a) a player hit god mode level darts against them (Michael Smith, Nijman twice)
b) a player fail to turn up or miss a bunch of doubles (Jim Williams, Gary Anderson, Christian Kist after the nine)
c) some combination of the above
Isn't the worst position. I'm playing a lot more aggressively with a lot more maths behind the sizings of bets, and it was working pretty well until absolute shockers with Smith, Ando and Nijman all losing. They just do their job and the bankroll would have increased by 40-50% in just two rounds. Did get some nice profits, Merkx over Burton was by far the best, but the wins by Gotthardt, Hurrell and Pietreczko (last night) all gave a nice steady profit, along with steady smaller improvements, either by hitting odds against fliers (White, Gilding, heck Meikle the second time gave me some value, make it 2-0 as he should and while he probably still loses, it does ask a lot more questions) or odds on players who should have been more odds on (Tricole, Plaisier, Wattimena the first time, Price, Searle, Ratajski, Rock). But enough about what I've done, here's some thoughts that might influence what you do:
Weird spot for Humphries to be in. Tricole offered nothing, and it's hard to see Kenny putting up much resistance, but then it's a hell of a big jump up in form to Jermaine in round four (assuming he beats Wright which I don't think is as foregone a conclusion as the market thinks). Would hate for him to be a tad, if not complacent, maybe not up to full speed on account of not having to be. Because against Jermaine, he will be. Kenny's had a nice cameo but his opponents have disappointed, Plaisier was also a bit disappointing, barely scraping through round one and missing a big chance against Wright, Bellmont could easily have won if he'd got a different draw elsewhere. lolwade as usual.
Bunting was so-so, but will give some credit to Kai who's looked so much better this year. Razma coming through another undisclosed health issue game against Dirk was meh and I don't think he's showing enough, Heta was given a very good game while Woodhouse didn't have the greatest game statistically, but dumping out an in form major champion is not to be overlooked. I think the two seeds should clash and that ought to be a good close one as any 8v9 match up ought to be. Kist just falling apart after hitting the nine darter was so sad to see, Robb doesn't look like he's got any better in the last twelve months, if anything he's got worse and it's hard to see how he can improve his game without taking a big risk to play better players more often. Ilagan looked poor.
This quarter's opened up so nicely for Littler. White I think will be happy enough just to have got through to this round, then while either Joyce or Searle won't be a walkover (particularly Searle who I've got to give the edge to), it's still a game he should be comfortable in and I think he'd have preferred either of those to Noppert. Labanauskas had maybe the best game he's had in a couple of years (although still lost), Sherrock looked alright in places, and incredibly sad that Sosing wasn't able to play, and while I believe he's fine given postings on X, that Sky seemingly haven't said anything to that effect (without going into specifics obviously) is a bit out of order I think..
Fourth eighth is a mess. Cross has gone, van Veen has gone, so maybe we're in a position where Aspinall, if fully healthy (did not look brilliant against Gates, but that could have just been the opponent), can get something going? Gilding was fine but I can't see him living with a peak Aspinall. Neither can Williams or Pietreczko. Kumar finally getting a set was pretty cool, Zong looked about where we've seen him before but is another one where I don't see how he gets better. Springer's game with Williams was good and he's going to be a solid addition to the tour, Menzies was clearly disappointing but in the circumstances we can allow it.
Didn't think Smith would get that far, but I did think he'd get by Doets, but Kevin played very good stuff, apart from that one World Series game, maybe the best he's played for 18 months. Do that again and he can keep it close with Ratajski, who was made to work by a decent Toylo. Dobey and Rock will meet as expected, pretty disappointed that Sedlacek couldn't get through as I think that'd have been a much closer game than Griffin gave Rock. Noa might have been the best player in the first round, at least relative to expectations.
Then we have the only section with all the seeds. Clayton and Gurney can count themselves pretty fortunate, Jonny especially, but Daryl's numbers looked pretty good against a Hempel throwing near his best. Price took care of Barry as easily as we thought he would, while Cullen played his best game in recent memory, before going off on a weird post-match tirade that frankly asked more questions than his darts might have answered. Very disappointing from Wessel, who made it hard work against a much improved Carolissen. Goto showed some flashes, Huybrechts didn't seem too bad, just Keane doing things at the right time. Similar with de Zwaan really.
van Gerwen's had all his Christmasses come at the same time. For both Smith and Ando to go out, against players who were playing fine, if not better than expected, but certainly not at levels where you would expect the seeds to lose if they showed up, is a huge, huge fillip and I can't see Dolan being able to pressure. That said, we said that about Dolan twelve months ago more than once. Jim missing all those darts for the match (and for the first set let's not forget) was disappointing, Sweeting showed some game and was certainly a lot better than anticipated, and if he'd gone 2-0 up, who knows. Jim Long disappointed, Landman if anything was more disappointing.
Fuck knows where this Ricky Evans game has come from. Only just scraping over the line against Mathers, Chizzy should have walked it, but lost, that comical miscount clearly didn't help, but that's one he will want to have back. Owen's doing a good job but may have jumped the gun with the "save my tour card bitches", as he very much has not. He's only got one right now if we're working on the assumption Beaton resigns his card, and if he loses and de Graaf wins, he's called it too early. Zonneveld and Clemens weren't awful to be fair. Willie could maybe have done more but Dylan played just about the better game, Grbavac looked comfortable on the stage but the average was clearly assisted by Callan Rydz finding his best game from nowhere, which fell off a bit against Schindler, but it was still enough, and at these sorts of levels there's no reason he can't get through to MvG.
Check back over the next couple of days for round three posts. I'll aim to get the first day of round three thoughts out tomorrow, but no guarantees.
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