Semi final thoughts

Firstly, PRAISE THE SUN in that the PDC will finally be doing the thing where they top up stage 2 of Q-School on the second and subsequent days with people who just missed out from stage 1 so we get a full 128. This is long overdue and a change that makes a lot of sense. There's a few other small things which I might get into in another post, but credit where it's due. Now, into the penultimate day - I'll be updating the Second/Third Division Darts page with anything that might have happened (I know that, at a minimum, we had Schindler play Barry), there's one last potential game if we get a Searle/Ando final, but...

Littler/Searle - Luke into the semi finals as easily as expected. Krzysztof didn't play badly, he was just outclassed, as frankly all but maybe one or two players in the field would be. Searle looked confident, but he certainly wasn't harmed by Clayton starting off atrociously on the doubles, and really not getting much better later in the game. This one might not be as one sided as the other Littler games we've had, but it should still be incredibly straight forward. Projections - 88/90/85/88

van Veen/Anderson - We thought Gian would win that quarter final. We didn't think he would win it quite as comfortably as he did. Ando's was also very comfortable, Hood didn't even win a leg on the sets where Anderson had the throw, and were it not for a little bit of sloppy finishing/scoring in set four, this one could have ended just as quick. Projections - 59/49/49/52

So in terms of value, I think we need to look at Ando. I'm seeing it as a lot closer to 50/50 than the market is which has got Gary at longer than 6/4. I'm toning down the percentage play given that the short form number is clearly the one that favours Gian the most, and given yesterday's performances, but it's not going to take me off Anderson completely. After all, there is the intangible that he has been here before. Gian hasn't. It might not make a difference but it is still a thing to be considered (that, and post-Luke win hangover ideals that we often saw after someone beat Phil back in the day).