End of tournament thoughts and end of year FRH rankings

So, Littler wins to nobody's surprise. That he won the final quite that easily might have been a bit of a surprise, while it's no secret that I'm much more bullish on Littler than most, Gian only winning the first set did come as a bit of a shock. In any case, the tournament is in the book and we rush straight to Q-School tomorrow, no rest for the wicked. New FRH rankings, I did just note that I didn't put any new ones up after the Players Championship Finals, probably just rushing to start on worlds previews not knowing how long they would take with the expanded field, so changes are since the Slam:

1 Luke Littler

2 Gian van Veen (UP 2)

3 Luke Humphries (DOWN 1)

4 Jonny Clayton (UP 2)

5 Gary Anderson (UP 13)

6 Ryan Searle (UP 14)

7 Michael van Gerwen (DOWN 4)

8 Josh Rock (UP 2)

9 James Wade (DOWN 1)

10 Stephen Bunting (DOWN 5)

11 Danny Noppert (DOWN 4)

12 Gerwyn Price (DOWN 3)

13 Nathan Aspinall (UP 2)

14 Chris Dobey (DOWN 3)

15 Jermaine Wattimena (UP 1)

16 Martin Schindler (DOWN 2)

17 Damon Heta (DOWN 4)

18 Ross Smith (DOWN 6)

19 Luke Woodhouse (NEW)

20 Mike de Decker (DOWN 3)

Only Nijman to drop out from there, if you will go out early then what can you do. As an added bonus, here's the year on year changes:

Rank	Player	Points	Last Year	Change
1	Luke Littler	2.23m	2	1
2	Gian van Veen	780k	27	25
3	Luke Humphries	722k	1	-2
4	Jonny Clayton	463k	9	5
5	Gary Anderson	438k	12	7
6	Ryan Searle	418k	18	12
7	Michael van Gerwen	412k	3	-4
8	Josh Rock	405k	17	9
9	James Wade	404k	10	1
10	Stephen Bunting	401k	4	-6
11	Danny Noppert	399k	13	2
12	Gerwyn Price	395k	16	4
13	Nathan Aspinall	354k	23	10
14	Chris Dobey	337k	5	-9
15	Jermaine Wattimena	307k	30	15
16	Martin Schindler	299k	22	6
17	Damon Heta	289k	8	-9
18	Ross Smith	282k	14	-4
19	Luke Woodhouse	275k	31	12
20	Mike de Decker	253k	11	-9
21	Krzysztof Ratajski	252k	34	13
22	Wessel Nijman	250k	43	21
23	Rob Cross	246k	6	-17
24	Daryl Gurney	235k	24	0
25	Ryan Joyce	233k	25	0
26	Dirk van Duijvenbode	230k	32	6
27	Cameron Menzies	225k	38	11
28	Dave Chisnall	218k	7	-21
29	Andrew Gilding	207k	29	0
30	Peter Wright	201k	15	-15
31	Ricardo Pietreczko	199k	28	-3
32	Joe Cullen	184k	26	-6
33	Michael Smith	178k	21	-12
34	Ritchie Edhouse	175k	20	-14
35	Raymond van Barneveld	154k	33	-2
36	Kevin Doets	153k	42	6
37	Justin Hood	137k	NEW	NEW
38	Dimitri van den Bergh	136k	19	-19
39	Willie O'Connor	135k	57	18
40	Martin Lukeman	130k	36	-4
41	Niels Zonneveld	130k	48	7
42	Niko Springer	126k	NEW	NEW
43	Callan Rydz	123k	40	-3
44	Ricky Evans	122k	45	1
45	Scott Williams	114k	37	-8
46	James Hurrell	113k	74	28
47	Madars Razma	110k	44	-3
48	Brendan Dolan	110k	35	-13
49	Gabriel Clemens	101k	39	-10
50	Michael Mansell	101k	41	-9
51	Connor Scutt	98.5k	46	-5
52	Wesley Plaisier	94.2k	54	2
53	Jeffrey de Graaf	93.5k	47	-6
54	Karel Sedlacek	91.9k	66	12
55	Ian White	89.7k	51	-4
56	Mensur Suljovic	88.7k	65	9
57	Ryan Meikle	86.4k	64	7
58	Alan Soutar	83.4k	60	2
59	Lukas Wenig	82.2k	NEW	NEW
60	Keane Barry	78.2k	53	-7
61	Andreas Harrysson	76.1k	NEW	NEW
62	Richard Veenstra	75.7k	50	-12
63	Nick Kenny	72.9k	62	-1
64	Dom Taylor	72.6k	76	12
65	Bradley Brooks	72.1k	NEW	NEW
66	Kim Huybrechts	70.4k	49	-17
67	Cameron Crabtree	70.4k	NEW	NEW
68	Mario Vandenbogaerde	68.4k	68	0
69	Thibault Tricole	67.3k	59	-10
70	Darren Beveridge	63.8k	NEW	NEW
71	Charlie Manby	62.5k	NEW	NEW
72	Sebastian Bialecki	59.2k	NEW	NEW
73	Stephen Burton	57.1k	63	-10
74	Matt Campbell	57.0k	61	-13
75	Max Hopp	54.9k	NEW	NEW
76	Robert Owen	54.9k	58	-18
77	Chris Landman	54.6k	72	-5
78	Adam Lipscombe	50.1k	NEW	NEW
79	Matthew Dennant	49.0k	NEW	NEW
80	Steve Lennon	48.9k	73	-7
81	Stefan Bellmont	48.5k	100	19
82	Darius Labanauskas	46.1k	NEW	NEW
83	Andy Baetens	44.4k	96	13
84	Florian Hempel	42.5k	52	-32
85	Owen Bates	42.4k	95	10
86	Adam Hunt	42.0k	NEW	NEW
87	Cor Dekker	41.2k	NEW	NEW
88	Dominik Gruellich	39.7k	NEW	NEW
89	Dylan Slevin	37.8k	67	-22
90	Jose de Sousa	37.6k	56	-34
91	Arno Merk	37.6k	NEW	NEW
92	Leonard Gates	37.5k	90	-2
93	Mervyn King	37.3k	77	-16
94	Jurjen van der Velde	34.9k	NEW	NEW
95	Beau Greaves	32.0k	NEW	NEW
96	Haupai Puha	31.8k	NEW	NEW
97	Jamai van den Herik	31.5k	NEW	NEW
98	Maik Kuivenhoven	31.2k	79	-19
99	Alexis Toylo	31.1k	NEW	NEW
100	David Davies	31.0k	NEW	NEW

23 players out, which is a lot more than last year relatively speaking, seems to be a lot less churn in the top 50, think that's somewhat down to the Euro Tour but not entirely sure. Jim Williams is the biggest casualty from 55, but then you need to go down to last year's #69 to see anyone else drop, 18 of the 23 players we lost were from the bottom 25. Clearly a lot of those were either players who got into the worlds and did nothing else, or those that were doing so-so on the tour but lost their card. One thing to note is how much the points tally has increased year on year. Number 100 is up over 50%, #75 nearly 40%, #50 is up about a third, but the top 32 and 16 tallies have not changed much at all. How much of that is Littler getting ALL the cake is unclear.

Betting went well, we ended up punting on nearly half the matches and grew the bankroll by 44%, which is pretty solid. Some games were slip ups for sure, but we're never going to go perfect and I can't complain with how things went in the slightest.

The Q-School entry list is out, it looks like it's going to be a moderately even split, so I'm going to pick 12 names from each - more than what will get cards, but as it looks fairly close as to the exact breakdown then I'll not pick a full list. So:

UK - Charlie Manby, Darren Beveridge, Steve Lennon, Adam Hunt, George Killington, Stephen Burton, David Davies, Conor Heneghan, Shane McGuirk, Stephen Rosney, Martin Thomas, Graham Usher

EU - Jamai van den Herik, Andreas Harrysson, Florian Hempel, Andy Baetens, Mario Vandenbogaerde, Teemu Harju, Krzysztof Kciuk, Benjamin Pratnemer, Brian Raman, Franz Roetzsch, Jeffrey Sparidaans, Jimmy van Schie

We'll see how that goes. Usually it does not go well. Will be back tomorrow to confirm the 2nd/3rd Division lineups for 2026 once the PL announcement is in the bank. Really not sure where they're going to go with that, with quite a few players possibly playing themselves out of spots at the worlds, but we'll see. I just hope they don't snub Rock, that's the main one for me.