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.
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