The luck of the draw

So, we come into the last two Pro Tour events. Everyone is scrambling for Minehead and, ultimately, the worlds. But here's the thing - you show up at a leisure centre in one of the less salubrious parts of the world, and you want to play darts. You're a random card holder. You could get Callum Goffin. You could get Luke Humphries. You just don't know. Over the course of the year, how much does the draw matter?

Well let's try to put some numbers to the bullshit. I've taken every single first round match on the Pro Tour so far, taken everybody in my database's scoring for the whole calendar year, looked at their first round opponent, merged one on to the other, and got an average. Who's had the easiest draws? Who's had the most difficult draws? I'll tell you.

Now obviously, players who are seeded will be weighted towards the "easy" end. That is obvious. You will expect to see big names in the lower part of the list. I only state this as I'm finding that some people are becoming thicker and thicker and can't draw obvious conclusions. So let's go through. Two caveats - for your opposing player's scoring average, which is the metric I'm going to use, I'm using the entirety of the data in my set from the day after the worlds ends. Just for more data. I'm also not going to list players who've played less than a quarter of the events so far, just so someone who's only played one or two events doesn't become a comical outlier. I'm going to list everyone now in ascending order of difficulty. Let's go.

89.2-89.4 - Cullen

89.4-89.6 - Joyce, Humphries

89.6-89.8 - Chisnall, R Smith, Bunting, Littler

89.8-90.0 - Pietreczko, Anderson, Clemens, M Smith, Cross, Searle, Clayton, Rock

90.0-90.2 - Heta, Dolan, van Barneveld, Burnett, Gilding, Goffin, van Veen, Wooshouse, Hughes

90.2-90.4 - Wright, van Gerwen, Hunt, de Decker, Landman, Campbell, Wade, Scutt, Doets, Wattimena, Edhouse, Dobey, Burton, Schindler, Killington, Gurney, Bellmont, Price

90.4-90.6 - Labre, White, Sparidaans, O'Connor, van den Bergh, Meikle, Vandenbogaerde, Lukeman, Henderson, de Sousa, Lennon, Soutar, van Duijvenbode

90.6-90.8 - Razma, Gotthardt, Noppert, Aspinall, Hood, Suljovic, de Zwaan, Hempel

90.8-91.0 - Rydz, Griffin, Menzies, Kenny, S Williams, Rupprecht, Reus, Ratajski, Sedlacek, Pilgrim, Claydon

91.0-91.2 - Szaganski, Hurrell, L Evans, Rodriguez, Bates, Zonneveld, Richardson, Geeraets, Rafferty, Brown, Kuivenhoven, Krcmar

91.2-91.4 - Borland, Beaton, Veenstra, Knops, Dennant, Gawlas, Wolters, Nentjes, Perez, van Trijp, Atkins, Lukasiak, Roelofs, van Peer, van der Wal, Baetens

91.4-91.6 - Nijman, Wenig, K Huybrechts, Plaisier, R Huybrechts, Crabtree, Usher, Taylor, R Evans, Tricole, Jansen, Monk, King, van der Voort, Grundy

91.6-91.8 - Klose, van Schie, Bennett, Slevin, Turetta, Mansell, Boulton, Krohne, Payne, Beveridge, Hall

And your top fuckees in terms of draws:

91.83 - Jurjen van der Velde

91.85 - Robert Owen

91.86 - Jeffrey de Graaf

91.88 - Lee Cocks, Simon Whitlock

91.91 - Adam Warner

91.95 - Martijn Dragt

92.05 - Jules van Dongen, Danny Lauby

92.18 - Christian Kist

92.19 - Jim Williams

92.24 - Rene Eidams

92.39 - Keane Barry

92.45 - Haupai Puha

92.57 - Aden Kirk

For the record, Kirk's 12 events saw him face Aspinall, Hall, Rock (twice), Heta, Kuivenhoven, Menzies, Wattimena, Burnett, King, Owen and Lennon. I've seen easier runs. Of those that have played basically every event, the worst in terms of draws has been Keane Barry, who's run into the following:

Dobey, Rock, Littler, Hall, van den Bergh, R Smith, Littler (again), Gurney, Dolan, Lennon, Sedlacek, Bunting, Crabtree, O'Connor, Bunting (again), Turetta, Goffin, Gotthardt, van Veen, Clayton, Roelofs, Cross, Menzies, King, Kenny, Beaton, Szaganski and Cocks. Brutal.

2024 Second/Third Division Darts results/tables page

Division 2:

Dave Chisnall 13.36

Gary Anderson 10.35

Danny Noppert 9.51

Damon Heta 9.43

Jonny Clayton 9.27

Joe Cullen 9.19

Ross Smith 9.02

Stephen Bunting 7.51

Chris Dobey 6.62

Kevin Doets 5.75

Division 3:

Callan Rydz 11.58

Dimitri van den Bergh 9.73

Martin Schindler 9.69

Rowby John Rodriguez 9.50

Berry van Peer 9.48

Josh Rock 9.41

Ricardo Pietreczko 9.08

Gian van Veen 7.96

Dylan Slevin 7.33

Keane Barry 6.23

PC1: No games

PC2: Kevin Doets 6-3 Ross Smith (2), Josh Rock 6-3 Keane Barry (3), Berry van Peer 6-5 Ricardo Pietreczko (3), Gian van Veen 6-3 Berry van Peer (3)

PC3: Callan Rydz 6-4 Josh Rock (3)

PC4: Damon Heta 8-4 Chris Dobey (2), Ricardo Pietreczko 6-2 Dylan Slevin (3), Berry van Peer 6-4 Josh Rock (3)

PC5: Stephen Bunting 6-0 Kevin Doets (2), Stephen Bunting 6-2 Danny Noppert (2), Stephen Bunting 7-5 Ross Smith (2), Ross Smith 6-3 Chris Dobey (2), Dimitri van den Bergh 6-4 Keane Barry (3), Ricardo Pietreczko 6-3 Dylan Slevin (3), Berry van Peer 6-5 Josh Rock (3)

PC6: Berry van Peer 6-2 Gian van Veen (3)

PC7: Ross Smith 6-5 Stephen Bunting (2), Chris Dobey 7-3 Ross Smith (2)

PC8: Chris Dobey 6-5 Stephen Bunting (2), Kevin Doets 6-5 Damon Heta (2), Danny Noppert 6-3 Kevin Doets (2), Gian van Veen 6-3 Josh Rock (3), Martin Schindler 6-2 Callan Rydz (3)

PC9: Kevin Doets 6-5 Gary Anderson (2)

PC10: No games

PC11: No games

PC12: Josh Rock 6-0 Dylan Slevin (3), Dimitri van den Bergh 6-3 Martin Schindler (3)

PC13: Ross Smith 6-4 Jonny Clayton (2), Ross Smith 6-5 Kevin Doets (2)

PC14: No games

PC15: Callan Rydz 6-5 Dimitri van den Bergh (3), Dylan Slevin 6-3 Martin Schindler (3)

PC16: No games

PC17: Joe Cullen 6-1 Gary Anderson (2)

PC18: Damon Heta 6-1 Danny Noppert (2)

PC19: Gian van Veen 6-4 Keane Barry (3)

PC20: Stephen Bunting 6-3 Chris Dobey (2)

PC21: Dave Chisnall 6-2 Stephen Bunting (2), Dave Chisnall 6-1 Jonny Clayton (2), Damon Heta 6-2 Kevin Doets (2)

PC22: Gary Anderson 6-3 Jonny Clayton (2), Berry van Peer 6-5 Dimitri van den Bergh (3)

PC23: Jonny Clayton 6-2 Gary Anderson (2), Dave Chisnall 8-4 Chris Dobey (2), Chris Dobey 6-5 Jonny Clayton (2)

PC24: Stephen Bunting 6-3 Danny Noppert (2), Dimitri van den Bergh 6-4 Rowby John Rodrigurz (3)

PC25: Gary Anderson 6-2 Joe Cullen (2), Chris Dobey 8-3 Stephen Bunting (2)

PC26: Danny Noppert 6-5 Damon Heta (2), Ricardo Pietreczko 6-3 Berry van Peer (3), Rowby John Rodriguez 6-0 Ricardo Pietreczko (3)

PC27: No games

PC28: Jonny Clayton 6-5 Dave Chisnall (2)

PC29: Stephen Bunting 6-5 Damon Heta (2), Ross Smith 6-1 Kevin Doets (2), Callan Rydz 6-4 Keane Barry (3), Ricardo Pietreczko 6-4 Gian van Veen (3)

PC30: No games

ET1: Danny Noppert 6-5 Chris Dobey (2)

ET2: Joe Cullen 6-3 Jonny Clayton (2)

ET3: No games

ET4: Gary Anderson 8-6 Ross Smith (2), Jonny Clayton 6-5 Chris Dobey (2), Ross Smith 6-5 Damon Heta (2), Martin Schindler 6-2 Gian van Veen (3)

ET5: Joe Cullen 7-5 Stephen Bunting (2), Joe Cullen 6-3 Dave Chisnall (2), Jonny Clayton 6-1 Chris Dobey (2), Martin Schindler 6-0 Ricardo Pietreczko (3), Josh Rock 6-5 Dimitri van den Bergh (3)

ET6: No games

ET7: Jonny Clayton 6-3 Dave Chisnall (2), Josh Rock 7-3 Martin Schindler (3), Martin Schindler 6-4 Dimitri van den Bergh (3)

ET8: Damon Heta 6-5 Stephen Bunting (2), Dave Chisnall 6-4 Kevin Doets (2), Dave Chisnall 7-1 Damon Heta (2), Dave Chisnall 8-6 Ross Smith (2), Damon Heta 6-5 Chris Dobey (2), Josh Rock 6-3 Dimitri van den Bergh (3)

ET9: Dave Chisnall 6-0 Joe Cullen (2)

ET10: Dave Chisnall 7-5 Chris Dobey (2), Chris Dobey 6-2 Kevin Doets (2)

ET11: Ross Smith 6-5 Stephen Bunting (2), Dave Chisnall 6-1 Jonny Clayton (2), Gian van Veen 6-4 Keane Barry (3)

ET12: Martin Schindler 7-2 Josh Rock (3), Callan Rydz 6-4 Gian van Veen (3)

ET13: Jonny Clayton 6-3 Stephen Bunting (2)

UK Open: Gary Anderson 10-5 Chris Dobey (2), Stephen Bunting 10-9 Kevin Doets (2), Jonny Clayton 10-8 Ross Smith (2)

Matchplay: Dimitri van den Bergh 10-6 Martin Schindler (3)

Grand Prix: Jonny Clayton 9-7 Ross Smith (2), Joe Cullen 7-4 Chris Dobey (2)

Euros: Gary Anderson 6-3 Stephen Bunting (2), Jonny Clayton 6-4 Chris Dobey (2), Danny Noppert 6-2 Joe Cullen (2)

Grand Slam: Gary Anderson 10-6 Stephen Bunting (2), Ross Smith 5-2 Dave Chisnall (2), Dimitri van den Bergh 5-1 Keane Barry (3), Gian van Veen 5-2 Josh Rock (3)

PC Finals: Dave Chisnall 6-1 Joe Cullen (2)

Worlds: Ricardo Pietreczko 10-4 Gian van Veen (3), Callan Rydz 9-3 Martin Schindler (3), Dimitri van den Bergh 9-6 Dylan Slevin (3), Callan Rydz 12-4 Dimitri van den Bergh (3), Chris Dobey 17-12 Kevin Doets (2)

Euro aftermath

Well, that was some turn up for the books. Maybe if we were a bit more bold on tipping Jermaine, but oh well, with Ando losing in the quarters we'll call it a wash. Not a bad tournament and congrats to Ritchie for the huge bink. New FRH rankings:

1 Luke Humphries

2 Michael van Gerwen

3 Rob Cross

4 Dave Chisnall

5 Luke Littler

6 Michael Smith

7 Stephen Bunting

8 Damon Heta

9 Jonny Clayton

10 James Wade (UP 1)

11 Chris Dobey (DOWN 1)

12 Danny Noppert (UP 8)

13 Gerwyn Price (DOWN 1)

14 Ryan Searle (UP 1)

15 Dimitri van den Bergh (DOWN 2)

16 Peter Wright (DOWN 2)

17 Ross Smith (DOWN 1)

18 Mike de Decker

19 Josh Rock (DOWN 2)

20 Gary Anderson (NEW)

Schindler drops out but is within 10k, so plenty of opportunity to claw his way back in. Ritchie jumps up to #23, but has over 20k to gain before he'd be in the top 20. Jermaine is up to 25th, while Woodhouse creeps into the top 30.

I suppose the big news is the "return" of the World Masters. This is a very weird one. For one, the tournament concept sounds awesome. But didn't we have a World Masters literally a couple of weeks ago? Do they announce Wesley Plaisier as the defending champion? What does the WDF have to say about it, given it is surely their IP? It's a good announcement, but it asks more questions that it answers. God knows what is going on. We'll see in the coming days I guess.

Final couple of Pro Tours this week. It's a huge week for so many players on the boundaries of qualifying, I guess the biggest name is de Sousa, I think others will look at the run in in more detail, if I can do something tomorrow I will do, but don't count on it.

Euro quarters

Looking awfully like it'll be a Humphries/Anderson final, which'd be fine, but can anyone upset the apple cart?

Dirk/Luke - Woodhouse appears to have a bit more than the market suggests. Dirk shouldn't be anywhere near the 8/15 he is in most places, as I'm getting Luke at just a shade over 40% winning chances. That said, we can't actually get better than 6/4 on Luke, so meh.

Ritchie/Gary - Ando's generally 2/7, but this could easily be a lot shorter - the projections I have are 1/5 as a fair line. Do I want to push a big odds on number? I probably should, but I won't.

Luke/Jermaine - Wattimena is really, really good. Not Luke good, obviously, but I'm projecting a one in three shot. The exchanges are offering 5/1. I'm not going to officially recommend a play, but it seems like a fun flier to be going on with.

Ricardo/Danny - Feels pretty close to a Noppert play. I'm looking at 70/30, market is putting Danny at as long as 8/13 (at least on 365). I'm not sure I would want to bet much shorter than that, and I don't think it's unreasonable to think Pietreczko is a bit better than projections based on long data, but this just looks like standard undervaluing of Noppert as always.

Probably not back before the semis.

Euros round two

Not a huge amount to say here. Maybe Dirk is fractionally longer than he should be. Searle line looks fine. Edhouse may be extremely marginally undervalued but perhaps our model is undervaluing Smith in general. We'll keep doing the obvious with 0.25u Anderson 11/10, obviously MvG is good but Gary is better to a 60/40 sort of level so we take odds against easily. Similarly here, 0.25u Noppert 13/10, yes Mike is in very good form but it is not "Danny should be a not insignificant underdog" form. I've got him a couple of points below Ando but the price compensates. Wattimena is close to a play, if he's a dog it's by a fraction of a percent, so 6/5 is getting close. Clayton is kind of similar in that it's close, but not quite the edge. Finally Pietreczko looks right. He's better, but only fractionally.

Part two

Noppert/Cullen - Coming in as the number 11 seed seems just about right for Danny, an underappreciated player who statistically is just on the fringes of what, if done purely on scoring, would be a Premier League place, not reaching a final but having a fine early season run of five quarter finals or better in six events, probably getting about as high as you can without getting at least one lot of final money. Joe's had a love/hate relationship with Europe this season, but one early final run was enough to see him here comfortably despite up and down form all season where he's had more than his fair share of first round defeats. The market's saying Danny at just over two in three wins, and I also see it that way, with the former Lakeside finalist projecting just under 70%.

Dobey/Clayton - It's perhaps a surprise with his level of play, which is up with the world's elite just on a numbers basis, that Dobey is still yet to win one of these (indeed, he still only has one final and that was five years ago), but two semi finals this year and a decent number of final day appearances see Chris creep into the top half of the leaderboard. Jonny's picked up his game after a rough start to the year, turning things round roughly when he reached his one final at the Euro Tour level, but beyond that his successes here have been somewhat limited. Chris is actually only projecting at around the 60/40 mark, which seems surprising, I would have guessed this'd be a 2-1 sort of game. If anything the market has things even closer, but not enough to give the edge that I would want to go with a Dobey bet.

Cross/Wade - Rob picked up his second Euro Tour title this season with a notable final win over Luke Humphries, after being the one player who until last season seemed the most surprising without a Euro Tour win on the whole circuit, being unfortunate not to add a second in a spicy final which saw Littler claim his first win. James I think is probably in the best place he's been for several years, but has had an extremely quiet season at Euro Tour level, only actually making the final day once all year, relying on showing up and claiming first or second round money and doing so frequently, playing all the events seeing him qualify with some room to spare. Wade's actually doing enough that, while I see him as an underdog, it's only around 55/45, but as Rob's priced at 4/5 it's another clear no bet proposition.

Pietreczko/Heta - Ricardo's had a rough as hell year with bad form, injuries (one causing the other?) and what not, but his bink at the end of last season giving him generally the cash to be seeded all year, he got enough wins to make the top half of the table, aided by a surprise final where he ran Dave Chisnall fairly close. Heta is another player on the fringes of the top ten, but in terms of European results he's not really looked likely to add to his one title (also in the last event of the season, albeit two years ago compared to Ricardo's one) with just the three final session showings. The German's picked his game up a bit but is still only around a one in three shot, Damon's actually priced a tad shorter than 4/9, which is fair enough and everything is within margins of error, so continuing to keep money in pocket.

Wright/Wattimena - Peter has been much improved over the latter stages of the season, where he was able to get one of the more surprising Euro Tour binks over Littler to see him creep into the top ten, he didn't add a great deal of significance after that, but it was enough. Jermaine is having an outstanding year, playing probably as well as he has done since he was on the fringes of the top sixteen, if not ever, reaching two early quarter finals as well as the last one, and year long he's outscoring a lot of well known players - including Wright, who he projects to beat 60% of the time. The sample I'm using is now recent enough that a good percentage of it is from when Peter's been playing better, but maybe that projection is a bit of an overestimate on Jermaine. It won't alter my decision to bet, but it will temper the sizing, 0.1u Wattimena 11/10

Littler/Gilding - What's not been written about Luke these past twelve months isn't really worth writing, all you need to know is two binks, including in his debut, seeing him comfortably qualify as the third seed. That means Andrew only just made it, and again it's a case of just showing up, losing half the time, losing to the seed most of the other time, but just abusing the new quali system to get the money needed. This might be the most one sided game of the first round, although Luke still only projects to win three times out of four. The market loves him even more than that, but going 4/1 on Gilding just seems so wrong.

Humphries/Aspinall - The world number one added another two Euro Tour titles this year, dropping just the one leg in each final, against Huybrechts this last weekend that'd be a not unreasonable call, against van Gerwen early in the year, maybe a bit more so. Another final was added in between and he's the top seed in this half of the draw. Nathan just about got home to be here, having a chunk of events where he didn't play for well publicised reasons, and only the one run to the business session, qualification was still somewhat in doubt in Prague and he will have been delighted to get a domestic qualifier to seal the deal. This isn't necessarily the kindest draw for Luke, but he's so good that he projects in the 60% to 65% region - probably lean higher due to consistency, but that does ask the question whether we should bet on Nathan if we think he's fully healthy. If he's 100%, then an available 12/5 would be well worth a look, but that's still a bit of an unknown, so I won't go with it.

Rock/de Decker - Josh finally got the breakthrough at this level, avenging a prior loss to Clayton in the final in the Netherlands, and while he's done alright outside of that, you do wonder if there wasn't some money left on the table. Mike's the hottest name in the sport right now having got a major title seemingly from nowhere, but has merely an alright record this season on the Euro Tour with just a couple of quarters to his name - one last weekend of course. This for me projects as close to even as you can have it - I've got Josh fractionally ahead, but form/confidence intangibles makes me want to call it a pure 50/50 shot. Mike is actually priced as the favourite, but it's short odds on and we can't get better than 11/10 on Rock, and more than one tick in the right direction would be needed there.

Be back Friday evening for round two.

Dortmund round one

I will probably post this up as two posts, one for each day, simply with the early (UK) start tomorrow I don't want to get half way through Friday's games and then need to post, so I'll get the Thursday slate done now and the others later.

van Veen/Edhouse - It's been a decent season for Gian in this, with a final appearance that was very nearly a first win, and outside of that he had more ranking money than Edhouse did, although that was clearly assisted by being amongst the seeds a fair bit and having a strong record of making the final day in the second half of the season. Ritchie's been in the last eleven events, but did most of his good work in the early stages of the season, and hasn't been to the final day in some time. So contrasting fortunes, but Ritchie's still been doing enough that he's only a 40/60 dog, Gian not being quite as explosive as he was when he was first making big names, but from a betting standpoint Ritchie is best priced at 6/4, so we're not interested.

Price/Gurney - Should be the closest on paper as the 16 and 17 seeds face off, but whether it plays out like that is another question. Gerwyn did pretty much enough to get here within the first three events, making two semis and a final, which is kind of important as the last five times he's played he's been done at the first hurdle. Daryl on the other hand has come from behind in the race, getting a semi and two quarters in the last five events to rise in the rankings, after a run where final day appearances were a bit sparse. Price is playing a fair bit better, and projects 70/30, which seems a tad high as I don't think Gurney's been doing that badly this season at all, and the market has things a bit closer at 1/2 for Price - which might be tiny value I guess.

Smith/Woodhouse - Ross is under some pressure here as he is defending title money, but the season has been what you'd expect from someone playing as well as he has been, getting to two finals and coming up just the odd break off in each of them. Luke finished a fair bit further down the rankings but still made it here comfortably, but has mostly been grinding it out and running into bad seeds, only making it out to the final day twice - although on each occasion there he did push through to the quarter finals. Ross is playing better stuff and projects for me to win around two out of three events between the two, and the market's got him at exactly the same line as Price is, i.e. a no interest whatsoever 1/2.

Bunting/Anderson - Absolutely explosive first round match. Stephen is a clear top ten player right now, and it is somewhat of a surprise he has not made a final this season, but five final session appearances were enough to get comfortably into the top half of the seeds. Gary on the other hand might be the best player statistically in the world, and while he was threatening to play a lot more of this circuit, after a bink in event four he's not needed to, only showing up in the opening event in addition to that. Ando projects as favourite, kind of right in the middle of two in three and 60/40, so I think that the line we have of Ando at 4/5 in places is well worth considering. That Bunting is in a rich vein of form on the Pro Tour is a little bit of a concern, but I think we still take it, 0.25u Anderson 4/5

Searle/van Barneveld - Ryan actually managed to get a top eight seeding, getting very close to a first title at this level where he lost a deciding leg to Schindler, and a remarkable consistency with seven final session appearances this season on top of that. Barney in contrast just has the one, but looked to be doing slightly better in the back half of the season despite never really threatening to go super deep in any of them. Searle's scoring better, but it is not prohibitive and Barney has well over a one in three shot, but Ryan is still pretty much between 60% and 65%, the lines are generally up towards the higher end of that but well within the variance that we can't say it's way too short, certainly with vig we wouldn't be hitting Barney.

van Gerwen/Clemens - Back in the day, MvG would be a lock for 3-4 titles on the tour each season. This year, just the one, with just the one final behind that, although it would be augmented with a couple of semis and four quarters. Clemens only just crept into the field, being one of those fortunate under the new invites, nicking just the one quarter and having a fair share of first round exits, leaving him as a big underdog here, but somehow having just about enough to scrape over 40% in the projections, so maybe he's been playing alright and just under the radar? I think this enough to have a small stab, 0.1u Clemens 23/10, probably all prices north of 2/1 are alright.

Schindler/van Duijvenbode - Martin has been the stand out name this year, getting a first title (of any description) early in the season and adding a second later, with a good record of five further final session showings taking him to the top seed in this event. Dirk was the last man in and kind of hanging on to the spot, with his position being in doubt right until the final of the last event, but he holds on - and numerically, this does appear too close to call. Schindler is edged as favourite in the market, understandable based on results and having a home crowd, but it is nowhere near enough where we can consider the outside shot on DvD.

Chisnall/Smith - Dave's right up at the top of the Pro Tour, and comes in as the top seed in his quarter after binking two out of three in mid season, sandwiching a semi final which, perhaps surprisingly, were his only three events where he would get past the third round. Michael is at the stage where he's starting to defend enormous lumps of money, including at this event, and outside of a semi final in mid season (where he did take somewhat of a break), oddly in one of the ones Chisnall won albeit they were in different halves of the draw, he's not done much of anything hence only being one of the last four players in the field. He's still clearly a good player, but for me he's not better than Dave, who has a minor 55/45 edge, and is weirdly the underdog. 0.25u Chisnall 6/5 looks to be close to a 10% edge, which we'll take.

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.