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.
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