WDF worlds - what the heck?

So it's a couple of days (I think?) until Lakeside, let's blast through each section of six players and try to work out who'll come through to the quarters. Numbers indicate leg count in (year long) database and scoring from there.

Potrter (96, 79.76) v Schweyen (17, 85.94) or Cassar (24, 84.75), Turner (44, 81.53) v Raman (17, 86.44) or Groeneveld (24, 82.68) - Porter is the one seed how? Obviously there's a stack of Australasian based events that he's been able to win cheaply, although he's clearly not had to play that well to win any of them. Schweyen is one we've seen on the Euro Tour, while Cassar actually has a win over Porter in what limited data we have on him. On the other side, Turner has pretty much all his data from the last worlds and seems to be accumulating minor finishes, while Raman is someone we know and Groeneveld is mainly known for a good World Masters run. There's a few decent shouts but I don't think either seed wins their opener. Let's go Raman who's had the higher peak of anyone here.

Pratnemer (20, 81.12) v Wilkinson (28, 79.98) or Taylor (156, 88.06), Junghans (86, 79.15) v Beeton (59, 83.28) or Kirk (21, 83.03) - Benjamin's a name we know from a PDC worlds where he gave Justin Pipe a good game, but has done his best work of late in events that aren't on Dart Connect, so hard to say where he is at. Wilkinson's been around for a while now and perhaps is unlucky not to be seeded here, while Taylor we have a lot of data on from the CDC circuit. Thomas had an OK run last year and is fairly well known, but didn't even make the Euro Tour event in Switzerland which was a shocker, while Beeton had a good run in Ireland recently and has been seen on the Dev Tour for a while now, while Kirk isn't an unfamiliar name but I know less about him. Another one where I think the seeds could be in trouble, although both I think have better chances than in the first section, but will still go Taylor just based on the raw numbers.

Weening (300, 82.78) v Brooks (25, 71.60) or Matsuda (none), Torbjornsson (18, 83.76) v Barilli (18, 72.33) or McGuirk (77, 87.65) - Brandon has got a lot of information in my database from extensive play on the DPA circuit, and looks to be pretty solid, Brooks meanwhile is the opposite and Matsuda is even less known of late with all his qualifying points coming from 2023, so I'm thinking Weening ought to be somewhat OK. Edwin only has data in my database from the last worlds with, again, the majority of work done in 2023 or in non-DC events, although may benefit from the general progression in the Swedish game of late. Barilli has been around for years but of late has mostly been an accumulator, while McGuirk we know from solid Challenge Tour play (and Pro Tour call ups) and looks like pick of these. McGuirk to advance.

Machin (62, 79.65) v Gillet (35, 75.44) or Smith (none), Prior (19, 80.68) v Walters (7, 69.52) or Brown (none) - Peter's been around for a bit, probably best known for a bink of the old World Trophy which got him in the Slam, but we've not heard a huge amount since and again is probably seeded just based on location. Mike's also been around for a bit but I can't recall the last time he did much of note, while Ky is a previous PDC worlds competitor but has dropped off the radar again. Cliff got a good win at the Welsh Classic but I don't really know too much about him, Scott is a name I'm aware of but drawing blanks, while Craig I've never even heard of. Tough to call who'll take this section as there's no real standout name, Peter probably has the most big stage experience but Prior I think might be playing the best right now, although there's not much in it.

van Schie (300, 90.31) v Kovacs (40, 80.78) or Lejon (none), Hogarth (21, 85.36) v Edgar (19, 83.39) or Bottenberg (95, 83.34) - Jimmy's the favourite and for good reason, unfortunate not to be at Ally Pally, a top 10 Challenge Tour finish, him picking up a card in January seems more likely than not. Patrik has been round for some time, we've seen him in Euro Tours and World Cups and seems competent, while Lejon is a complete unknown, although at least he's looking like he's been doing his best work this year rather than last, albeit in non-tablet events. Ryan has been around for come time as well, has a Dutch Open final on his resume although this year feels moderately quiet. We all know Matt and what he's done, while Jarno of course does have the Dutch Open bink and a few lines of data from PDC secondary tours, but not much else on the WDF circuit. van Schie seems like the easiest pick to move on to date.

Leung (25, 79.32) v Blom (49, 82.73) or Lim (73, 82.21), Stone (53, 87.27) v Nilsson (113, 83.34) or Jones (34, 78.05) - Kai is a former card holder and Ally Pally participant who we know fairly well, but another one whose best counting result was in 2023. Blom is moderately experienced at this stage but still young enough to have played Dev Tour this year, and did get a win on the Euro Tour. Paul is Paul, obviously. Gary might be playing the best in terms of numbers in his life, maybe better than when he was in the PDC, but has never really done a great amount at this level. Dennis has decent course and distance with a semi final last year (and is the only semi finalist to return, with the rest getting onto the PDC circuit) and will always be a threat, while Howard is the one I clearly know least about, getting the majority of his ranking points from one event last February. This one seems wide open, Gary may be putting up the best numbers but I don't buy him being able to get through and will gamble on Blom to make a big step up, although Nilsson repeating a run from last year wouldn't be ridiculous.

Duff (74, 84.62) v Johnson (46, 78.16) or Colley (120, 86.87), Copeland (31, 83.79) v Turner (17, 72.12) or Springer (91, 85.39) - Looks a fairly strong section. Neil's obviously got a previous bink, but it kind of feels like his 2024 is not as strong as previous years have been. Darren has all the experience in the world and can probably still bang if needed but his best days are probably behind him, while Reece is still developing and with his recent World Open win, he might have taken the step he might have been waiting for at senior level. I can't work out why Barry is seeded, unless he's just had a ton of points drop off he's surely too far down in the rankings but the numbers seem OK, while Aaron feels like a make up the numbers sort of player, with Jeff has some good data from the CDC and doesn't look too bad. I'm going to go with Colley to build on his recent big win and make further progression, although I think a case for anyone outside of Johnson/Turner can be reasonably made.

Maendl-Lawrance (63, 79.74) v Gijbels (12, 76.46) or Luke (6, 62.17), Brandon (41, 87.50) v Kadar (8, 78.67) or Schnier (9, 89.37) - Liam I think is best known from his European Tour adventures, which he's not been able to really repeat this year and similarly most of his best WDF results were from 2023 so has maybe taken a step back. Sybren had a bit of a Dutch Open run but we know limited things about him from that, while Luke is just a name I know but don't really know his name. Jason went alright in the World Masters and is someone we've seen on occasions in the CDC, Laszlo has been here a couple of times but has never really threatened to go very deep in a big event, while Hannes is also pretty experienced having played in a PDC worlds over fifteen years ago now. Hard to call but I'll take Brandon to come through, I think this is the only section where it's just going to come down to the seeds. 

So in terms of outright prices, I've got Raman at 33/1 (just using 365 for consistency), Taylor 14/1, McGuirk 9/1, Prior 50/1, van Schie 7/2, Blom 100/1, Colley 66/1 and Brandon 18/1. Make of that what you will.

PC finals done, now on to the worlds

Didn't envisage too much of value appearing in rounds 3 onwards, so we finish the tournament as the year's gone, on a bit of a damp squib. Big result for Humphries to lay down the final marker, and good to see Dirk and Smith getting deep runs. Final FRH rankings before the worlds:

1 Luke Humphries

2 Luke Littler

3 Michael van Gerwen

4 Rob Cross

5 Dave Chisnall

6 Stephen Bunting

7 Damon Heta

8 James Wade

9 Gary Anderson

10 Michael Smith

11 Jonny Clayton

12 Danny Noppert

13 Ross Smith (UP 4)

14 Mike de Decker

15 Chris Dobey (DOWN 2)

16 Josh Rock (DOWN 1)

17 Dimitri van den Bergh (DOWN 1)

18 Ryan Searle

19 Peter Wright

20 Gerwyn Price

Not a huge amount of movement, likely directly correlated to needing to reach the quarters to do anything of note, that and the top two getting all the cake again. Dirk moved back up into the top 30 at least.

Worlds draw is done. Sky are obviously praying to god that Meikle loses first round, but I can see this being moderately chalky, outside of Nijman getting a fantastic draw. I've done a bunch of chat about it here if you want to go and have a listen, it's not great quality audio I know but I sorted by price when getting a headset. As I think I previously stated, I'm not going to go into quite the level of detail that I've been to in previous years, nor am I going to give outright tips, but I'll start getting things up once I can see the schedule and know where I need to prioritise on the draw (other than Humphries obv). But first, there's another world championship before that, and it's mostly a case of working out who the fuck is in it and why Gary Stone is the second favourite. More on that soon.

PC Finals round 2

Bit of a mixed day. Gilding and Scott got the job done. Clemens and Wright didn't show up (although, in the latter case it wouldn't have mattered, Gabriel however should probably have been 3-0 up), Sedlacek and Woodhouse were in good positions but couldn't bring it home, and the less said about Dom Taylor the better. On to round two, this is going to be very rushed:

0.1u Hempel 7/4 v van Duijvenbode, Dirk's getting better but that's pretty much factored into the sample now and that gives Florian a touch more than a 40% chance, which with the price I think is worth the shot.

0.1u Huybrechts evs v Williams, I've got this a bit more than 55/45 in Kim's favour and he's looking a bit more confident in the last couple of months so evens looks alright.

0.1u Zonneveld 7/4 v Aspinall, exactly the same analysis as Hempel.

0.1u Meikle 7/4 v Schindler, they're not actually that far apart in terms of raw scoring, although Ryan is wildly more inconsistent. After that sort of win though, I don't think it's unfair to say that he's got better than a 40% shot.

PC finals round one

Before I get into things, let me expand on something I alluded to in the previous post - this is going to be the last tournament that I'm going to offer explicit tips for, unless I see any outstanding value in the WDF worlds. There's a few reasons for this - firstly, I feel there are much fewer spots of value, primarily due to the rule changes in what was my bread and butter set of events in the European Tour. While my overall volumes are actually up on last year, oddly seemingly mostly because of the Euro Tour, it does have the general feeling that with so many more games being between known/better players, the chances aren't there. Secondly, I don't really have the time these days to look at all the lines in detail, particularly on days when I need to do it - Thursday nights in particular are especially bad, Saturdays (especially during the football season) are also kind of bad, so I'm always seemingly rushed and maybe not putting enough into things as I should do. Finally, I'm typically betting more on the exchanges, which makes it harder to track what I'm actually doing, oddschecker or the bookie in question is more easily validated, seeing precisely what I got on the exchange which can move second to second is more hearsay. So, while I'll still look at events, and while I'll still be betting personally, I'm not going to say bet this much on this player. I'll just stick to giving my thoughts, and then letting the reader make up their own minds.

That said, let's get into Minehead and the last event before we know how the worlds will be seeded (and, as an aside, with it being rumoured that the worlds will be going to 128 in the near future, let's hope to fuck they don't ruin it by putting all 128 players into round one and giving us a stack of mismatches, eh?), and here's how I'm seeing things. The ranking is just how the players rank in terms of scoring in the dataset (May onwards) I'm using. It's not their seeding, their OOM ranking, their FRH ranking, it is just 1 = highest scoring, 2 = second highest scoring and so on (within the 64 players in the tournament).

So, with that said, here's what I'm going for in terms of bets:

0.1u Gilding 7/10 v Doets

0.1u Woodhouse 6/5 v Edhouse

0.1u Sedlacek 29/20 v Joyce

0.25u Scutt evs v Lukeman

0.1u Wright 7/5 v Gurney

0.1u Clemens 3/1 v Humphries

0.1u Taylor 13/8 v Smith

Was kind of close to a couple of others. Landman probably the closest. Sizings are generally small to account for the shorter races - winning the bull makes a fair difference and would make a fair few of these plays marginal at best.

wannnnnnnnnnnnnnunderdaneiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiighty

Long time readers will know that, with very few exceptions, anything that I advise in terms of betting (please stay tuned for a development on that) is purely match result based. I've done the odd piece on what I try to look for in terms of outright tournament bets (although, as the few bookies that offered some fraction to make the semis are now only offering each way to make the final, that value's probably done) and correct score (wait until you know who's won the bull then don't bet a score that requires your guy to break in the specific final leg). But I've never touched most 180's.

That's mainly because I don't track data that intensively, it's just not a market that I'm interested in - I didn't realise that, until doing some basic research, the general market is actually three way with a "can bet the tie" option, I initially thought that just on brief sightings when I'm scanning through the markets for comedy value that they typical market was two way and that a tie would be regarded as a push. I also think it's too easy a market to manipulate - while anyone that pays the slightest attention knows that, say, Madars Razma goes for T19 a disproportioniate amount of the time, it would be extremely easy for someone who wanted to throw the market to switch at what looks like a perfectly reasonable time for strategic reasons. Start with back to back ton 40's to be on 221 and then start with two trebles on visit three with your opponent in a spot where they can leave a likely checkout? Going down to bull to leave 76/51 and not 81/41 looks extremely reasonable to me, and that's not taking into account of many a time where I see players (notably the Dutch) have a mediocre first visit then go down to 19's for no obvious reason whatsoever.

So what caused me to make this post was when I was looking at the Slam last sixteen around this time last week. I had Edgar's watch along in the background. Now Matt's a pretty knowledgeable guy, and does like his stats. I'm not sure that he's qualified as I am to talk about it, but he's at least done one video where he's done a breakdown in terms of a checkout (I think it may just have been a redo of the Deller 138, but I could be mistaken and it could have been more recent) so I'd say he's probably more comfortable with the numbers than maybe 80-90% of players, and especially pundits just based on that one video. What really surprised me was when he was talking about the Ross Smith against Martin Lukeman game. Now here, he'd produced some stats in terms of how often the two have hit 180's. Everyone that's paying attention knows that Smith is a huge 180 hitter. In terms of Lukeman, I can think of things to describe him - good finisher? Sure. A bit Wadey in terms of taking chances? Yeah, sure, I think I've used that analogy in relation to Smash before. A power scorer, maybe not so much. What Edgar did produce is that Lukeman was hitting a 180 in every 0.18 legs, while Smith was getting it in 0.37 legs - at least on seasonal data. Where he's derived that from, I don't know, but I'll take him at face value. That is twice more likely per leg for Smith. What was disappointing is, and I quote, Edgar saying "there's no value in 180 betting whatsoever" when looking at the prices and it seeing 1/8 on Smith. That might be true, but that's lazy.

To me, my initial thought is probably "he might not be wrong, but being twice as likely to hit a 180 in a leg over a match that is going to run for a minimum of 10 legs, and maybe up to 19, where your chance of hitting a 180 is more than one in three (I mean if you chuck two bad pub players against each other and say first to ten then the 180 race probably ends 0-0 but these players are a tad better than that)? I'm not sure that we can be quite so dismissive and say "lots to one on clearly no value lel". But how do we model this? Now here, unfortunately we do not have the greatest data available - namely because there are instances where a player can hit two 180's in a leg. Clearly, the most obvious situation is where someone gets on a nine, but we've all seen plenty of cases where someone's gone 180-60-180 or hit back to back after a shit first visit. That's fine. What I think we ned to look at is, at least in the pro game, how many visits a player will get where someone can hit a 180.

If we think about this at the most basic level, you can score up to 319 points before you can't score a 180. That's fundamental. Once you're down to 181 required, you're fucked, you're not scoring any more. So at a pro level, you're typically saying you will get at most four visits where you can hit a 180. If you're averaging less than 80 when going for pure scoring, that's not good, sure there will be the odd leg where there is a serious scoring malfunction and you get one or more visits after that, but those are outliers. The point of what I'm saying is that it'll take a lot from the opponent to limit that four to a smaller number - he's either going to have to start on throw and hold in four himself, or hit a nine. I think it's not unreasonable to say your chances of hitting a 180 in a leg are independent of what your opponent is doing. Not ideal, but let's roll with it.

Similarly, to go back to the chances of you hitting two 180's? I think that's also moderately infrequent. You can only score 320 points before you can't hit a 180. If you know you are going to hit a 180, that only leaves 140 points to play with - score that or more, and you're done. Open 140? You're fucked. This isn't something we can go into with any sort of Poisson distribution analysis, as the probabilties will change once we've hit one. Hitting a second 180 in a leg is a lot, lot harder once you've hit a first one, if you're even able to hit a second at all. As such, I think it's also not unreasonable to just model on pure 180s/leg stats and ignore the possibility of hitting two in a leg - again, not ideal, but if we factor in times where we'll hit two and the other guy will hit one (or two for that matter) back, it gets drawn back a tad. We just need to be aware that whoever's projecting to hit more 180's per leg may be slightly underestimated in terms of how much of a favourite they are.

So let's crunch some numbers. Edgar's saying Smith hits one every 0.37 legs, Lukeman every 0.18 legs. If we're ignoring the small possibilities where someone hits two, we basically have four outcomes:

- both players hit one

- neither player hits one

- one player hits one and the other doesn't (each way)

So in the case of Smith against Lukeman, this says that Ross will gain a 180 point (for want of a better term) 30.3% of the time, and Martin will gain one 11.3% of the time in any given leg. All we need to do is to expand this out across the match.

What does this give us? Well if either player won 10-0, Smith would get the most 180s 77% of the time. Heck, if it went the distance Smith only gets up to 88% of the time, which is break even for the price that Edgar was quoting. Lukeman was only at 11% on a 10 leg match, and down to 6% on a 10-9. As it turned out? We'd have been "don't bet either lel", Lukeman would sneak home 6-5, and Edgar would technically have been right. Thanks for wasting my time Matt!

That was the tournament that was

Crikey, how unpredictable was that? Sure, Littler winning isn't a big shock, but Lukeman into the final, Mansell into the semis, that was a bit nuts. It's done the following to the FRH rankings (I have incorporated first round PC Finals money already but the top 40 is unaffected):

1 Luke Humphries

2 Luke Littler (UP 3)

3 Michael van Gerwen (DOWN 1)

4 Rob Cross (DOWN 1)

5 Dave Chisnall (DOWN 1)

6 Stephen Bunting (UP 1)

7 Damon Heta (UP 1)

8 James Wade (UP 2)

9 Gary Anderson (UP 11)

10 Michael Smith (DOWN 5)

11 Jonny Clayton (DOWN 2)

12 Danny Noppert

13 Chris Dobey (DOWN 2)

14 Mike de Decker (UP 4)

15 Josh Rock (UP 4)

16 Dimitri van den Bergh (DOWN 1)

17 Ross Smith

18 Ryan Searle (DOWN 4)

19 Gerwyn Price (DOWN 6)

20 Peter Wright (DOWN 4)

Following his final, Lukeman is now just on the brink of the top 32, while Mansell has just crept into the top 40. It is weird to see Price and Wright that low, but they've at least got chances to rectify things, and have about a 10k gap to Schindler below them. van Veen and Wattimena solidify top 30 positions, while Menzies climbs a couple of spots up to 38. But obviously the big one is Littler - although he is over 600k behind Humphries, such is the dominance that Luke has had in the past year and a bit.

There's a piece I want to do on 180 betting at some point this week, and I'll need to get thoughts for the PC Finals out as well, so stay tuned. Weird to think that this time next week, we'll have the worlds draw, but we will!

Quarters

Alright,. That tip we had today went how we thought it might have done, but while we believe there's safety in numbers, we at least limited our liabilities. Let's blast through these as I don't have much time:

Menzies/Mansell - Market saying 2-1. It's kind of uncharted territory for both which makes it a bit weird, but I'm seeing Cammy as up above 70%. Not a huge amount. He's got a bit more in the longer numbers than the market suggests, but not enough to bet and we'll give Mickey enough credit here and say avoid the game.

Lukeman/Cross - This projects a tad more one sided, indicating Rob should come through 75% of the time. The market has it a tad tighter, again we'll give credit to Martin for how he's playing, and I'm not going to make an official play, but as has been the case for years, they may be sleeping on just how good Rob is.

Anderson/van Veen - Someone might want to fact check me on this, but I think this must be by far the longest game that Gian's been involved in ever? That might make a difference. Whether Gary can still ping for that long a game is also something that can make a difference. To go from 8-2 to 8-6 like he did today is alright if you only need to get to 10 and can fall over the line, but if you carry on and end up down 11-13 and still need five more legs, then we're talking. I've got close to 80/20. That feels excessive, but 0.25u Anderson 4/6 seems extremely automatic.

Wattimena/Littler - Christ, both these players got away with one tonight. Difference is how they played. Luke - great. Jermaine - not so much, This again looks very strong for one player, obviously Luke, split the difference between 75% and 80%. Market is saying 1/5 - that's excessive, but not unsurprising, and I don't think there is enough value the other way to stab at Wattimena in this one.

Will not be back for the semis as I am away this weekend. 

More last sixteen

So one up one down yesterday, what about today? First up, it seems like the Wattimena value train has well and truly left the station, being solidly odds on against van den Bergh at 4/6. Frankly I think this could be even shorter, most places do see it that way, while I've got him right in the middle of 60% and 65%. Nothing in the group stage makes me think Dimitri is outplaying overall form, if anything the differential between the play is favouring Jermaine.

van Veen against Joyce is next, and here they favour Gian more than they favour Jermaine. I'm not sure about that. Not sure at all. Yes, van Veen's numbers have been spectacular, while Ryan's simply haven't been, and if they continue to play like this rather than historic numbers, the Dutchman should have few problems. Issue is that, while Gian is favoured, I'm only seeing it as maybe 5%, with Ryan projecting solidly over 45%. Their stats really aren't all that different at all. Regardless of how phenomenal Gian has played, we can't ignore that, but we will temper the bet sizing - 0.1u Joyce 13/8

Littler then plays in form de Decker. Here I think Mike is undervalued - but not by a great deal. The odds are showing Luke as having a three in four shot, while I've got Mike as a fraction over 30%. Here it's another one where the difference in tournament performance is notable, but at the same time, maybe de Decker is outperforming his longer term stats based on confidence. I won't go with the play, but I think this will be tighter than the market suggests and wouldn't be putting Littler in any accumulators.

Finally we have Ando and Bunting. This is putting two top six players against each other, at least in terms of how I'd rank everyone right now, but Gary looks better, probably better enough that he should only lose one time out of three. This is enough that the lines of around 8/13 are close to being worth considering, neither's really shown a great advantage over the other in the group stages, I've just got a feeling the game plays out slightly tighter than the projection, which is enough to go from ultra marginal into a no bet situation.

I'll try and blast out quarter final numbers tomorrow morning.

Grand Slam

You may have noted that I didn't put anything up in terms of the group stages. That's for a few reasons - one, I didn't have the time. Two, the ultra short races mean there is a fair bit more variance than more or less any televised event, so I think I'd need a bit more edge than normal to cover still hopefully being neutral EV if our pick didn't win the darts. Third, there's too many matches that are not worth looking at, either because they are dead rubbers or feature players we don't have reliable data on, then finally there's also a fair number of games where it's just something like Cross against Wright and we're seeing two very well known players, limiting the upside. So sorry about that, looking through the results I'm thinking it may be for the best, we might have picked up some money on Mansell and Wattimena but then given it back in more places. But we can at least look at the last sixteen. Noppert against Mansell isn't of interest. While Mansell has been solid and this has been a very good tournament for him, Danny is extremely strong and I've got him taking enough that Mickey can't even be rated to win one in four. At 3/1 and with the vig it's a clear no bet. Wade against Menzies I've got as too close to call. That might offer a tiny shred of value on the Ladbrokes price of 6/5 on Menzies, but I can't recommend it - James has an extreme amount of experience and a good track record in these sorts of extended leg play formats, so I think it's fair to give him a bit extra, and even 1% or 2% more drags us out of real betting opportunities. Where we are going though is 365, and 0.25u Smith 4/6 against Lukeman. Martin's looked very good, true, and Ross has not looked his best, but we trust in the deeper numbers which are calling this 70/30 in Ross's favour and not the 60/40 which the line indicates, that's more than enough to fire. Another 70/30 which I'm seeing which the market isn't seeing that way is Cross against Edhouse, yes there is reason to think that Ritchie is playing a fair bit better than historical numbers suggest, if down to confidence and nothing else, but this is a big enough number to go with, 0.25u Cross 8/11 in multiple places.