Wednesday, 29 January 2025

World Masters thoughts for day 1

Will try to be brief for round 1, and will just comment on the Thursday games for now. I should note that I don't have this new format coded precisely, but at it's going to go a minimum of six legs (so a best of 11) but a maximum of fifteen legs (so a best of 15), I'm going to split the difference and use a best of 13 as the projection point. It's a short race, that's the important thing.

Rock/Wattimena - Jermaine looked pretty good today, didn't break the ton but didn't drop below 95 either. Which is annoying, as Rock is showing generally better stats throughout, looking at just under a 60/40 sort of split albeit with a bit less consistency. It's only slightly trending towards Jermaine on form, even on the shortest thing it's still only a couple of percentage points below the minimum. I think that's enough to go with Josh, but as it doesn't feel right, I'll just trim the bet sizing down a touch.

Heta/Smith - Two players seeded straight through who had somewhat of a disappointing worlds, looking at the numbers it's generally in favour of Heta throughout, but it spikes hugely towards the more recent data, without which I think it's probably a no play, but with it, I think we can go with a small stab.

Cross/O'Connor - Willie didn't look brilliant today but did what he needed to do, but Rob's picked up an early World Series win so is probably in decent nick. Rob's projecting better, but it's roughly in the same sort of ballpark as the lines I'm seeing, although Willie does do a fair chunk better in the most form based data set, to the point where I'm wondering whether the tiniest of plays on O'Connor ends up being correct. I think I'm going to pass, but this is no Rob gimmie.

Price/Hempel - Florian looked great in the first game, alright in the second and rank average in the third, but got there, Gerwyn we know is somewhat underrated and is off a good worlds, but this doesn't look that one sided, maybe only about 60/40 at worst and that seems tighter on shorter samples. He's going to need to do better than he did against Clemens, but Florian does look like a spot of small value.

Wright/Doets - Peter's just here on legacy value, Kevin was pretty steady and consistent in the low 90's today, this is a bastard to call. Both had pretty good worlds, and Peter projects as a really big favourite, certainly more than the line suggests. I'm not going to go quite so mad as the new model is suggesting, but Wright looks undervalued for sure.

Humphries/Cullen - We all know how annoying Joe is to rate. If we knew he'd play like he did against Price in the worlds, then maybe we could make an argument that he's playing better than the numbers suggest and there might be small value instead of the line being close to perfect. But we don't, so we can't.

Bunting/Borland - Willie's one of the stories of today, being one of just three players to come through the group stage clusterfuck and get all the way to the end game, but I don't think we'll be touching this one. Maybe the line's ever so slightly Bunting mental, but I can't see Borland being able to handle this big a step up in class. If he plays like he did against Dirk, then maybe he keeps it interesting.

Noppert/Smith - Final game for day one and we're back to players in directly, I think this ends up being a relatively easy play, the market can't split the two but Danny is solidly in the high 50's regardless of sample, so I think we can take effectively even money and push this.

Likely will not be back for the Friday stuff until this time tomorrow, maybe a bit earlier.

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