Monday, 7 October 2024

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.

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