, against the exact opponent you do not want to have that issue, then north of 2/1 would otherwise be in play. I'm kind of surprised the line is actually that tight in the first place, but it is, oh well.

Springer > Wright - It's close. The market has Niko just the wrong side of 40%. I have him at just the right side of 40%. You've got countering factors of the game being in Germany, but at the same time them loving Wright, and that this could easily be Niko's biggest win of his career if he gets it, and the pressure that might come when close to the winning line. You weigh the intangibles up.

Whitlock > Rydz - Another one where I'm looking for reasons not to bet. I'm only seeing Callan just north of 50%, so ordinarily 6/4 would be a print money situation. That said, Simon not only has much worse inconsistency numbers than Callan, but as mentioned he's having a stinker of a season in terms of getting results and there is some added pressure on him to get a win here. That's enough for me to say no, but might not be enough for you.

Suljovic > van den Bergh - I'm seeing this as a little bit closer to a 60/40 than the line only giving Suljovic a one in three shot, and we did see this exact result in the most recent Pro Tour. It wouldn't need much market shift for me to say just play it, actually getting 2/1, or just north, would do it for me.

We're not dead - early Hildesheim thoughts

With the break in the schedule (at least partially), and in the aftermath of Smithgate to our bank accounts, I needed to take a bit of a break from this. Got a bit behind, still somewhat behind (need to catch up with the SDC and CDC from last weekend along with any WDF that took place then), but I'm at least up to date on the main tour, having some minor health issues right now which is limiting the amount of time I want to spend starting at a white screen not helping matters, but the Euro Tour is back, so let's have a quick prelim look at the round one games.

Kenny/Klaasen - Nick's not really done a huge deal since getting his card back in 2023, but is in contention to get a worlds spot sitting just outside the Pro Tour places as we stand, somewhat ahead of Jelle who's been remarkable ineffective in 2024 and is being outscored by Nick, although neither have been that impressive full stop. Might be an important game for Nick come the end of the year if he wins, but a bit of a snoozer to start.

Kciuk/Owen - Krzysztof's been a bit quiet this year and I don't have any real data on him, so may need to look at the qualifier, which might be too long ago to be hugely relevant at this stage. We know he's alright, but could be a bit rusty and against a card holder that's got an outside chance of making the worlds with a moderately competent scoring record this year, merely being alright might not be enough here.

Mansell/Ehlers - Mickey's still got work to do to make the worlds, which seems surprising given his level of play in 2024 which is still pretty tight, and ought to be easily enough to handle Ehlers, who makes a second appearance of the year having got to ET2 and taking de Zwaan to a deciding leg. Feels like another one where the player with more experience should come through comfortably enough.

Engstrom/Gilding - Johan's just missed out on a worlds spot in the SDC, which is a bit of a shame, but the numbers in 2024 haven't been that threatening on a decent sample, and while Gilding is certainly not the player he used to be, he should certainly have more than enough in the tank to advance, although it is a game that he can't take too lightly by any means.

Slevin/Beaton - Dylan's never really kicked on since a very good start to 2023, and like Beaton, sits outside the worlds spots as things stand, although he is slightly behind Steve and both could easily jump up the ranks with a little bit of a run somewhere, and here'd be a good spot. Steve feels like the better player, but it doesn't look to be by an extreme amount, so this one could be a second game in a row where the "name" player is tested.

Krcmar/Burton - Finding very little to separate these two, so could be the pick of the afternoon session. Stephen's had some good results, and currently sits quite nicely inside the worlds spots and a likely retention of his tour card as a result. Krcmar on the other hand has had a right stinker in terms of results, although the level of play is not too dissimilar. At least he might have the fallback of a regional qualifier to get there? Ought to be a close one but maybe Burton has more confidence right now?

Horvat/Ratajski - Dragutin has been looking fairly decent in 2024, currently sitting in a top ten spot on the Challenge Tour but this looks to be his first cash in my database since the wrolds where he lost fairly comfortably to Mike de Decker. The numbers aren't too bad, but they're some way off those of Ratajski, who continues to remain a very dangerous player, and is probably back up to the underrated stage. Horvat isn't out of this if he can hit one of his purple patches early, but Krzysztof should be too strong.

Dolan/van Duijvenbode - Dirk's in real danger of missing a second straight major if he doesn't start getting some ranking results soon, and while this is not the best draw he could have gotten, in that Brendan is a solid established pro who is currently in the Grand Prix spots, Dolan is one of the weaker players at that level of field and one which Dirk is outperforming statistically. Could be a key game for DvD and one that might kickstart his season.

Edhouse/Woodhouse - Someone's got to nickname this the House derby, right? Both are looking good to make the Grand Prix, Ritchie's ahead in the table but it's Luke that is putting up the better numbers, and may come into this one as a slight favourite. Should be close and entertaining to kick off the evening session.

de Sousa/Hopp - Jose's possibly on the downward slide of his career, and currently probably the highest profile name not to be in a worlds spot as of right now. The performances he's putting up right now make me think he could turn it round, but time's not on his side. Hopp, a former winner of one of these, makes a welcome return, we've seen a little bit on the Challenge Tour but not a huge amount, so it'll be interesting to see where his game is at. Certainly a dangerous level opponent on his day, that's for sure.

Kuivenhoven/Wade - Maik's one of a few players in this that could do with a bit of a run to shore up worlds credentials, sitting just outside and making it probably being the difference between retaining a card or not. The numbers are fine, but he's drawn one of the more awkward opponents he could have done in Wade, who is having somewhat of a resurgence and putting up the best numbers he's done in some time, which doesn't spell great news for Kuivenhoven. It's not such a disparity that Maik is completely out of it, but he's going to have work to do in this one.

van Barneveld/Taylor - Another fun one here, Barney is Barney and we know what we're getting from him at this stage and know he's still able to mix it at a high level, but Dom has looked exceptionally strong since winning his card in the winter and is one of those in contention to possibly get a win at Pro Tour level among those who haven't got one yet. He's that good, and is probably marginally outscoring RvB right now. Will be a good one to watch.

Wright/Springer - Peter continues to look like his best game has gone, with seasonal scoring below 90 when contenders to his sort of world ranking should be at least 92, if not higher. It's still a little bit more than what Niko is doing, who's currently second on the Development Tour and will be fancying his chances in this sort of game to really make a name for himself.

Lukeman/Clayton - Martin's one of those hanging around in that range where their card is completely safe, but there's not really enough being shown to make us think ithat a push towards the top 32 is overly likely, although there's occasional flashes and the stats are just fine. Clayton's shown a little bit of a revival, and looking at his statistics there appears to be just about enough of a combination of momentum and quality to be a moderate favourite to advance here.

Rydz/Whitlock - Callan is looking relatively safe for the worlds and is showing a little bit more consistency than he has done in the past, while Simon is having a bit of a tragic 2024, not near the world's positions and numbers a good bit behind where Rydz is at, and it's only what he did in 2023 that's realistically keeping his tour card in the balance. One where I think the younger player should win, but there could be a lot of variance in this one.

Suljovic/van den Bergh - And we finish with one I think we saw in the last Pro Tour where Mensur made a bit of a run, but the Austrian vet is in a bit of a worse position than Whitlock is in terms of holding a card, but he is at least clinging on to a worlds spot at the moment. He's unlikely to be able to do too much to improve his spot here, as he's drawn one of the toughest players he could who is outscoring him comfortably and would probably need to make mistakes to let Suljovic in in this one.

Bets either later tonight, or more realistically in the morning.

Matchplay quarters - not getting better

That result was a blow. Probably worth talking about both losses - the Aspinall one I think I can put down to being my fault, and if I had spent all the time in the world reading every single preview that indicated he is injured (but clearly not injured enough to not play, or to put in a sub par first round performance), then maybe I cut it back to a no bet. As for Smith, that's just a weird one which we can put down to randomness - both players' figures were commensurate of how they have played all season (indeed, Smith's figures went down after yesterday's game, while Dobey's performance last night was within a fiftieth of a point per turn of his larger sample), that I'll just put down to unfortunate missed doubles in the early stages which put Chris a bit too far behind to pull it back. This puts things as probably the worst tournament I've had to date, at least in the Dart Connect era, but we'll just put it behind us and down to experience and try to rebuild in the quarters, which will see no new major winner guaranteed.

Smith/Wade - Ross looked extremely strong in his win over Price, hitting four twelve or better dart legs and only winning two which went past fifteen darts, while Wade we've touched on a bit above, got off to a very good start but then just did what he needed to do from there. This looks like a good play on Ross, as I see him as having a touch more than a three in four chance, and with the odds offered, that's more than enough edge. 0.25u Smith 1/2

Humphries/van den Bergh - Luke was equally good in the second round, only having the one leg drift beyond fifteen darts and while Stephen was a bit off his best, he wasn't really given a chance. Dimitri also looked pretty solid in having eight of eleven legs sewn up in fifteen darts and keeping Clayton at bay before pulling away with a strong run towards the end. This looks like a strong favourite spot for Luke as expected, it looks bang on 80/20 for me, and Dimitri is 4/1, so we won't be playing this one.

Smith/Cross - Michael looked ok but not spectacular, getting an early lead but winning less than half his legs in fifteen darts or better - while Rob looked like a true title contender, hitting nine of eleven legs in that speed, five of which were in four visits. Cross appears a solid favourite here - I've got this as a bit more than 70/30, which even if Smith is playing a touch better than historical numbers, which might be the case but might not, we can still go with it, 0.25u Cross 7/10

van Gerwen/Gilding - Finally we have what doesn't look like an overly interesting game on paper, van Gerwen looking pretty decent against Cullen who made a good effort to keep it close after a bad first session. Gilding looked maybe the best he has done for a long time in getting a big lead over Ratajski and then seeing it home with a solid four leg run, which is the sort of level he'd need to display again if he wants to be competitive in this one, where my projections give him somewhere in the 20% to 25% range, slightly more towards the bottom of that. 9/2 is maybe being a tad harsh, but it's not enough to try to take the underdog shot.

Let's hope we can claw some of the losses back! 

Matchplay round 2 - ouch

Think it's fair to say that yesterday did not go as planned - can't do a massive amount against how well Smith played from leg 10 onwards, but Ando should have been 4-0 up and had a dart for 5-0, rather than 3-2, then just couldn't really score. That's obviously a big loss, but it's good to know that I wasn't the only one who was quite this bullish on Anderson and it's a bet I would do again 100% of the time. Littler losing as well compounded things, but that one was at least moderately close so not quite as fussed about it. All in all it was a pretty chalky round one with just four seeds dropping out, some of whom we thought might (Wright), others that we thought needed to turn up for sure given their opponents (Noppert, Heta), then someone who we thought was relatively safe but just didn't show up at all in Chisnall. Last sixteen, let's go:

Clayton/van den Bergh - Jonny looked pretty solid in his win, not spectacular but just not letting many legs drift past fifteen darts and scoring over 99 on the legs Barney won, who wasn't exactly playing badly himself. Dimitri was a bit more up and down - got the nine, but was fortunate to nick a couple of very dodgy legs as well as being the beneficiary of a couple of legs where Schindler either didn't score, or didn't hit doubles. Or both. Overall scoring is pretty close between the two - I've got Dimitri as outscoring Jonny, but is more inconsistent, so happy to drop a 65% projection down to probably below 60%, maybe down to 55% given how there is plenty of evidence at this stage that Clayton is in a bit of form. That said, he's the underdog in the market, which thinks it should be 55/45 the other way. That's more than enough for me to play - 0.25u van den Bergh 6/5

Humphries/Bunting - Luke as expected had few problems dispatching Pietreczko, who to his credit played a lot better than what he has done of late, just ending up with an awkward draw, against almost anyone else he might have been able to get into a position to ask more questions. Bunting was one of two players who needed overtime to get through, we thought Joyce would make it tough for him, and he definitely did, Stephen perhaps getting a few legs where he benefitted from weak scoring by Ryan which he held in over 15, nick any of those and we could be talking about a different game here. I'm getting this at between 70% and 75% for Humphries - the market has it towards the top of that range, with Luke not available at 1/3 and Bunting shorter than 3/1, there is a very small consistency thing that might draw things a point or two in Bunting's favour, but with the relative level of performances in the opener I'm absolutely fine with calling this a no play.

Aspinall/Wade - Nathan was generally pretty good against Woodhouse, who may be ruing missed opportunities where he let Aspinall win easy legs, mainly in the first leg of each of the two mini sessions. Grab those and it's 10-8 the other way. Or just score in the final leg and we get to overtime and ask further questions. Either would work. Wade was steady against what was frankly a below par Noppert, 10-5 may be flattering but Wade got breaks in three of the first four Noppert throws without needing to hit a fifteen to get them, which is frankly making things way too easy for the other guy (Wade also got a seven visit hold early on). I've got this as maybe around 60/40 in Aspinall's favour after accounting for inconsistency a tad (which you'd expect against Wade), which makes it all the more surprising that the market has James as the narrow favourite. 0.25u Aspinall evs

Price/Smith - Gerwyn made pretty short work of Daryl Gurney, certainly finishing very nicely after the second break when the match was still somewhat in the balance. Smith meanwhile looked excellent in handling Josh Rock, only dropping the four legs and winning all but one leg in fifteen or less. This is one where maybe both are a touch underrated - Price maybe on account of having a quiet season, while I still think it's taking its time for the public to appreciate just how good Ross is. Still, Price is a bit better, and over this length of match it translates to Smith having pretty much just a one in three shot - which, with Price at 8/15, is more or less in line with how the market sees it, the market maybe giving Ross slightly more of a chance than how I see it, but not enough for me to even start to think about taking the former world champion.

Ratajski/Gilding - Krzysztof allowed everyone to get off for the football just in time with a dominant 10-2 win over Dave Chisnall, who really didn't show up and it didn't requite Ratajski to do a huge deal in terms of quality (only half his legs won being in less than fifteen darts) to get that scoreline - Chizzy barely averaging 80 in the ten legs Ratajski won. Gilding was a similarly comfortable winner over Peter Wright, he did concede five legs but was a tad better in the ones he won. Ratajski is as expected projecting as the winner - I've got it up towards 70/30 - so fractionally more favoured towards the Pole than the 1/2 market price suggests. Maybe if some money starts to come in on Gilding then we can start to look at it, but I'm finding that doubtful as a possibility.

Smith/Dobey - Talked about the Smith match in the preamble so won't repeat myself. Chris was the last man through against Edhouse, looking reasonable enough in the legs he won, but only one of the seven legs that Ritchie won was in under sixteen darts, and that was the four visit kill he took to go 5-3 up, so that's something that Dobey will need to tighten up on. Should come as no surprise that we're looking at laying Smith again - Chris' numbers are simply a lot better than Michael's, a clear two points per turn ahead and he even has a very small consistency advantage, and that all leads to a projection where Dobey has between a 60% and 65% chance of winning. The market has it at around 60% to Smith. 0.5u Dobey 13/10, it is not quite the level of edge that we had in the first round, and maybe there's some Smith playing better on TV and Chris not being quite at his best going on here, but this is still a big enough advantage to go with the half unit play.

van Gerwen/Cullen - Michael looked close to his best against Littler, with four four visit kills and a huge amount of dominance in the middle stages, say between legs four and thirteen, that was extremely good play. Cullen didn't look too bad compared to how he has been either, but that was with a much lower bar to clear, and Dolan wasn't exactly putting up a huge amount of resistance in that one. Cullen's actually showing enough to have more than a 35% chance according to projections, although I'll draw that back from being nearly closer to 40% to safely below just based on how well MvG played and some consistency issues. That still makes Cullen possibly worth considering at 5/2, but I'd really need to be confident that everything we've seen in 2024 from Joe is misleading, and I simply can't do that.

Cross/Searle - Rob needed a deciding leg and to dodge multiple match darts from van Veen, who from 8-4 put up an obscene level of play to force the match to overtime in the first place. It's just as well that Rob looked very, very good, otherwise we wouldn't be in this place discussing this match in the first place. Ryan also looked extremely good against Damon Heta, four legs won in twelve or better, only two drifting past fifteen darts, after a slow first couple of legs he was basically unplayable. This is one where Rob is better, but he's not that much better, giving Searle solidly more than a one in three spot with the projection for Cross being slightly nearer to 65% than 60%. Market has Rob at 8/13, which I guess is fine.

So three plays - we fire moderately big against Smith again, then going with a couple of around even money plays that I didn't necessarily expect to be making, but will trust in the numbers. Back Wednesday with the quarters.

Matchplay round 1 preview

Draw was done a bit ago - bit of a shame that Wade and Gilding held on, nothing against James or Andrew but seeing someone new like Doets or Menzies would have been a fair bit more interesting. Still, the draw has thrown up a lot of real interesting matches, so let's go through them in draw order.

Humphries v Pietreczko - Not going to lie, while I was working out who was running the best and worst for this I was struggling to find the 32nd player in the field. It then became apparent to me just how bad Ricardo's form is, such was the huge distance he was behind the 31st player in scoring. It's huge - the graph of his rolling average, to use a Blackpool landmark, looks something like the first three seconds of the Big One after it's got to the top. There's lots of good games in this tournament - this isn't one of them. Humphries is so far ahead I don't even have Pietreczko as having a 5% chance. As such, the price we're getting is worth a big play - 1u Humphries 1/7

Bunting v Joyce - Another player in decent form, Bunting is very much a top ten player in terms of quality right now. That said, Ryan, making his return here after a bit of a gap, is not that far behind him. The projection is showing him as just shy of 45% - there's a little bit of a tiny consistency issue in play, s maybe draw that down to splitting the difference between 40% and 45%. 7/4 as such is fairly close, we're not touching Bunting in this one which looks like a perfect storm of possibly overrated against surely underrated.

Clayton v van Barneveld - Clayton managed to bink a Pro Tour so may be showing some signs of getting back to some semblance of form, with his numbers having crept up back to 91 or so per turn, which isn't bad, but it's behind Barney, although not by a great deal. Clayton does actually project ever so slightly better, and is trending upwards, but RvB does have a consistency advantage, so I'd probably put this one as too close to call. Barney at 13/10 or there abouts looks like the slightly better play, but it's not a particularly good play, so we won't make it. 

van den Bergh v Schindler - Dimitri's seemingly done little all year apart from win a major, whereas it seems like Martin is at the back end of lower ranked tournaments every other week, and has of course finally manager to win one. Both players are marred with wild inconsistency figures, but Schindler's are generally better, with DvdB only really coming close around the time of that UK Open win. Numbers are putting Schindler at around a 55% to 60% advantage, which is more or less exactly where the 8/11 number in the market thinks as well, so no play here.

Price v Gurney - Gerwyn's deceptively under the radar right now, still for me very much in that elite tier of players that should be among the favourites to win any tournament he enters, but it feels like that's not the case in terms of perception. That's probably a good thing, and a bad thing for Gurney, for who it feels like the 12-18 months where it looked like he was getting back towards his best have gone, and that his numbers have dropped off somewhat - the overall figure is at a pretty average 90, and the trend is very much downward. Should not be a hard one to call, the projection is showing Price at having a fair line of 1/7, and he's nowhere near that. That's very exploitable so 0.5u Price 4/11, almost tempted with a full unit.

Smith v Rock - Ross is in a real good spot right now, winning one of the last two Pro Tours, reaching the last Euro final, and is one of less than a dozen players whose overall numbers are above 93 so he's very much in that top tier right now. Rock however is only fractionally behind, and is coming off the confidence he'll have by making the breakthrough at the European Tour level this season, so this one should be one of the picks of the round. I'm seeing Smith as better, but at 55/45 it's neither here nor there, the bookies have both odds on so the very tiny value would be on Ross's side - but we don't push very tiny value.

Aspinall v Woodhouse - Nathan's the defending champion here, but has had a really quiet 2024, and while the statistics are fine, they are not really that much better than Woodhouse's, the debutant continuing a push up towards the top 32 in the world, the rankings not quite reflecting the level of play, but we'll just give it time. Getting a win here would be very helpful, and it's definitely on - Nathan is the better player but it is only just, and his projection does not even rate to be 55%. Much like the Bunting game, this is very much one where we are not touching the seed, but with Luke being at 13/8, there is already enough recognition that he's decent that it's not quite a play.

Noppert v Wade - Danny is one of a few players who it feels like has had a quiet 2024, although he does have a Pro Tour win over Humphries, and his numbers in the sample size I am using right now are very much top ten, so he's playing very well. Wade's the last man into the field, still playing OK, but not really at Noppert's level with numbers a couple of points per turn below the former UK Open champion's. This is a game that feels like it's between two with fairly similar styles, and one where I can't even give Wade a one in three chance of claiming the upset. Noppert is priced a bit righter than that, and I think if the odds were a bit longer (the spread companies are the only ones where it's close), we could go with a small stab - 4/6 or maybe 8/13 at a push would be what I need and it's not quite there.

van Gerwen v Littler - This is obviously the showpiece match of the round, and one where the number 2 seed could be in trouble. Littler is not quite the number 2 in the world in terms of numbers, but he's only one off, while van Gerwen is at the lowest number I've seen him probably since I've had my database running, barely holding a top ten position. As such, Littler is projecting as a very large favourite - he projects nearer to 75% than 70%, and I cannot recall ever seeing MvG project so low, at least not while I've been running the data. There is a little bit of an inconsistency thing going on and Luke was pretty average in the last Pro Tour events, so if I draw it down to 70% it's still enough to play - 0.25u Littler 8/13

Cullen v Dolan - We've talked a fair bit about how Joe's not been having the greatest of times, but would you believe it if I said that his scoring numbers were worse than Dolan's? Well, they are, and it's by a clear point complete with Cullen having greater inconsistency. The rolling averages show Brendan maybe having a bit of a tough last couple of months, so maybe there are some straws for Cullen fans to clutch at, but in general the two players are very even, and this projects as a coinflip. The market also has neither player odds against. Which is sad.

Chisnall v Ratajski - Dave has gone and got himself another Pro Tour and another Euro Tour already this season, and is probably one of the names I'd put in a list of most likely new major winners (well there's a fucking obvious number one), so this is not the kindest draw for Ratajski, who's still alright but has maybe faded a bit in 2024 with numbers that are a bit below Dave's. That said, they are at least close enough to give him fairly close to a 40% chance of winning - but we clearly can't take the 6/4 that is being offered.

Wright v Gilding - Now we have a bit of a stinker, at least in terms of quality, with neither player scoring 90 per turn in the sample I'm looking at, Peter being clearly the weakest seed as of right now, while Andrew was one of the last players to make the field and only Pietreczko has worse numbers that did make it right now. Having said that, in terms of tension, this might be alright - in terms of projections it's one of the closest I've seen in the tournament, with Snakebite only just edging ahead 51/49. The market's got it a bit more one sided than that, but not so far that we would want to think about taking Gilding in a bet. 11/8 I might go for it small, 6/4 would be even nicer. Seems like one where it'd be reasonable to think we get money in on the name player, so keep an eye on it.

Smith v Anderson - A great match up of former world champions. Gary's performing like one - the only player other than Humphries to be scoring over 96 a turn. Michael isn't, scoring nearer to 92 than 93 and barely cracking the top 20 in that metric. As such, it's a bit odd that the market has things so close - I've got Gary projecting at closer to 80% than 70%, such is the difference between the players in terms of levels. You don't see this kind of edge very often so I'm going the full unit, 1u Anderson 4/5

Dobey v Edhouse - Chris is at the stage in terms of numbers where he's clearly a top ten player, but needs to get results like a very deep major run or a Euro Tour win in order to progress there. This isn't the worst start he could get, Ritchie has had a very consistent run of good Pro Tour and European Tour results to get here for a debut, but he is quite some way off Dobey's standards, and I'm not even projecting him to win this one more than one in every four trials. As such, Dobey at 4/9 is fairly close to a play, feels like another one where there's a bit of a disconnect between how well someone is playing and the market perception of it.

Cross v van Veen - Rob's seeded six here, and that feels like a fair number as to where he stands right now, as I actually have him sixth in scoring. Therefore there's not many players who are better than him - van Veen might have been close to that eight months ago, and he is still playing very good stuff which has allowed him to qualify for here, but he's a little bit off Rob and this looks like a 70/30 game on paper. The market has things a little bit kinder for Gian, but with Cross at 1/2 it's not by much and we can't really think about taking the favourite.

Heta v Searle - Finally we have another game that feels like it should be very close. Damon is still putting up good enough numbers to be in the top 16, and is actually scoring better than van Gerwen to underline that point, but Ryan's within a point, so while Heta is favoured, it's not by a great deal, rating a touch over 55%, which if it was a little bit more I'd look to play, with neither being odds against and Damon being 10/11. A few more points would be needed though.

So four plays, three of them being bigger than the normal quarter unit that I'd look at, they're all on favourites. Will probably post again not before the round is complete on Monday.