Day 3 thoughts

Small profit today, basically cancels out the day one losses. Joyce and Schindler played great, Menzies also played fantastic but just ran into probably a top 10% sort of level performance from Smith which you can't really do a great deal about. Still feel convinced Cameron is going to maintain solid betting value for the foreseeable future, at least until he binks something which is surely going to be sooner rather than later if he just maintains his level of play.

Not got lines out for most games yet, certainly oddschecker isn't up, so will just run through the thoughts quickly with a raw projection for each:

Rock/Smith - 53/47, seems realistic, Smith looked great today as mentioned above, Josh was alright but mostly doing enough against Veenstra, don't expect this one to differ too much from evens but we'll see.

Price/Searle - 63/37, game for Gerwyn looked closer than it actually was, scoreline for Ryan was the same but Searle definitely played worse today, thought the projection might put Searle a bit closer but I guess not.

Cross/Noppert - 65/35, Rob still real good, no issues against Gurney, Noppert however looked incredible against van Veen, who also might have put up the best losing performance we've ever seen. Ought to be a cracker.

Humphries/Joyce - 72/28, Luke was also up there with Noppert and Smith in terms of the best performance of the day but that's kind of just expected now, Joyce just hit consistent five visit kills which if continued tomorrow is going to be tricky for Luke to live with.

Aspinall/Smith - 46/54, Nathan didn't do a great deal wrong, but got a few too many legs in more than five visits which a player on top form could punish. Smith isn't necessarily at his peak game based on yesterday, but certainly isn't out of form so this should be tight.

Schindler/Dobey - 44/56, Martin routed Heta while Chris put in a very solid showing against Ratajski, don't think it's unreasonable to say that Dobey is the better player, but it's not by that much.

van Gerwen/Cullen - 71/29, Michael was generally pretty steady in his game with de Zwaan which could have been more lopsided than it actually was, while Cullen only really had the one moderately poor leg in a comfortable win over Clayton. This might play out a tad closer than the projection.

Chisnall/Wattimena - 74/26 - Dave shut down a really poor Dimitri, especially compared to yesterday, seems a miracle with how he played that DvdB managed four legs, while Jermaine continues a great start to the year with a solid win over Bunting, the key thing being nicking the scrappy legs. Another one that might be a tad closer than the projection.

Will fire out any bets in the morning, but don't expect anything for the quarters onwards because football.

Day 2 bets

Let's rattle through these quickly having already done the projections last night:

Smith/Dolan - Seems close enough to a correct line, it's got Ross a little bit shorter than the projection suggests but it did feel at the time like it might be overestimating Brendan a little anyway so I'm fine with a no bet.

Rock/Veenstra - Line appears pretty close to perfect, both are probably a bit underrated in general so that kind of cancels each other out.

Ratajski/Dobey - Almost feels like we're close to a stab on Ratajski. Krzysztof is still playing solid darts. If we had the inverse of Chris's odds, i.e. we could get 2/1, I'd probably take a small stab but we've got a fair bit of vig in the market so nothing doing here. Yet.

Joyce/Pietreczko - Market can't separate the two but we think Ryan is solidly better. A little bit of consistency at play and home field won't help (although it is the afternoon session), but VC are offering a good price which we'll take, 0.25u Joyce evs

Bunting/Wattimena - Projection really, really loves Bunting, and with good reason, but I think in reality it's probably a tad closer than what I've put up, Jermaine did get a 6-0 over a competent opponent yesterday, albeit with a not great performance, line's close enough for me.

Searle/Lennon - Market's throwing this around 70/30, I've got it marginally tighter than that, Steve's undervalued, but it's not enough to bet on Lennon, Searle isn't exactly playing badly in 2024 and Lennon wasn't overly convincing yesterday.

Cross/Gurney - Market has this one round about spot on. Think it's one where both are a tad undervalued, Gurney yesterday was pretty much par for the course.

van Duijvenbode/Aspinall - I think with Dirk having had a decent Pro Tour run we can stop taking him off the board for injury reasons now, but we're certainly not going to jump in either way when both the projections and the market have Nathan as a small favourite.

Smith/Menzies - Both players are scoring exactly the same in my database since the start of September. Exactly. To two decimal places. Menzies is doing better on winning legs hence why he projects as a favourite, but this one's going to be very close so we take the VC line again, 0.25u Menzies 6/4

Noppert/van Veen - Market can barely separate them, it gives Noppert the tiny edge with van Veen at evens, I think this is very close to a punt but Danny's a touch more consistent and van Veen was merely good, not spectacular yesterday. Wouldn't hate a tenth of a unit at evens but I'll wait and see if we can get 11/10 which would be a go.

Price/Wright - 1/2 on Gerwyn appears really, really close, but Peter has looked good over the last week or so, as such I'm fine with holding fire on this one.

Humphries/Woodhouse - Line's fine, the lesser Luke's good but the world champ is in a really good place right now and being priced at 2/9 is not completely ridiculous.

Heta/Schindler - I'm calling this one as being real close, Heta is scoring more but Martin's scoring better on the winning legs, which is why I projected him as favourite. Coralbrokes are offering a good price which I'll have a small nibble at, 0.1u Schindler 11/8, if Damon does have an edge it is not as big as that line suggests.

van Gerwen/de Zwaan - Jeffrey was both a bit fortunate and unfortunate yesterday, he got away with the game but ran into back to back ton plus checkouts from a great position. Still, nothing to suggest that the market isn't close to perfect.

Chisnall/van den Bergh - Dave as a small favourite seems just about right. Dimitri was excellent yesterday and Chizzy at 10/11 and Dimi the inverse is as close to perfect as I think you'll get.

Clayton/Cullen - Similar thing here, I'm showing Joe as a small favourite, the market is doing the same 11/10 and 10/11 thing, we're not touching it.

So three bets here. Let's go.

Munich day 2 thoughts

To whoever commented on day 1, yeah it does look like I missed Aspinall against Unterbuchner, I guess that scrolling down oddschecker there wasn't a line available anywhere that they'd imported, I don't think anything of value would have been lost. Anyway, today was up and down, it could have been a lot worse if de Zwaan hadn't pulled his game out when it could easily have been lost, but looking at things Soutar didn't show up, Wenig missed doubles and then Gilding didn't show up. Would I have done anything different? Probably not, we trust our reads. Still, let's put up quick reads on what round two will look like, all the qualifiers are gone so we've got a pretty vanilla field with a lot of data, I guess we find little value (tips, if any, will come in the morning) but let's see:

Smith 62/38 Dolan

Rock 64/36 Veenstra

Dobey 61/39 Ratajski

Joyce 63/37 Pietreczko

Bunting 77/23 Wattimena

Searle 67/33 Lennon

Cross 65/35 Gurney

Aspinall 54/46 van Duijvenbode

Menzies 56/44 Smith

van Veen 56/44 Noppert

Price 72/28 Wright

Humphries 76/24 Woodhouse

Schindler 55/45 Heta

van Gerwen 79/21 de Zwaan

Chisnall 54/46 van den Bergh

Cullen 51/49 Clayton

A couple of interesting ones, but when I check on the markets in the morning I don't see myself betting on much. But we'll see.

Munich day 1

Was meaning to get this up yesterday, but was just too tired, then kind of half forgot this was on with the scheduling being a little bit funky compared to other Euro Tour events and the calendar/days off work also throwing me. God knows what the clock change tonight will do, but let's get into it:

Joyce/Doets - Feels like this is an important one for Doets, currently being on the right side of the Matchplay spots, but not by much, getting a decent wedge to try to bridge the gap up to Rydz (there's about 5k difference between between 13th and 14th right now) would be very beneficial. Joyce is looking safer on that front, and it feels like he's playing slightly the better darts, and the numbers agree with him projecting just over 60%. 8/11 looks like a small undervaluing of Ryan, not enough to punt though.

Dolan/Soutar - Brendan however is on the other side of the Matchplay cutoff, albeit not by much at all, so getting a win over Soutar, who kind of needs a big year himself after a down 2023, would be crucial so it's an important game for both. It feels like Alan's been playing better of late, and I don't have this more than just a weighted coinflip in Brendan's favour, so I feel with a bit of momentum in Soutar's favour, we can have a small stab, 0.1u Soutar 11/8 on 365.

Roetzsch/Wattimena - Franz is a player we've been aware of for some time and he's had an alright start on the Challenge Tour this season, does feel like it's surely just a matter of time before he comes good in something and gets his card. Jermaine's been a bit resurgent of late and should be favoured, hard to tell with general lack of data on Roetzsch, maybe 4/11 is a bit harsh, but 5/2 I don't think offers sufficient value to take a flier on the German qualifier.

Menzies/de Decker - This one looks good on paper and is another one which might have Matchplay consequences with the two players currently 18th and 19th on the Pro Tour list. Seems like both are playing well, but I'm getting Cameron as approaching a 60% favourite, he is still somewhat undervalued and I think there is a sliver of value here, 0.1u Menzies 10/11 is generally available.

Dobey/Tingstrom - Viktor won the Nordic qualifier, and looked pretty decent in a couple of matches against the highly rated Harrysson and Lukasiak, and not exactly awful in his other games either. It's an enormous step up against someone like Chris, I'm not sure that 15/2 is really being fair on the Swede, but it'd be reasonable to think he might be a bit nervy in this one. Or maybe it's a free hit? Who knows.

de Zwaan/Ehlers - Jeffrey looks like he's continuing to get a little bit better, but is still someway off his best, and he's got an alright draw against a domestic qualifier who I've not heard of before, so I guess it's a debut, the quali was alright, mostly low to mid 80s with one flash up into the 90s in the semi final, I don't think it's enough to really threaten de Zwaan, his Q-School numbers look a bit better than his quali numbers, but this looks like a take on the known quantity at the price, 0.25u de Zwaan 2/5 on Hills

Mueller/Veenstra - Oliver's another one to have come through the quali, and if anything the numbers look less convincing than Matthias's do, and Veenstra feels like a tougher draw than de Zwaan is. The market's giving Richard a bit of a better chance accordingly, so I'm looking at the same sort of thing again, 0.25u Veenstra 3/10 on 365 looks good.

Zonneveld/Woodhouse - This ought to be competitive but with Luke being a late call up for Gary Anderson, maybe he's not quite 100% in terms of preparation, he's perhaps a little better than the odds suggest (is 10/11, I've got it better but closer to 55% than 60%), so I'm not going to take the shot as I did in a similar situation with Menzies just because even a fraction of underperformance due to potential less than ideal preparation is enough not to punt.

Wenig/Lennon - This ought to be fun to start with a home country card holder against a known good player, I've actually got these two running pretty close and Lukas has had some steady results. I'm reluctant to bet against Steve, but it is home field advantage, I'll go with 0.1u Wenig 6/4 on 365, with it being in Germany and the numbers being just about at close as they are, I can push out to recommend a small play.

Wade/Gurney - Not a bad second game either, both been around for more than a decade now, Gurney is actually projecting as a favourite which did surprise me, and you can't actually get better than 4/5, which also surprised me. While Daryl does project as better in my numbers, it's not enough to be worth a play, he's perhaps 2-3% stronger than the line suggests which really isn't enough given it's not unreasonable to think projections will underestimate Wade.

Gilding/Cullen - This is already shaping up to be a great session, both have just been quietly getting their job done, and Joe did us with a couple of real good performances in ET1. Gilding is projecting better - it's a little bit down to consistency, but there's not a great disparity, and he is not a favourite in the market. 0.25u Gilding 11/8 on VC, anything down to about 6/5 is probably worth the play, below that I'd go down to evens on a tenth of a unit.

Schindler/Sedlak - Martin's got one of the qualifiers here, it's a name we've seen before, but not a huge amount recently, he's got some game so I'm not going to say take Schindler 2/7 and print money, but Martin looks clearly better and should be comfortable enough to get the win.

van Barneveld/van Veen - Clash of eras here in a local derby, and the line looks pretty much close to correct - Gian projects a little bit better than the 4/5 line suggests, but we can clearly temper that with the knowledge that Barney is playing really well in the relative short term. Easy enough one to just avoid for betting and enjoy.

Wright/de Sousa - Session isn't exactly getting worse, is it? Peter's showing a little bit more of late, while Jose is still fairly anonymous, not really doing anything to make us think he'll get into the tough majors this year or arrest a slide that looks like well out of the top 32 this time next year. That said, the projections make this a tough one to call, so while my first instinct would be continue to lay Wright until proven bad, Jose is actually only 6/5 and that is a hard pass at the price.

van den Bergh/Clemens - And we finish with another banger, Dimitri's got the big win recently, while Gabriel is remarkably still looking for a first title. Seems legitimately too close to call, the market has neither odds against and is just shading Dimi as the favourite, I'd probably have it the other way but it is neither here nor there and we're not interested in either until we start getting up towards 11/8, which we're not going to see.

Round 2 may also be fairly late.

Wieze done

Was only going to be a matter of time before Littler won one of these. Winning the first one was maybe a little bit ahead of the timescale that some people thought, but meh, he's good and nobody denies that.

New FRH rankings are as follows:

1 Luke Humphries

2 Michael Smith

3 Michael van Gerwen

4 Rob Cross

5 Nathan Aspinall

6 Gerwyn Price

7 Peter Wright

8 Damon Heta

9 Jonny Clayton

10 Dave Chisnall

11 Dimitri van den Bergh

12 Joe Cullen

13 Stephen Bunting

14 Luke Littler (+4)

15 Chris Dobey (-1)

16 James Wade (-1)

17 Danny Noppert (-1)

18 Ryan Searle (-1)

19 Dirk van Duijvenbode

20 Gary Anderson (NEW)

Nothing substantial changing, Ando pushing into the top 20 over Gilding was probably only a matter of time, Littler winning obviously pushes him up in the rankings, by the time we make a significant discussion again he is probably already up to twelve on account of when he's won his money. Lower down, Pietreczko seemingly didn't move but just pushed a bit closer to those above him, Wattimena is now #43, and that's pretty much it in terms of things of note.

Upcoming, we've got a Challenge Tour weekend in Germany which should be interesting, leading straight into Pro Tour events, but the next big thing will be the usual Munich/Easter Euro Tour event. This weekend's Isle of Man events have zero coverage because reasons, there is one silver ranked WDF event later in the month in the States which it looks like we should find on Dart Connect, but I am guessing this next month should be probably quiet in terms of updates. We'll see, maybe someone does something stupid and we can talk about things. Who knows.

Wieze QF bets

Pietreczko/Clayton - Appears extremely tight. Have it closer than 51/49, Clayton being favoured but only by a fraction. As such, the line being slanted with Ricardo at 13/10 offers a sliver of value, but with Clayton looking so good in the last sixteen, one leg excepted, it's hard to think we have the edge right now, not that Ricardo played badly in knocking out Joyce at all.

Littler/Wattimena - This is looking like a great chance for Littler to make a breakthrough at this level, he was fantastic against Heta, apart from in the legs where he lost where the scoring was a bit weak, while Wattimena was fine against Cullen, took advantage of a couple of weak scoring legs from Joe, whose purple patch in the last two rounds ended rapidly. Projecting Luke up near 85%, 2/11 doesn't seem unfair, Jermaine's had a good run which'll be something to build on, but it surely ends here.

Searle/Cross - Ryan didn't put a foot wrong, just a couple of slightly slow legs where Luke was not able to finish, while Cross had probably the easiest run of anyone, dropping just the one leg with Noppert only in a position to be waiting on a double in another two. I've got Cross as a small favourite, split the difference between 55% and 45%, and the market is shading him about the same at 4/5, so I don't see any value in this one.

Price/Bunting - Gerwyn looked fantastic against Ando, who was playing exceptionally well himself, with just the one leg between them going beyond fifteen darts and the two combining to over a ton in the legs they lost. Great stuff. Bunting had three extremely strong legs, but otherwise just did his job and will need to be a bit more consistent in this one. The market can barely separate them, if you've got money on VC then take the Price line there and arb elsewhere, but I'll just take the price full stop, 0.25u Price evs, I've got him closer to 60% than 55% so that's enough edge for me to fire on the back of a fantastic last sixteen display.

Wieze R3 bets

One out of three yesterday - given they were all around 2/1, that's going to result in close to break even regardless of which one actually one, unfortunately it was de Decker that won who was fractionally the shortest price, but we move on to the last sixteen:

Joyce/Pietreczko - Both players came through 6-5 deciders, Ricardo right at the start in an evenly matched game with Luke Woodhouse, whereas Joyce had much the better timing to nick one against Chizzy. This one seems fairly close, but Joyce has a bit of an edge for me, about the best we can get is 5/6 on Boyles, which is close to a play, but I would probably need 10/11 before I started really thinking about it given the level of play from both yesterday. Possibly evens.

Wright/Clayton - Jonny did for one of our bets yesterday, coming from a 2-0 hole to beat van Peer 6-4 with what was a good display, while Peter also won 6-4 against a somewhat underperforming van Gerwen for what has to be considered a bit of an upset at this stage. Wright surprisingly projects as a 60/40 favourite for this one, it's the same sort of scenario as the one above, we're only getting 5/6 and I'd probably want evens given how both have played yesterday (and Friday as well, in the case of Wright), and how it feels like a false prediction with the general mediocre form of Wright.

Heta/Littler - Damon had zero problems with a bit of an off Dolan, although if Brendan had have hit any double in the comedy second leg, maybe he gets it to 3-2 on throw and it might be a different story. Littler had little (lol) trouble with Ratajski, a little bit of a slow start but came through comfortably in the end. Luke looks about 70/30 here, he's 1/2 so for maybe the first time since the worlds, he's actually being underrated? It's not enough edge to bet obviously, but an interesting development.

Cullen/Wattimena - Joe came with another really good game to take Dirk out, while Jermaine continues a good run with a solid showing against Ross Smith, who clearly wasn't at his best but Jermaine didn't give him too much of a chance. This feels like a hard one to call, the projections are only giving Cullen just shy of 60%, and as the projections have typically maybe underestimated Jermaine as well, it might be right, but Joe looks to be playing a lot better than the sample this weekend, so 9/5 on Wattimena probably goes from being tiny value to being, if not -EV, certainly not safe enough to bet.

Humphries/Searle - Luke cruised past Wade with really no issues at all, just a shame he couldn't make it a 6-0, while Ryan was made to work by an opportunistic Richard Veenstra, who nicked what he could despite Searle's game being just fine. Two in form players, the projection is giving Searle ever so slightly more than a one in three shot - 12/5 is not really enough to give confidence to bet, maybe if some money comes in on Humphries, I'll go with a small play.

Cross/Noppert - Rob could easily have been 4-0 down to Lukas Wenig, but managed to escape to 3-3 and win a decider, Danny also won a decider against Dobey from 5-3 down, dodging some bullets in the tenth leg especially. Cross looks to be a solid enough favourite in this one, I'd have said about 4/7 would be a fair line, we can actually get 4/6 which is overrating Danny ever so slightly. 8/11 I'd probably say screw it and fire small.

Price/Anderson - Gerwyn was a bit up and down against Clemens but never really looked in trouble to lose the match, while Gary definitely was having some issues against an inspired Andreas Harrysson who continued his level of play from Friday and was unlucky to completely run out of steam in the decider where he had the darts. Ando is clearly the better player at this point in time and projects just shy of 60/40, the market basically has neither player odds against, with Price being the one who's hitting evens. If that was Gary I'd go with it, instead it's another one that's really close to a play but I don't quite have enough to pull the trigger.

Bunting/de Decker - Final game sees Bunting, who looked pretty decent but needed every leg to dispose of Josh Rock (kid is still playing fine, just not getting results), while Mike had a very good 6-2 win over Michael Smith, maybe the most noteworthy of his career even though the numbers were merely good if not spectacular. Bunting is about the same sort of level favourite as Gary is, but he's priced at 1/2 and not just shorter than evens. So I think it's another one where we're very close to going with Mike - 7/4 is just not quite enough, even factoring in the home field advantage, I'd want another tick or probably 2/1 flat out before I'd actually fire against Stephen on this one.

So no bets, but if you're more bullish on some players that I think are close, maybe there's some value for you.

Wieze round 2 bets

0.1u van Peer 15/8, as stated below he actually projects as favourite. Even if we say it's all consistency and flip him from a 55/45 favourite to a 55/45 dog as a result, that still gives us a pretty big edge and we take those, I only don't go a quarter unit as I fear I may be missing something fundamental here. Maybe Jonny having a quieter schedule makes him unexpectedly fresh or something.

0.1u Dolan 9/4, don't love this anywhere near as much as the above one, but we're still getting better than 2/1 on someone we're thinking at worst has a 40% chance. Even if that's 5% too much, it's still a +EV play.

0.1u de Decker 7/4, someone we're saying is close to a flip on home soil at approaching 2/1 odds? Sign me up.

That's the lot, the only other real consideration was Dirk, a play I don't hate, but there's enough uncertainty as to the state of his game that I'm happy enough to effectively put him off the board as of right now.

Wieze R2 thoughts

Not going to lie for one minute, that was not a good day in terms of results. Think the process was fine - when you get an unrelated account agree with your main play, it does give a bit of confidence that you're coming to the right conclusions, but it's not always going to work. Schindler wasn't at his best, but Cullen played really well and we've got to give credit where it's due to Joe, it's probably at least a one and a half sigma negative in terms of outcomes, but these things happen. Wright played pretty ordinary as we thought, de Vos just didn't have it either, while Barney was in the position to win, and just fucked it up. These things happen. We just keep putting the volume of bets in where we think we're right, and in the long run we'll be fine.

So, onto round two - first round's only just recently done, so while some lines will be out, I'm going to blast out a quick bets post in the morning (and I mean quick, just pointing out plays and that's it, I've got a moderately long trip to a game tomorrow, so if I just mention a game you can assume that I'm thinking line is close enough to thoughts) and then be done with it, and then catch up on everything on Sunday morning.

Pietreczko/Woodhouse - Competitive enough one to start. Luke was alright in round one, nothing spectacular one way or another, and is actually projecting about 55/45 ahead, so could be a chance of a seed going out here.

Smith/Wattimena - Didn't have Jermaine whitewashing anyone at this level in the thoughts, but he did, but this is a bit of a step up and Ross is projecting more than 75/25. There is no consistency thing here, that's just how good he's playing.

Clayton/van Peer - Was able to get a little bit of respite on van Peer getting through Klose with a personal side play, but I don't think he did too much notable, just got the job done, but here's the bonkers thing - van Peer is projecting as a favourite. Not by a lot, 55/45 at most, and if you take into account Berry's wild inconsistency, he might not be a favourite at all, but if he's a dog, it's not by much, so this could be a favourable play on van Peer here.

Heta/Dolan - The guy Brendan played actually did a bit more than we thought, but Dolan still came through, and it's another one that looks weirdly close in the projections, again around a 55/45 clip. Heta does have a consistency edge, but it's not by much, and we may be looking at the history maker for an underdog flier potentially.

Searle/Veenstra - Richard did well to pull away after holding on by nicking the scrappy legs in the early stages, and gets another tough opponent in Searle here, this is again showing up as a 2-1 sort of game which seems fair enough, especially given Ryan's current good form.

Noppert/Dobey - Chris came through as expected, the other guy did kind of what we thought and it'll be good to see him a bit more going forward (maybe in the World Cup?), but for now this should be a competitve game but one where Dobey is coming in as the better player, dropping right in the middle of the 60%-65% range and it looks one where Danny's solidity can't handle what looks to be a clearly superior player on paper.

Anderson/Harrysson - Andreas probably had the game of his life to storm past van Veen, and I'm thinking this is one where we get a bit of a hangover and where the (unfiltered on the sample size I'm using) second best player in the world just turns over the best player in the world and moves on.

van Duijvenbode/Cullen - As mentioned above, Joe looked extremely good in his first game, Dirk I think is still a bit of a mystery but is projecting nicely into the low 60% range. Huge questions with consistency and with injury, he looks to be getting back to where he was, but this one is going to be look at the line and go with feel as opposed to data given there are a lot of intangibles saying go with Cullen.

Chisnall/Joyce - Ryan just got the job done, nothing special there, but has been doing enough in recent months where Dave is nowhere near 60%, he's actually closer to 55% than that. He had a great 2023 but maybe much of it was in the early stages and tides are changing?

Smith/de Decker - Mike was made to work earlier, but seemingly had a big home crowd with him which you have to expect will continue here, and on the relevant numbers I'm not finding a lot to split the two. Smith is better but it's very marginal, so look for a bet on the home favourite here.

Price/Clemens - Gabriel moved through with little problems, now we get one of the biggest upshifts in terms of quality of opponent you will see on this circuit, but Clemens is certainly not without chances. Price has lost to a comparable German player over a longer format pretty recently, and Clemens has a touch more than a one in three shot - the Iceman should come through, but this is not a formality.

van Gerwen/Wright - One that looks better on paper than it probably will be in real life. Wright's actually projecting at a moderately reasonable number a touch over 35%, but there's big inconsistency numbers in play here that we really need to consider in this one.

Ratajski/Littler - Can't think I'll be the only one that was surprised that de Sousa forced Littler to a deciding leg. Krzysztof is not going to care about the hype and will just step up and do his thing, which on the numbers should get there a tad less than one in three but a tad more than 30% of the time. Will watch the bookies, but this might be a play, although little was offered in the JdS game.

Humphries/Wade - Probably one of the bigger projections we've seen in that it's showing near to 80/20 in favour of the world champion. Is that unfair on someone of Wade's calibre? Frankly no, it's not.

Rock/Bunting - Stephen was getting quite a lot of steam in the markets, to the point where the flier price I wanted on Dimi on the exchanges was actually met. Still, he came through, just about, and is showing enough where he's the tiniest favourite over Josh in this one. Rock almost feels a bit like a forgotten man, but he is more than keeping pace with one of the more hyped up names of the present.

Cross/Wenig - One of the less interesting games, Lukas got through a qualifier but was a touch sluggish, he is projecting at about a one in five chance but context of form makes me think we're not going to hit near that likelihood and we won't have a chance for a flier play on Wenig.

Check in tomorrow for any bets, if they're not up by quarter to ten or so, then assume nothing of value is there.

Wieze R1 bets

van Peer/Klose - Looks close enough to right. May be undervaluing Berry extremely fractionally, like maybe 1% or 2%, which isn't enough to bet.

Joyce/Gilding - Again, looks pretty close to correct, Gilding's 6/5 and we were saying he had a 45% chance.

Wenig/van Put - We're clearly not going to touch Lukas at shorter than 1/8, question is whether we have enough confidence in what Born can do to fire, and I think that's a categorical no.

Gurney/Wattimena - First one we can really think about firing on, with Daryl at 4/7 which is implying just under a 65% chance, when we're thinking it's probably around 70%. That said, we did think that was a bit of a possible false projection, and on further inspection Jermaine's a couple of points better on consistency so I'm happy enough to reign in Gurney's chances enough to make it a no bet.

Woodhouse/Hurrell - Luke's coming in at just shorter than 1/2, which is pretty much exactly where I thought it would be.

Dolan/Strobbe - Would need a lot, lot longer than 9/1 to consider Strobbe here. Dolan at 1/14 probably isn't terrible to be honest.

Dobey/Grbavac - I'm kind of half tempted to consider Romeo to be honest here, given he's actually longer in places than Strobbe is, which seems a bit silly to be honest. It is a bit step up in class against a very good opponent though, so I won't actually bet it.

Harrysson/van Veen - Lacking real data on Andreas here, but Gian at 1/5 seems like the right sort of ballpark figure.

de Decker/Landman - Thought Chris might be a bit shorter, but you can actually get 3/1 on 888 which does offer a small arb. I'd actually need longer to bet him though, so we're clearly not going to play him, or Mike, whose best odds look just about right and whose worst odds are clearly unplayable.

Schindler/Cullen - Market can't split the two, which seems bonkers. Unlike the Gurney game, we are going to play though, 0.25u Schindler 10/11, for two reasons - Martin's coming off a huge win, and we're getting a massively better price. Cullen is a lot more consistent but that consistency isn't going to make near evens not the correct play, since the summer Martin's two points a turn better which is a lot.

Caron/Clemens - Jeroen's a lot closer than the other two qualifiers we've looked at so far, which I think is probably just about fair enough given what little amount we know of him. As such I'm happy not to play it, he's got a puncher's chance but that's about it and Gabriel should be, and is, a strong favourite.

Littler/de Sousa - Might be tiny value in Jose at 4/1, which would fit in with current lay Littler early and often theory, the concern is he's coming off of what ought to be a really confidence damaging loss. As such, I'm not going to play the lay Littler card on this one.

Wright/de Vos - 0.1u 11/2 de Vos, we don't have recent data on Geert outside of the quali, but this is just a general principle "nobody competent should be longer than 5/1 against Wright in a first to six" bet right now, and de Vos at least qualifies as competent. For comparison, Jurjen van der Velde shows at over a 20% chance.

Wade/van Barneveld - Wade's actually the market favourite here, albeit only just. There is, as you might expect, a consistency issue with the numbers, Wade is as you might expect a fair bit more consistent, but if we reign Barney's advantage on the winning legs all the way in from just below 60% to just above 50%, there is still enough of an edge for a small stab. 0.1u van Barneveld 6/5

van den Bergh/Bunting - Stephen is, quite correctly, projecting as favourite, but while I'd have it at 4/6, it's actually 8/13. So that's underrating Dimitri a tiny amount already looking at the raw numbers, without factoring in intangibles such as "just won a major title this week" and "playing on home soil penultimate game of the evening session". Depends on how much you think that bumps Dimi's numbers - if you think it'll give him an additional 2-3%, then go with the shot.

Aspinall/Veenstra - Looks about right to me. Wouldn't be touching Nathan, maybe Veenstra is no worse than a neutral EV play, 2/1 looks a perfect line so if you factor in the travel then perhaps you can justify it clearly not being a losing play.

Belgian bonanza

OK, quick post covering two things. First up, Dimitri binking the UK Open was a fairly big surprise. Looking through the numbers he was playing solidly but not spectacularly, i.e. a good enough level to go deep, but actually winning it needed something a bit more in the final, and one way or another he got it done, which has done this to the FRH rankings:

1 Luke Humphries

2 Michael Smith

3 Michael van Gerwen

4 Rob Cross (+1)

5 Nathan Aspinall (-1)

6 Gerwyn Price

7 Peter Wright

8 Damon Heta (+2)

9 Jonny Clayton (-1)

10 Dave Chisnall (-1)

11 Dimitri van den Bergh (+8)

12 Joe Cullen (-1)

13 Stephen Bunting

14 Chris Dobey

15 James Wade (+1)

16 Danny Noppert (-4)

17 Ryan Searle (NEW)

18 Luke Littler (NEW)

19 Dirk van Duijvenbode (-4)

20 Andrew Gilding (-3)

Ross Smith and Josh Rock drop out since the last update (which hasn't been since the worlds), but both, along with Gary Anderson, are primed to jump back in if they have a moderately decent run this weekend. The two Michaels are separated by less than 10k, Heta trails Wright by less than 5k, Chizzy meanwhile is less than 500 points behind Clayton. Dimitri gets himself into a little bit of an island, with 12th down to 23rd being one fairly close pack with the only real sizable gap being from Dobey down to Wade.

We now get to the first of the new Euro Tour events. The domestic quali is done (de Vos getting Raman in the last 64 was lol), so let's power through the first round in the draw order:

Joyce/Gilding - Not a huge amount to separate the two. Ryan seems to be in more of the ascendency with Gilding's best form dating back to twelve months ago and not really managing a massive amount more than just ticking over since then, leaving Joyce about a 55/45 favourite.

Woodhouse/Hurrell - Woody had a good weekend, and while Hurrell's a known player, he's not really overly close to Luke's level and probably only nicks this one in three.

Wright/de Vos - Wright's form has been well documented, so while getting a domestic qualifier is not a terrible result, getting the pick of them in de Vos is not ideal. Has been a little bit since we've seen him but a performance like he put in in the last round of the quali would be enough to put Peter under some pressure.

van Peer/Klose - Feels like we've seen this one fairly recently? Not sure where, Klose played more than one Dutch player in the UK Open but it wasn't Berry. van Peer's better but it's only between the 55% and 60% bracket and one that can go either way fairly easily.

Dolan/Strobbe - Brendan's in a bit of an awkward season where he could do with stepping up a little, but this is a good start. Strobbe couldn't break more than the low 80 averages in the quali and the final round was particularly poor, dropping below 70 (albeit with multiple legs where both were dicking around on doubles) so it's hard to see Dolan having problems here. Strobbe played a bunch of Challenge Tour last year and only got one mincash so can't see him being a threat.

Littler/de Sousa - Jose's coming off a real bad UK Open loss (although that may be magnified in my eyes given it cost me more than a few quid), and comes in as a natural dog against the hottest name in the sport. Luke's weirdly only just below 75% to take this but it feels like it should be more and I guess it will be priced accordingly.

Schindler/Cullen - Martin got one big win last weekend, while Cullen continues to be ranked alright despite seeming to not be doing a massive amount. Schindler's actually projecting as a huge 70/30 favourite for some reason, there is a solid difference in numbers right now so while that feels big, it doesn't seem quite so ridiculous on inspection of the data.

Gurney/Wattimena - Sort of game that Jermaine, and anyone coming through the tour card quali, really has to exploit. Gurney's solid, but this is an avoidal of many of the bigger guns, although it's another game where there's a 70/30 line, which I thought again might be tighter.

Wade/van Barneveld - We're going to see a lot of these lol sort of first round matches given the new format going forward. Thought this might be on a knife edge but Barney oddly gets closer to 60% than 55%, which is a surprise given RvB has, like Cullen, been somewhat under the radar.

Aspinall/Veenstra - Bit of a tough tie for Nathan this, particularly given a fairly quick travel turn around that won't help him or anyone else who is in Brighton tonight. Looks like an exact two in three game for the Asp, but Richard's solid and maybe this ends up being a touch closer than that projection suggests.

Wenig/van Put - Born's a relatively new name, and seemingly quite young based on playing weekend one of the Development Tour, reaching a last sixteen once and doing enough to get to stage two of Q-School. Looking at the numbers in the quali though, he only broke 80 once so it's pretty hard to see how Wenig doesn't come through this one at a canter.

Dobey/Grbavac - Romeo is I believe a new name to the European Tour, but did give a bit of an announcement with a solid Challenge Tour weekend that has placed him in the top 10 after the first weekend. That's good to see, but someone as good as Dobey is should have a second round place booked pretty quickly.

Caron/Clemens - Final domestic qualifier is a new name to me, he did get through stage 1 of Q-School but did little in stage two and had a 0/5 slate of cashing in the first Challenge Tour weekend. The quali numbers show some encouragement, he was above 80 every time and hitting the higher points of that range more than once, so he's got something about him but Clemens is going to be a real tough ask.

Harrysson/van Veen - Andreas is someone we've seen before, but not for a while, and the first Challenge Tour weekend was somewhat underwhelming. With van Veen showing somewhat of a return to form at Minehead it's hard to look past Gian in this one.

van den Bergh/Bunting - Another one of the pretty big draws that we can get, which is spicier than it might otherwise be for obvious reasons. Bunting's basically projecting at 60/40 but there's clear reasons why we might think that this game plays out closer than that in real life.

de Decker/Landman - Final game seems like a fairly obvious call to make, Mike's shown a continually improving game to the point where he's getting in majors, and is projecting a tad over 70% against Landman, who's had some alright results over the past twelve months without really putting up enormous numbers, so it's hard to see how Chris can overturn the odds in this one.

Will post up something in the morning in terms of bets once lines are established.

UK Open roundup

I know there's still the semi finals to go, but I looked this morning and the only thing that looked like it might have been small value was laying Littler - obviously that would have worked, and we can't do that more than once in the tournament. Great runs for Ricky Evans and Martin Lukeman, who both now crash the top 40 in the FRH rankings. I'll get back with full new FRH rankings when we have the tournament done, but for now, Humphries is clearly staying number one, Heta is now in the top 8 and will get past Peter Wright if he wins his semi, and go all the way to fourth if he binks, Dimitri's back in the top twenty, just one place above Littler in 17th, and can gain three places if he nicks the game with Heta. He can't get into the top ten if he binks, he'd still be more than 10k behind Chisnall, but he'll probably be very close in a couple of months regardless of what happens with how FRH ranking degradation happens. Of those lower down who got good money, Keane Barry's back up into the top 50, Mervyn King's close to the top 64, and Benjamin Reus is now up into the top 200 and rising.

In terms of betting, it was generally OK - up just shy of a unit, eliminating the majority of what we lost at the worlds and giving us a bit of a better platform as we come up to the first European Tour next weekend - although as we've previously talked about, the profitability of the European Tour from a betting perspective is going to be way, way down on what it was last season. We do have a few interesting names in there though, so let's hope they're distributed nicely and we'll see how it goes.

Round 5 bets

Going to have to be really quick here, but good job on the DC team on stitching together the Gates/Lukeman data.

Bets are:

0.25u Anderson 8/13, that implies only just over 60% whereas I have him at around two in three, this ordinarily wouldn't be enough but his form is so red hot I can push it up enough to bet

0.1u Woodhouse 5/2, came through a good game yesterday, Smith has some questions about him, Luke's good enough to win this more than 35% of the time so I'll happily go for a flier at 5/2

0.1u Schindler 16/5, probably going to be the case where we autolay Littler for a while, Schindler's projecting well into the high 30% range and has already beaten one very good player this weekend

Not touching:

Usher/van Veen - Usher probably still a bit underrated but back to back upsets seem unlikely and it's only a small edge anyway

Clayton/Smith - Clayton probably tiny value but not enough edge to feel comfortable

Evans/de Decker - Correctly the market has this close with the Belgian being the tiny favourite

Noppert/Lukeman - Feels like close on Noppert, he's not quite 65% but he's a lot nearer there than the 60% 4/6 implies

Cross/Rock - Seems rare that we see a match where we don't pick Rock these days. He's still the value but Cross is in a decent enough vein of form to nullify much of the betting edge on seasonal data

Chisnall/Suljovic - Was really cool to see Mensur get maybe one last huge TV win, but the line seems right and Dave should be good solidly over 70% of the time

Barry/Meikle - This ought to be interesting but I think the assessment that Keane has a moderate edge is correct

Bunting/Doets - Think it's more one in four rather than one in five that Kevin's got here, but we can't touch his price

Heta/Aspinall - Was surprised to see Nathan favoured in the data model, and by more than the market thinks. Not enough more to bet though, should only be 4/6 not 4/5 that sort of thing

Ratajski/King - If anything Krzysztof should be a bit more favoured than the solid favourite he is, but King looked good yesterday so we'll give him credit for that

Wright/Gilding - Really want to take Andrew here. He has course and distance, Wright is slumping, and the price is extremely close. If it drifts any more than 13/8 I think it's a play

van der Voort/van den Bergh - Really don't want to be touching either. If someone's slightly underrated it's probably actually Dimitri, which we've not said in months, that's just how mediocre Vincent is

Reus/Humphries - I mean we should really be putting a unit on Humphries and taking the 10%, but Reus has fucked us over once already this tournament so I'll just say no

Round 4 thoughts

Is going to be a brief one as I'm short of time - this evening pretty much sucked, for one main reason - Jose de Sousa blowing a solid lead and completely ruining our book. Apart from that it wasn't too bad, other than Dart Connect shitting the bed and ruining the Gates/Lukeman game. If PDC TV had an on demand feature I'd watch the game manually myself as it should have been streamed, but PDC TV is still complete garbage, so I guess not. I'll get into things in the morning for round five.

Round 4 bets

Bookies are being unbelievably slow to post lines, so I'm just going to blast through as quickly as I can and may well miss some best prices:

Searle/Usher - Flier on Usher is certainly tempting, but Searle's in such good form that I think the projection in the previous post is very misleading

Payne/Gilding - Looks generally right with Andrew being priced a bit shorter than 1/2. Great to see this on the main stage

Doets/Klose - 0.1u Klose 19/10 Ladbrokes, we like Kevin's game but Daniel we don't think is a significant dog, near 2/1 is a huge price

van Gerwen/Suljovic - MvG being huge odds on is fine, not fancying Suljovic to be able to sustain a challenge

R Smith/Gurney - Line appears just about perfect

Mitchell/Aspinall - Nathan appears acca safe, but there's not the edge to go with a single bet

Meikle/Claydon - Meikle may be too long, but we're only talking a couple of percent and his form has not been great

Reus/de Sousa - 0.5u de Sousa 1/3 365, Reus just isn't in the same league and while the projection may be a bit optimistic, it's very hard to see the Dane getting even one in five or six, let alone more than one in four

Dobey/Mansell - Mickey may be undervalued, but again this is incredibly fractional and not worth chasing

Noppert/Clemens - Noppert is only marginally better and the market correctly identifies this

Lauby/Bunting - The Bunting hype is real and his quality is sadly known now, the prices of 1/6 or there abouts have correctly caught up to his skill level

Williams/Evans - Thought Ricky might have been odds against in this one with Scott's worlds run, he is, but it's only 21/20 as opposed to a bit more where we'd have played with it

Huybrechts/Barry - Tight on paper, tight in the market. Wouldn't have put Keane as the tiny favourite but both are so close to 50/50 there's no edge

M Smith/Cullen - Smith's pedestrian 2023 seems to have caught up in the market. Joe being available at 7/4 isn't bad but the edge is too small to be confident with

Rodriguez/Cross - 0.25u Cross 1/5 Betfair, Rob looked really good yesterday, Rowby definitely doesn't look back yet, we don't have a great edge so only a quarter unit

Whitlock/Heta - Lol these two drawing each other, Heta should perhaps be a little shorter but not by much

Menzies/Anderson - Line seems OK. They've not gone mad with Ando's form, and are recognising Menzies is competent, 2/7 or there abouts seems reasonable

van Barneveld/Woodhouse - Thought Woodhouse might be a bit more undervalued based on just name recognition, but he isn't, 13/10 isn't a losing play but the value is really limited

Price/Schindler - Price being priced (urgh) to win three times out of form looks just about spot on

Clayton/Wolters - Tim's not played badly today, thought this might be priced a bit more in favour of the Ferret, 9/2 isn't really what I was looking for

Wade/Littler - Littler hype is real, if money piles in perhaps look for a small flier on Wade, who IIRC has beaten Littler already this year albeit in a shorter format, 3/1 isn't really getting me excited but if it goes beyond 7/2 then I wouldn't hate a dabble

Gates/Lukeman - 0.25u Lukeman 4/5 365, Lendog looked alright today but Martin's looked much better of late and projects a lot more than a 55% chance

Dolan/van den Bergh - Dimi is a touch overvalued, but Dolan's relative form isn't much better, Brendan would be the play but I'd have been wanting more than 6/4 before we fire

van Veen/Hempel - 4/9 on van Veen is getting close to the spot where we'd take the shot, 1/2 is very close, anything better and we go with it

de Decker/Veenstra - Seems similar to the Dolan game, Richard is not as much of a dog as the market thinks but being valued at 40% when I've got him at 45% is not quite enough

van Duijvenbode/Humphries - Think we can discard the projections given Dirk's injuries, it looks like he's better but I'd want to see something like a narrow loss in a game like this before I can write the issue off as a non-factor

Kenny/Chisnall - Chizzy's much better here. Most books have this priced correctly, Hills appear to have it at a spot where I don't hate a play on Dave

Ratajski/Gawlas - Krzysztof at 1/3 is acca safe, but he's not enough better than 75/25 to consider

Richardson/Wright - Market seems to have caught up with Peter. Thought we'd have an easy play on Joshua, but we don't

Rock/Geeraets - Another "acca safe, but no single" on the short odds player. Patrick looks alright so I wouldn't be wanting to overly push here anyway

King/Pietreczko - Form here? King projects a fair bit better than the odds we can get, I'll go with a small 0.1u King 11/5 on 365, I'm not loving it but the numbers seem to suggest we should go with it  and King's numbers were enough for me today

van der Voort/Krcmar - Would have taken the 8/13 that was showing on 365 for Krcmar, but they've adjusted to closer to what is right just now. Probably still tiny value on Boris

Round 4 instant projections

These are based off of 12 months worth of data, clearly some games (mainly those involving new tour card holders) are going to have sample size issues, but this is raw data and I'll go to bets once lines start coming through.

Searle/Usher 69/31

Payne/Gilding 31/69

Doets/Klose 44/56

van Gerwen/Suljovic 77/23

R Smith/Gurney 60/40

Mitchell/Aspinall 13/87

Meikle/Claydon 59/41

Reus/de Sousa 4/96

Dobey/Mansell 74/26

Noppert/Clemens 54/46

Lauby/Bunting 16/84

Williams/Evans 44/56

Huybrechts/Barry 52/48

M Smith/Cullen 60/40

Rodriguez/Cross 12/88

Whitlock/Heta 24/76

Menzies/Anderson 28/72

van Barneveld/Woodhouse 52/48

Price/Schindler 72/28

Clayton/Wolters 77/23

Wade/Littler 30/70

Gates/Lukeman 26/74

Dolan/van den Bergh 45/55

van Veen/Hempel 75/25

de Decker/Veenstra 55/45

van Duijvenbode/Humphries 37/63

Kenny/Chisnall 17/83

Ratajski/Gawlas 78/22

Richardson/Wright 28/72

Rock/Geeraets 90/10

King/Pietreczko 44/56

van der Voort/Krcmar 27/73