Leverkusen day 2

Yesterday was a big irritant. I think I described it on X as like putting the lunchtime kickoff in an accumulator - I had a small number of minimum plays all in the 2-3 range, which went alright, but then had a max play. On the first game. So we know how the whole day is going to go right from the outset. And when Madars couldn't score, that basically set the tone and the rest didn't matter. Oh well, at least I thought the edge of the play might have been a bit overstated and toned the bet down slightly, but it's still a bad one. We go again today:

Smith/Campbell - 70/30

Searle/Gilding - 60/40

Heta/Mansell - 68/32

Noppert/Edhouse - 71/29

Chisnall/Menzies - 52/48

Anderson/Nijman - 60/40

de Decker/Joyce - 59/41

van Veen/Gurney - 73/27

Dobey/Springer - 55/45

Wade/Wenig - 59/41

Wright/Pilgrim - 76/24

Clayton/Wattimena - 56/44

Smith/Harrysson - 76/24

Aspinall/Brooks - 49/51

Schindler/Pietreczko - 62/38

Bunting/Woodhouse - 62/38

Leverkusen day 1

Draw is up. At a first glance, that looks pretty favourable for Gilding, Woodhouse, Wattimena, Pietreczko, Edhouse and to some extent Michael Smith (who due to withdrawals has been upgraded to a first round bye) in the Matchplay hunt. Cullen, Gurney, Barney, Joyce and Zonneveld could have had easier draws, but the only real bastard draw any of them could have got is probably Springer, so they'll all be happy to miss that one (Dirk got the short straw there). Let's jump straight into round one:

Razma/Pilgrim - 74/26

Edhouse/Krivka - insufficient data

O'Connor/Mansell - 61/39

Zonneveld/Wenig - 60/40

Campbell/Soutar - 52/48

Wattimena/Hermann - insufficient data

Gilding/Knopf - insufficient data

Nijman/Dolan - 68/32

Pietreczko/Bohrmann - insufficient data

Menzies/Huybrechts - 60/40

Joyce/Evans - 56/44

van Barneveld/Harrysson - 68/32

Cullen/Brooks - 52/48

van Duijvenbode/Springer - 57/43

Woodhouse/Horvat - long data only

Gurney/Veenstra - 57/43

We have seen some of the names here before that we don't know. Krivka played ET3 and lost 6-4 to Edhouse so it is a rematch, didn't look awful, did beat Krcmar in the quali but that was back in February now. Hermann is a Dev Tour player, has seemingly a couple of quarters (although the most recent one I think is an error on dartsdatabase), so probably not terrible but clearly an awful draw. Knopf also played ET3 and got swept by Menzies, quali performance was underwhelming, Gilding should have no trouble. Bohrmann is a complete random but did get up into the 90's a couple of times in the quali so while I don't think he should threaten Ricardo, if he can get to 3-3 or so it could get spicy. Horvat is a known player, we just don't have a huge amount once we exclude his 2024 data.

Looks like we've got a few close ones. I'm intrigued to see Brooks project so close to Cullen, there is a minor consistency thing but it is only that as Joe's about as up and down as the database on average as well. Pilgrim being that much of a dog to Razma is maybe a little bit more of a consistency thing, but he's really not had a great twelve months at all, getting through Q-School aside. Ought to be a decent day, Betfair doesn't have all the markets up yet and there's nothing matched on most markets, so will wait to bet until the morning in all likelihood.

Edit - Neglected to actually do the line on the Woodhouse/Horvat data we actually have. 65/35 that one.

Ups and downs

Very weird tournament. Round 1 was not good in the slightest, nicking just the two wins through Edhouse (just) and Springer, whereas round 2 was pretty darned elite, going 6/7 before Rock inexplicably lost to Pietreczko. The upshot was that we made a tiny profit - but at some cost. It seems like we've been betting on Clayton a fair bit (although in actuality it's not been that many), and he's binked so the value is gone, and Niko Springer being good is a fairly open secret but one that the market hadn't fully adjusted to. And he's finalled, so the value has gone. We'll go again in Leverkusen in a couple of days in what is actually the last Euro Tour before the Matchplay cutoff (although we do have a few Pro Tours), so the last chance for someone to make big moves. Before we look at that, some new FRH rankings:

1 Luke Littler

2 Luke Humphries

3 Michael van Gerwen

4 Stephen Bunting

5 Jonny Clayton

6 Chris Dobey

7 James Wade

8 Ross Smith (UP 4)

9 Josh Rock (DOWN 1)

10 Gary Anderson (UP 7)

11 Damon Heta (DOWN 2)

12 Danny Noppert (UP 4)

13 Mike de Decker (DOWN 2)

14 Martin Schindler (UP 1)

15 Dave Chisnall (DOWN 1)

16 Rob Cross (DOWN 6)

17 Gerwyn Price (DOWN 4)

18 Ryan Searle (UP 2)

19 Peter Wright (DOWN 1)

20 Gian van Veen (NEW)

Aspinall's the player to drop out. It's kind of surprising to see Cross dropping that much, but he has been pretty darned quiet this year. Still, it's pretty close all the way up to Wade so plenty of chances to make some moves. Niko's only a few places off the top 64 now.

So with the Matchplay coming up, here's the key spots (picture courtesy of the Weekly Dartscast):

Anyone above Cullen looks safe (Dirk's the next one above and a clear 13 grand ahead of Cullen),  while below Zonneveld, O'Connor's near four grand further back, Doets is another 2k behind Willie, and nobody else is above 50k. While it's not impossible that someone can come from nowhere (heck, Ratajski wasn't really in the running a couple of weeks back), being a whole Pro Tour win behind is a fair bit. Sure, there's five attempts to do it, but you've got to think that everyone else isn't going to stand still. We'll see how ET8 changes things - but for now, here's what these players are doing in terms of points per turn in 2025:

Ratajski 92.97

Wattimena 92.62

Smith 91.33

Joyce 91.05

Cullen 91.05

Gilding 91.02

Zonneveld 90.73

Woodhouse 90.52

Gurney 89.80

van Barneveld 89.80

Pietreczko 89.56

Lukeman 88.76

Edhouse 88.64

As such, Wattimena excepted, the three players who are scoring the most are those in 16th, 17th and 18th respectively. Those in 9th to 12th are all looking pretty good, so should just keep ticking over. The problems come for the bottom three - Zonneveld isn't playing bad at all and is basically right in the middle of the pack. but being more than 10k behind Joyce is a big ask, and there's four other players he needs to get by as well. Edhouse is rock bottom of the rankings but at least has ET8 to try to get some cash - Lukeman's not in ET8 and isn't much better. Those that need to look over their shoulders are Pietreczko and Barney, but it feels like Ricardo is playing a tad better of late, whereas with RvB you don't really get that same feeling. It should be noted that WD are indicating ET9 counts, whereas the OOM rules on the PDC site indicates the opposite. I'm leaning towards the latter.

Should be back Thursday with thoughts about Leverkusen.

Onto the Netherlands

Ross Smith looked fantastic and Ratajski got the results to back up the darts he's been doing in the Pro Tours since we last spoke, unfortunately the latter isn't here to build on it, but we've got a pretty good set of 48 players, as I'm away down in London for the playoff final this weekend, I'm not going to be able to update any projections on the fly, so will call each round 1/2 permutation, see who's most likely to come through, then run a bracket from there. Numbers will go in seed v PT, seed v qualifier, PT v qualifier order.

Humphries/Menzies/Plaisier - 71-79-61

Smith/Joyce/de Zwaan - 56-71-66 (de Zwaan only with long data)

Price/van Veen/Krcmar - 54-75-71 (Krcmar only with long data)

Chisnall/Edhouse/Huybrechts - 60-61-52

Clayton/Woodhouse/Hopp - 63-83-73

Smith/van Barneveld/Hendriks - 70 (no data on Hendriks)

Heta/Gilding/Sparidaans - 56-81-76

Noppert/Zonneveld/Vandenbogaerde - 61-76-67

van Gerwen/de Decker/Mansell - 61-75-66

Searle/Cullen/Meikle - 64-76-65

Wade/van Duijvenbode/Harju - 29-63-80

Wright/Nijman/van Peer - 47-75-78

Bunting/Wattimena/Springer - 54-53-49

Schindler/Lukeman/Wenig - 62-62-51

Dobey/Gurney/Kuivenhoven - 71-71-50

Rock/Pietreczko/Sedlacek - 75-77-52

Which gives a knockout stage of (with just the two seeds favoured to fall, oddly in the same part of the bracket):

Humphries 64-36 Smith

Price 70-30 Chisnall

Clayton 48-52 Smith

Heta 48-52 Noppert

van Gerwen 55-45 Searle

van Duijvenbode 59-41 Nijman

Bunting 58-42 Schindler

Dobey 46-54 Rock

Humphries 48-52 Price

Smith 53-47 Noppert

van Gerwen 49-51 van Duijvenbode

Bunting 42-58 Rock

Price 58-42 Smith

van Duijvenbode 50-50 Rock

Price 51-49 either of those two. That semi is too close to call.

Won't be back until Tuesday. May tweet some stuff if I see anything interesting.

Some pre-emptive projections

These are given as is, and will obviously not take into account the quarter finals:

Semis:

Lukeman v Wade (43), v van Duijvenbode (22)

Anderson v Wade (75), v van Duijvenbode (55)

Wright v Woodhouse (61), v Smith (55)

Gilding v Woodhouse (56) , v Smith (50)

Final:

Lukeman v Wright (31), Gilding (36), Woodhouse (41), Smith (35)

Anderson v Wright (67), Gilding (71), Woodhouse (77), Smith (71)

Wade v Wright (38), Gilding (43), Woodhouse (49), Smith (42)

van Duijvenbode v Wright (63), Gilding (67), Woodhouse (73), Smith (67)

So, by the looks of things, the winner looks like it is going to come from the top half, and it's likely to be whoever comes through the probable semi final of Ando and DvD. Will Dirk finally get his first Euro Tour? He's probably not going to get a better chance than this. Should also be noted that in all of these stats, Wade's form drops like a stone off a cliff once you get into the three and six month statlines, it's only what's still in the database from October backwards that is keeping the numbers you see quite as "good" as they are.

Sindelfingen last eight

3/3. That went well. Puts us back up to where we were before Friday's evening session and in a nice spot for the tournament. Last eight is now set, here's where I see things:

Lukeman/Anderson - 22/78

Wade/van Duijvenbode - 26/74 (trending towards DvD)

Wright/Gilding - 54/46

Woodhouse/Smith - 44/56

As such, the real value appears to remain on Dirk, although Ando should probably be a bit shorter.

Quick round 3 projections

Yesterday was OK, Dirk and Niels did well for us, Michael Smith dodged a bullet for us, just a shame Joe didn't quite get it done. Very quick this morning:

Lukeman/van Barneveld - 46/54

Cross/Anderson - 41/59

Zonneveld/Wade - 47/53

van Duijvenbode/Schindler - 62/38

Menzies/Wright - 41/59

Gilding/Noppert - 44/56

Woodhouse/R Smith - 32/68

Humphries/M Smith - 67/33

Sindelfingen round 2

Wow, that was looking like it was going to be an extremely strong session for a while there. That afternoon session was close to perfect - yes, Bradley Brooks missed a lot of doubles, but that one was a bit of a flier anyway and only for a small punt as the large bets on van Veen, Scutt and Woodhouse piled in, and Leon Weber got us a good chunk given the price he was at. Then in the afternoon, if anything Searle was worse on doubles, Ratajski wasn't quite as bad but certainly wasn't brilliant and should clearly have been at worst 5-4 up rather than losing 6-3, Rydz dropping the game is neither here nor there as again that was just a small punt, upshot is we're right back where we started. Oh well. Frustrating, but it is what it is. On to Saturday, let's see what we have.

Danny Noppert v Wessel Nijman - 48/52

Damon Heta v Martin Lukeman - 68/32

Michael Smith v Daniel Klose - 75/25 (again long data only on Klose)

Gary Anderson v Gian van Veen - 54/46 (shorter data favours GvV a tad more)

Chris Dobey v Luke Woodhouse - 68/32

Nathan Aspinall v Niels Zonneveld - 53/47

Rob Cross v Mike De Decker - 56/44

Dave Chisnall v Ross Smith - 33/67 (newer data HATES Chisnall)

James Wade v Joe Cullen 48/52 (shorter data likes Cullen a lot more)

Jonny Clayton v Andrew Gilding - 59/41

Gerwyn Price v Raymond van Barneveld - 77/23

Peter Wright v Leon Weber - 72/28

Michael van Gerwen v Dirk van Duijvenbode - 50/50

Luke Humphries v Connor Scutt - 56/44

Josh Rock v Martin Schindler - 63/37

Stephen Bunting v Cameron Menzies - 62/38 (recent data favours Bunting a bit more)

I've listed where there's more than marginal changes in the sample size, as I know some people may favour form a lot more than larger samples. Form is baked into these numbers somewhat - these take an average of the numbers from current month plus last three months, plus last six months, then a twelve month sample - so a great leg thrown yesterday will effectively count three times, whereas something thrown last September only counts once. I think I have listed this methodology before, but if not, this is what I am meaning when I say short, medium or long data, I generally want 50 won legs before I'll include something. I'll be placing my bets in the morning, but don't expect anything before Sunday morning for the third round, on a long football trip to South Wales tomorrow.

Sindelfingen round one

Just going to be a quick short notice one. Will do it in dribs and drabs as I get a few minutes away from the day job:

Martin Lukeman v Benjamin Pratnemer - insufficient data on Pratnemer

Cameron Menzies v Michael Unterbuchner - insufficient data on Unterbuchner

Wessel Nijman v Bradley Brooks - 61/39 (slight form trend towards Brooks)

Gian van Veen v Nathan Rafferty - 90/10

Ritchie Edhouse v Connor Scutt - 27/73 (slight form trend towards Scutt)

Luke Woodhouse v Johan Engstrom - 85/15 (long data only)

Ryan Joyce v Leon Weber - 67/33 (slight form trend towards Weber)

Jermaine Wattimena v Daniel Klose - 79/21 (long data only)

Ryan Searle v Niels Zonneveld - 68/32

Joe Cullen v Marcel Erba - no data on Erba

Mike De Decker v Max Hopp - 79/21

Raymond van Barneveld v Krzysztof Ratajski - 32/68

Andrew Gilding v Gabriel Clemens - 47/53

Martin Schindler v Callan Rydz - 47/53

Ross Smith v Paul Krohne (long data only) - 75/25

William O'Connor v Dirk van Duijvenbode - 34/66