Matchplay getting closer

Aspinall managed to bink another Euro Tour, looks like he was fortunate to do so, probably will throw up even more opportunities to lay him in the future, looking at post worlds data he's not even in the top 20 in scoring, but we're going to need to wait a fair bit to try to exploit that, with over a month's wait before we have any ranked events that we can realistically bet on (yeah, the odd line might pop up for Players Championship events, but it's not realistic to react to those in time given they're all midweek and drawn on the fly with work commitments). New FRH rankings are as follows:

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

9 Damon Heta (UP 2)

10 Josh Rock (DOWN 1)

11 Gary Anderson (DOWN 1)

12 Mike de Decker (UP 1)

13 Danny Noppert (DOWN 1)

14 Martin Schindler

15 Dave Chisnall

16 Rob Cross

17 Gerwyn Price

18 Nathan Aspinall (NEW)

19 Ryan Searle (DOWN 1)

20 Peter Wright (DOWN 1)

Gian van Veen is the player to drop out, but you have to think that's only going to be temporary. Heta gets back into the top 10 with his final, while Nijman is getting closer and closer to the top 32 following another good run at this level. Matt Campbell breaks back into the top 60 following his final session visit.

That's probably going to be it in terms of posts for a bit - as mentioned, there's no Euro Tour for a month, so I'll be looking to use this non-darts, non-football time of the season to recharge the batteries ahead of the Matchplay run up.

Leverkusen quarters - ah, that's better

Not a perfect run by any means as Aspinall pulled off the win over Pietreczko, but a triple hit on Heta, Campbell and Bunting clawed back a good chunk of Saturday's losses, so we'll take that. Clearly when it looks like we've identified players to lay, we'd rather not have to lay them twice for obvious reasons, but at least it did work this time. Onto the quarters:

Campbell/Heta - 33/67

Menzies/Clayton - 36/64

Aspinall/Dobey - 30/70

Nijman/Bunting - 48/52

As such, looking at the markets, there's nothing really doing in the top two, we'll lay Aspinall one more time (backing someone who just averaged 110 and 6/8 on doubles rather than Brooks and Pietreczko makes things a bit more comfortable), and take a small nibble on Nijman. If we project further looking at who's favoured, Clayton's a tiny favourite over Heta (not even 55/45), while Dobey's probably around that mark as a favourite against Bunting. A Clayton/Dobey final would similarly be extremely tight - would give Chris the edge, but it's so marginal and with him still not having won at this level, there might be that sort of intangible element that makes it a coinflip. This should be a pretty damned good session regardless.

Leverkusen day 3 - the rebuild starts here

Wow is all I can say about that one. Wouldn't call it the worst day ever, but it might be top five, with two large bets running into a 107 average and 6/6 on doubles and then a 106 average and over 50% on doubles as well. Brooks didn't help, I did sense check that when the numbers said he should be favoured, and it's right, there is a little bit of a consistency issue but it's never going to be enough to swing something to not be a bet. We did at least downsize so that's a start, nicking that one would probably have turned the day into break even. Eight games, let's go:

Wade/Campbell - 57/43

Heta/Harrysson - 78/22

Menzies/Edhouse - 58/42

Clayton/de Decker - 56/44

Aspinall/Pietreczko - 53/47

Dobey/Gilding - 66/34

Wright/Nijman - 45/55

Bunting/Gurney - 65/35

As such, it looks like continuing to lay Aspinall, Gurney and Harrysson will be the plays for me, although I'm cutting the bet sizing on account of at least some of these playing well, and obvious bankroll things, also Campbell may be a tad undervalued. Let's see what happens.