Final races of the season

We've got confirmation of the last couple of Pro Tours, so let's look at who's in the race. First, the last meaningful PC Finals race - here's how it looks (cash numbers taken from dartsrankings, any errors are my own):

59 Merkx 33750 (87.18) 128-32-64-128-128

60 Edhouse 33500 (88.23) 32-64-64-64-128

61 de Decker 33250 (86.33) 128-8-128-128-4

62 Brooks 32500 (91.14) 16-32-128-64-32

63 Sharp 32500 (88.76) 128-64-128-128-64

64 Plaisier 31750 (86.27) 16-64-128-64-32

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65 Coates 31250 (91.91) 128-64-128-32-64

66 Razma 30250 (88.89) 128-128-128-128-128

67 Vandenbogaerde 30000 (88.63) 128-64-64-64-128

68 Anderson 29750 (95.32) DNP-DNP-DNP-DNP-DNP

70 Long 29250 (85.60) 128-64-128-64-128

71 Crabtree 28500 (86.93) 128-64-32-128-64

72 McGuirk 28500 (88.12) 128-128-64-128-32

73 Pietreczko 28250 (90.62) 8-16-128-32-32

74 Boulton 28250 (85.63) 64-128-128-128-16

75 Bates 28000 (88.83) 64-32-64-128-8

76 van der Velde 27750 (82.50) 64-64-64-128-64

There's some players lower down that could yeet into there - Aspinall is not far off the arbitrary 4k behind cutoff for the race I've picked (and in terms of above the line, I've gone with the player below Price, with him being in he should get the job done, and there's a bit of a gap to the next guy up), and Rock is barely behind him. While Littler's behind all of them, appearing on Netflix specials takes priority of appearing in major events it seems. You'll note there's no 69 - that's not to avoid nice memes, but Dragt isn't in the last two events so no point in including him. Number in brackets is overall scoring since the start of July, so a decent enough sample but still a form sample. It's then got the most recent five PC events, and the round they got to, the most recent first. So what can we tell? Well, Ando's clearly playing well enough that anything close to his best and he should leapfrog much of the field. Those above the line are doing alright, although Sharp has not been getting great results. Coates is playing well but it'd be close between him and whoever. Behind that, Pietreczko is picking up a bit of form, but might be a bit too far back.

In terms of the worlds, it's kind of a similar list of players:

35 Merkx 33750 (87.18) 128-32-64-128-128

36 Gawlas 33000 (87.01) 128-64-32-32-128

37 Sharp 32500 (88.76) 128-64-128-128-64

38 Bates 32000 (88.83) 64-32-64-128-8

39 Plaisier 31750 (86.27) 16-64-128-64-32

40 van Barneveld 31750 (87.76) 64-64-8-64-64

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41 Coates 31250 (91.91) 128-64-128-32-64

42 Crabtree 30500 (86.93) 128-64-32-128-64

43 McGuirk 30500 (88.12) 128-128-64-128-32

44 Burton 30250 (87.81) 16-64-128-128-128

45 van der Velde 29750 (82.50) 64-64-64-128-64

46 Kenny 29750 (85.51) 32-128-128-128-64

48 Evans 29500 (87.58) 128-128-128-128-128

49 de Zwaan 28750 (86.75) 128-128-16-64-64

50 Boulton 28250 28250 (85.63) 64-128-128-128-16

I've used the same sort of 4k cutoff below, then above Merkx there's a couple of grand gap so those above him ought to be fine. Here, Barney should be fine given he's been doing alright in terms of getting out of round one, although he's never had the hardest draws, so chuck him at a seed in PC33 and then who knows. Gawlas is hit and miss but has some leeway in terms of points on the board. Coates surprisingly doesn't have a reliable back up from the Challenge or Development Tour, which Crabtree does (and van der Velde if needed). I suppose the big name is Evans who's on a torrid run of results. We'll see what happens. I won't be able to do anything live on the final day as I need to be out and about that day, but can hopefully react in the evening.

Post-Euros FRH update

Well, that's a big one for Ross Smith. A second major title (no, the World Series invitational is not a major ffs) and another big TV win surely, given the real lack of potential candidates, has to put him into the Premier League for 2027. I was thinking he'd probably be the last man in as is, but this surely locks it. He's getting the results and he checks all the non-sporting (i.e. he's not a Justin Pipe type) things they would likely want. Also big for Schindler - got to be hugely confidence building, even though he did fall apart in the second session of the final and was doing his best Wayne Mardle impression for much of the final as a whole, that result is probably going to keep him in a lot of things. I think that Smith getting to the final puts Henry Coates into the Slam (as well as Schindler obv), so good news for both of them. Here's the new FRH table:

1 Luke Littler

2 Gian van Veen

3 Luke Humphries

4 Gerwyn Price

5 Ross Smith (UP 4)

6 Jonny Clayton (UP 1)

7 Wessel Nijman (DOWN 1)

8 James Wade (DOWN 3)

9 Ryan Searle (DOWN 1)

10 Danny Noppert

11 Josh Rock

12 Nathan Aspinall

13 Luke Woodhouse (UP 1)

14 Krzysztof Ratajski (UP 4)

15 Stephen Bunting (UP 2)

16 Gary Anderson (DOWN 3)

17 Jermaine Wattimena (DOWN 1)

18 Chris Dobey (DOWN 3)

19 Martin Schindler (NEW)

20 Michael van Gerwen (DOWN 1)

Pretty much as you'd expect. Ross isn't a huge amount off Price (or, for that matter, Humphries), but at this level it'd need a huge TV run to get much further. Wade's the big slider after a first round loss, Clayton did alright here so keeps things going. Semi for Ratajski bumps him nicely, Ando not getting in this sees him slide badly, same with Dobey going out in round one. van Gerwen might actually drop out of the top 20 after these upcoming Pro Tour events if he doesn't do much and any one of Doets, DvD or Heta does alright. Crazy times. Huybrechts getting a win puts him back into the top 40. Must be nice.

Oh my what in the hell just happened

Schindler against Ratajski for a major final spot? God almighty. Well, should be a couple of good semi finals, here's what I see:

Smith/Price - 41/41/32/38

Schindler/Ratajski - 72/54/47/58

And to look at potential final matches:

Schindler/Price - 38/30/20/29

Schindler/Smith - 47/38/35/40

Ratajski/Smith - 24/34/38/32

Ratajski/Price - 17/27/22/22

Read from that what you will.

Dortmund quarters

Well it sure is a good job we took a bit of a look at Huybrechts and thought "hey, he's quite, quite inconsistent, let's not go crazy" then he proceeds to get destroyed. That was probably more Bunting, but anyway, good escape and Schindler coming through means we escaped with minimal losses for the round of sixteen. Quarters now, I'm thinking of watching the United game so I might rush back afterwards for the semis but might not.

Smith/Woodhouse - 52/50/52/51

Price/Bunting - 71/63/75/70

Schindler/Clayton - 30/35/38/34

Ratajski/Littler - 2/5/9/5

So one match that should be close, two others that seem fairly one sided, then HOLY LIVING FUCK that Ratajski - Littler projection. Can't even give Krzysztof too much of a bump based on consistency as there's barely more than a one point differential between the two and Luke's more than a point below (i.e. better) the database average. Yikes.

Dortmund round two done

I'm still not quite sure how Heta managed to win on Thursday 6-5 with two seven visit breaks at the start and end of the match, but whatever, that was a thing that happened, and we go into round two. Here's the projections we have:

Menzies/Price - 32/31/22/28

Bunting/Huybrechts - 34/45/46/42

Smith/Heta - 57/61/59/59

van Veen/Woodhouse - 49/45/57/50

Ratajski/Doets - 31/38/41/37

Schindler/Wattimena - 63/50/48/54

Aspinall/Littler - 19/19/22/20

Clayton/Rock - 73/56/48/59

Also, the only thing I will say about Beat Luke Littler is that the casuals will think everyone that isn't Sherrock is a casual. Which is anything but the case. I get that they need some sort of minimum level a player can do, nobody would want to see someone worse than me up there as it's not interesting, but I think that everyone was expecting a line up of basically pub players, maybe going up to Superleague, county sort of thing. Not Mitchell fucking Lawrie, in other words maybe the strongest player in the entire world that met their criteria. I'm guessing at a bare minimum that a quarter of the field have hit a nine? Jesus. I would cancel Netflix, but when they lost Star Trek I already did that. Maybe I should take out a new subscription to cancel it again.

All heading for Dortmund

We're done with the Euro Tour for another year, and the PDC has got their dream line up of the entirety of the top 32 into the event, except for Gary Anderson (understandable given how many of these he doesn't enter and/or withdraws from) and Daryl Gurney (who is FRH #32 right now), and instead we get Karel Sedlacek (who's #34) and Cristo Reyes (who's awesome). Almost as if setting up a tour which, to use some sumo terms, has a sanyaku where you have to win one match to get a kachi-koshi in each tournament against someone who will be at best in the joi, then the joi who have to win one match against someone who is at best lower maegashira level (and, if you get lucky, maybe as weak as makushita or sandanme) to get your kachi-koshi, but if you want to progress to the sanyaku you probably need to think about winning multiple yushos in a given year. Or, in English, the top 16 are absurdly protected from everyone and the next 16 are absurdly protected from everyone else and progression is incredibly hard.

I'll leave an FRH update until after we're done with Dortmund as we only did one last week. Only real changes are Nijman going up a touch after Wade didn't turn up, Noppert going up a touch after his final, and Anderson's continued absences see him slide one, but only after we put first round Euros money into the table. Zonneveld's bink moves him into the top 25 but he's got some work to do to get much higher, even if there was another Euro Tour tomorrow and he went back to back he still wouldn't get into the top 20 if Dirk, the current #20, turned up to play.

In any case, those projections for the first round are here:

Smith/Sedlacek - 63/64/68/65

Wade/Heta - 66/64/53/61

van Veen/Gilding - 71/63/68/67

Woodhouse/van Duijvenbode - 52/53/50/52

Zonneveld/Menzies - 45/47/51/48

Price/Cross - 52/57/70/60

Noppert/Bunting - 61/49/52/54

Humphries/Searle - 69/70/69/69 EDIT - 59/55/48/54 for Huybrechts now Humphries is out

Nijman/Schindler - 56/63/66/62

Joyce/Wattimena - 35/35/35/35

Clayton/Springer - 77/65/62/68

Rock/Dobey - 32/39/44/38

Ratajski/Chisnall - 45/55/61/54

Doets/van Gerwen - 45/46/46/46

Aspinall/Reyes - 69/68/68/68

Littler/O'Connor - 94/90/87/90

A lot of these are remarkably consistent. Some spots where they're not involves:

- Heta being a lot closer to Wade on full data than either of the first two (for new readers, these numbers are 3, 6, 12 months worth of data and then a composite value averaging the three)

- Price being well ahead of Cross on long data only

- Noppert being a bit ahead of Bunting on short data, but more level on fuller stats

- Schinder trending up a bit on Nijman as we get newer and newer

- Clayton being a lot better than Springer on short data than normal

- Both Rock and Ratajski trending a lot worse relatively speaking as we get newer

Now most of these we can just look at vibes and say yeah, it makes sense. But the Ratajski and Chizzy one is really weird, given both Dave has been off his best for some time, and the short data includes the Euro Tour that Krzszytof actually won. The answer here is partially consistency - Ratajski is scoring 90 in both winning and losing legs, which without checking is likely very close to leading the tour over that period, while Chisnall is on 91 in winning legs (which is what we use to derive the percentages) but 87 on losing legs, which sounds like a bit more of a difference but is kind of par for the course overall, the database wide value since July is over five and Chisnall is under it. Look at full data and Ratajski is 92/90, which is still pretty consistent, while Chisnall is 91/85, so the winning legs are the same but the losing ones are a touch worse, which feels right. Looking at Retajski's results on the Pro Tour, he only has a conventional average over 96 three times since July, and one of those was against Littler anyway. It is what it is. I should be back Friday evening for round two.

EDIT - Quick note on Huybrechts - he is very inconsistent, especially on the shorter two samples. Since the start of July he's ten points higher on winning than losing, which is a huge number (database average for that segment is just over five), and it's not much lower on the mid range sample. The counterpoint is that Searle is also on the higher side of average, and the numbers over the full sample for consistency are pretty similar, although Kim's still a third of a point higher and closer to seven than six, so if and when markets come out for this one don't look at any line that has Huybrechts substantially longer than evens without taking caution

ET15 quarters

Well, Sedlacek made it, which is great, let's quickly throw out some projections for the last eight:

van Veen/Searle - 54/51/56/54

Woodhouse/Noppert - 39/53/51/48

Zonneveld/Nijman - 37/36/37/37

Heta/Bunting - 51/44/49/48

So should be some close ones! As stated, pretty much playing just for seedings, although Nijman's the only player in the bottom half that's currently in the Slam, so could be something to play for there if he doesn't reach the final (Noppert also isn't in from the top half), so let's see if someone can clip the TCH qualifier size down a touch.

ET15 last sixteen

Well, we know our Dortmund lineup, which is set unless (checks notes) Brendan Dolan binks the title, which given he's running into a Gian van Veen who did things which (while impressive) social media is making out to be unprecedented but in my database is recorded in the exact same way as something that's happened six times on the Pro Tour, including earlier this year. Heck, even Ritchie Edhouse has a three four visit and three five visit 6-0 win. Yikes, I mean people going on a ten minute heater is fun but it happens.

Punting was meh. Looking alright after we got Schindler, but van Gerwen ran into O'Connor hitting back to back four visit kills from 5-4, can't do much about that (although starting with six trebleless darts maybe isn't the way to put the pressure on, not that Willie was amazing with his first six), then Reyes just murdered Dobey and we can't do much about that either. What do we have today?

van Veen/Dolan - 73/75/79/76

Searle/Smith - 42/44/48/45

O'Connor/Woodhouse - 28/36/39/34

Noppert/Wattimena - 66/55/55/59

Price/Zonneveld - 69/69/72/70

Nijman/Reyes - 63/63/66/64

Heta/Schindler - 45/50/54/50

Bunting/Aspinall - 33/37/37/36

I'm only going to go for the Arsenal game for kick off, if I do at all, so I should have a quarters update. Likely tonight I'll jump straight in to round one of the Euros projections. Tuesday through Thursday might be somewhat of a write off for me so getting into them quick is probably a good idea.

This game. This. Game.

Rydz choking where he just needs to hold twice. Bates offering nothing. de Decker choking with a probable six darts at 134 for the match and he only gets one dart at double. Huybrechts choking missing four match darts and going the possible worst way imaginable at 102. Burton choking missing two match darts. Veenstra, fuck me. Still, at least de Graaf and Menzies managed to not fuck everything up so we're still here to post, and at least Sedlacek is looking in a great spot to make Dortmund. Annoyingly, there isn't a world where him blasting Schindler knocks both Huybrechts and Schindler out of it without letting Bunting in, but meh, I'll just take him getting in for sure. At least we didn't get the absurd Daryl Gurney back door. Jesus christ. OK, let's just knock round two out.

Schindler/Sedlacek - 63/56/58/59

Nijman/de Graaf - 68/61/66/65

Woodhouse/Gilding - 70/65/62/66

R Smith/Joyce - 71/71/73/72

Noppert/Chisnall - 70/62/66/66

Searle/van Duijvenbode - 45/47/48/47

Dolan/Uuldriks - insufficient data on Uuldriks but man, what a game

Ratajski/Zonneveld - 39/50/49/46

Price/Williams - 66/68/80/71

Wattimena/van Schie - 79/73/65/72

Bunting/Menzies - 45/54/54/51

van Veen/Bialecki - 61/63/74/66

van Gerwen/O'Connor - 73/65/65/68

Clayton/Heta - 72/62/54/63

Aspinall/M Smith - 86/83/78/82

Dobey/Reyes - 70/67/66/68

ET15 day one

Qualifier was done nice and early, so let's jump straight into round one.

Bialecki/Gurney - 62/52/51/55

Pietreczko/Uuldriks - Insufficent data on Uuldriks

van Duijvenbode/Hurrell - 71/68/65/68

Joyce/Bates - 44/49/48/47

O'Connor/Veenstra - 42/52/53/49

Gilding/Hopp - 62/59/57/59

Chisnall/Masalin - Insufficient data on Masalin

Huybrechts/van Schie - 85/78/68/77

Springer/Williams - 40/47/53/47

Zonneveld/de Decker - 68/54/58/60

de Graaf/Mansell - 53/63/58/58

Reyes/Kciuk - Insufficient data on Kciuk

Heta/Verberk - No data on Verberk

Sedlacek/Rydz - 28/43/38/36

Menzies/Kenny - 91/82/75/83

Smith/Burton - 44/46/45 (no short data on Burton)

Of those we don't have data on, Uuldriks is a relatively new name to me, is in the database from a Dutch Open run, pretty consistent 85-90 averages in the quali so ought to be able to ask questions of Pietreczko. Masalin's been in a couple of these this year and did pick up a win over Doets, but has been pretty darned quiet on the Nordic tour compared to 2025, where he also went on a bit of a Lakeside run. Kciuk's a former card holder who we know about, but not for a while and when we last saw him he lost convincingly to Cullen in the first ET of the worlds after getting a shelling at Ally Pally by O'Connor. Verberk's not a new name as we saw him in some Challenge and Dev Tours 5-6 years ago, but has been very quiet of late, not being seen since the 2023 Dutch Open, but is playing the CT and was fairly close to getting back on the current database a couple of times. Burton's only just not won enough legs by one and the short data if we were to use it is more or less the same as the longer samples.

That's it, we've got a bit more details about the European Open and it sounds alright. I'm actually somewhat tempted to go on the Friday.

Swiss done

Couldn't get anything up before the last sixteen. Had one of those Saturdays where your plans get disrupted (thanks Northern Rail) and as a result I could have had an extra two or more hours in bed in the morning. As such, felt disproportionately more knackered in the evening, which was probably more mental than anything, and didn't feel up to entering the round two data. Turns out I woke up fine and probably could have rushed something in the morning, then noticed the tourney was starting an hour earlier than usual because reasons which put the kaibosh on that. So here's the new FRH rankings:

1 Luke Littler

2 Gian van Veen

3 Luke Humphries

4 Gerwyn Price

5 James Wade

6 Wessel Nijman

7 Jonny Clayton

8 Ryan Searle

9 Ross Smith

10 Danny Noppert

11 Josh Rock

12 Nathan Aspniall

13 Gary Anderson

14 Luke Woodhouse

15 Chris Dobey

16 Jermaine Wattimena

17 Stephen Bunting

18 Krzysztof Ratajski

19 Michael van Gerwen

20 Dirk van Duijvenbode

There's actually no changes after Clayton got the bink and secured his Grand Slam spot. Dirk put a bit of distance between himself and Cross, and Clayton's now a lot closer to Nijman than Searle. Lower down, Sedlacek's decent run doesn't actually move him up any spots, same for Michael Smith. de Graaf did climb a couple of spots and is nearly in the top 40, Reyes and Suljovic are safely in the top 50, while Bradley Brooks leaps into the top 60.

So, to make up for lack of final day Basel stuff, here's a list of nine young players you should know about but might not know about. Now some of these you will know about, particularly regular readers, but new people come in all the time who might not follow things quite as closely. I'm going to exclude anyone that's won a Pro Tour, as you should definitely know about them, so sorry to any Henry Coates fans etc, and I'm going to draw the cutoff at those who'll be eligible to play the Dev Tour next year or younger, so a latest year of birth of 2003. So, in no particular order:

Mitchell Lawrie - Probably the most well known of this list, basically on account of his WDF world final last year where he gave Jimmy van Schie a run for his money. Not 16 until next month, he's solidly on top of the WDF (senior) world rankings and ought to be a solid favourite to go one better this year, having picked up five senior titles this season. It's only a matter of if, rather than when, he moves to the PDC, whether he jumps straight into Q-School or goes for the best of both worlds in 2027 is the question, doing the Dev Tour but also getting the WDF/Modus cake.

Archie Self - Only clicking into Development Tour eligibility this year, Self has had a very strong showing, finishing within the top ten which, barring any rule changes, will put him into the UK Open. Self claimed one title on that tour and also two on the Challenge Tour, finishing in the top five of that ranking and getting some Pro Tour experience as a result. Like Lawrie his scoring in my database is over 90, and he's done good work on the WDF circuit as well, claiming a big senior title just this weekend.

Kaya Baysal - Another player on the extremely young scale of things, Baysal had an explosive start to the Development Tour, not being eligible for much of it because he was too young, but claiming the last title of the season after reaching a final on debut got him into the top sixteen. Baysal is also in the top sixteen of the main WDF world rankings which will see him make a Lakeside debut after a quarter final in the PDC world youth put him out of contention for that, although, having declared for Turkey (despite being from Burnley), maybe there's a regional qualifier he can play?

Zehra Gemi - Staying with the Turkish theme, Gemi is one of the prominent names rising from that rapidly improving country, who came to a lot of people's attention when she was victorious in the WDF girls' world championship last year. She's not been able to play too much of the circuit this year, which could be a cost thing as much as anything, but where she has played she's more or less cleaned up. It would be good if that could be built on - picking a timing where she could get some combination of WDF/Dev Tour/Women's Series/Modus in a row would be a natural step if it could be worked out.

Peter Kelemen - A bit more of a wild card here, Kelemen is at the forefront of the development of the game in Hungary, making a solid showing early in the Development Tour, picking up strong prize money in the opening weekend with wins over prominent names and solid averages, managing to work it into a European Tour debut earlier this year. With the domestic players being a bit of a mix of younger and older players (Andras Borbely isn't exactly old himself), there could easily be more opportunities, having picked up a lot of under-23 titles on the WDF circuit, and especially given the prominence the PDC is giving to the country.

Jamai van den Herik - This is a name that's been pretty consistent over the last couple of years, with Jamai having a very strong 2025, which maybe hasn't been followed up quite as strongly in 2026, but he did get a top four finish on the Development Tour this year which has secured a return to Ally Pally having given Madars Razma a good match last year. He doesn't have long left on the Dev Tour, this will be his last year, but it looks like he should have a tour card secured, which will get him to the level where he has shown flashes previously.

Jayden Walker - Possibly the youngest name on the list, Walker has been picking up solid results on the WDF youth circuit despite being just 14 years of age, so still a good couple of years away from showing up on the Development Tour. Walker was kind of an unknown name to me until this weekend, winning one of the WDF events down in Selsey, becoming supposedly the youngest ever WDF senior winner. He's done work on the JDC circuit and has had some results that have raised hopes he could end up being a very strong player going forward.

Jack Drayton - Jack had a very strong start to this season, having been relatively unknown about eighteen months ago. Drayton was able to pick up a brace of Development Tour titles in the opening weekend, and then follow it up with a good showing in the WDF events in the Isle of Man back in March. He had a very unlucky follow up, running into a lot of stronger opponents to knock him out - running into tour card holders on five occasions and other people that finished high in the rankings, and only just missed out on a worlds debut as a result. His finish should give him plenty of chances in 2027, and if he can keep his form up for a bit longer then we'll be seeing him on the Pro Tour some time soon.

Kai Burger - Maybe the latest off the Dutch production line, Burger has only been Development Tour eligible for a few months and hasn't given it a try, but his positioning in the WDF circuit is impressive. Only 16, Kai is third in the under 18 rankings, and being behind Lawrie and Baysal is not exactly a reason to criticise. He's claimed more than one title this season and was a finalist in the relevant age range Dutch Open, so hopefully 2027 will see Kai move forward onto stronger fields of play.

Swiss round two

Wouldn't it be great if Swiss round two meant the second round of a Swiss format tournament. Oh well, we can't have nice things. Punts were a bit of a trainwreck, Menzies chucked away a 3-1 lead, Gilding did the same, Lap missed six darts to throw for the match, and Soutar missed a match dart. Great. Let's jump into round two and see how we do.

Ratajski/Bellmont - 73/85/81/80

Nijman/Sedlacek - 69/68/72/70

Woodhouse/Cross - 39/49/54/47

Schindler/Bissell - 54/51/48/51

Searle/Reyes - 51/54/60/55

R Smith/O'Connor - 72/64/63/66

Dobey/Brooks - 66/69/68/68

Wattimena/M Smith - 79/72/67/73

Rock/Chisnall - 54/61/68/61

Bunting/de Graaf - 57/54/57/56

Wade/van Duijvenbode - 64/58/45/56

Clayton/Kuivenhoven - 78/74/68/73

van Gerwen/Suljovic - 67/70/71/69

Humphries/Doets - 62/65/68/65

van Veen/Springer - 59/58/69/62

Noppert/Heta - 62/55/55/57

Let's go.

Switzerland round one

OK, penultimate Euro Tour coming up, we have this one in Basel then one next week in Maastricht, and we're done. Fairly big one looking at the Dortmund cutoff, it's going to take some work for those presently outside the cutoff to get anything done, but they've got an outside chance at least. Thankfully it's the last year of this utter bullshit. In terms of qualifiers, Bellmont we know about, Roman Wellinger is a completely new name who performed pretty well in the quali despite zero help from his opponents in terms of averages, Bruno Stoeckli has been here before and has a win at this level, against Dirk, meh, dunno about that, while Fehlmann was also here two years ago but didn't do much of anything. We don't have much of anything on the eastern Europe qualifier, although he's not a new name, while Haavisto we only have long data on, so let's get into what we can get into:

Zonneveld/Brooks - 46/51/57/52

O'Connor/Haavisto - 73 (Only long data on Haavisto)

Bialecki/Sedlacek - 50/48/47/48 (OF COURSE number 34 and 35 in the Euros race get drawn against each other)

Cullen/Bissell - 45/50/49/48

Menzies/Reyes - 63/56/54/58

Cross/Vandenbogaerde - 79/72/68/73

Gilding/Bellmont - 67/81/77/75

de Graaf/Lap - 67/65/66 (No short data on Lap)

Chisnall/Soutar - 53/37/45 (No short data on Soutar)

van Barneveld/Kuivenhoven - 45/44/45/45

Smith/Owen - 35/43/39 (No short data on Smith, but what there is sucks)

Doets/Kenny - 87/83/79/83

Surprising number of card holders who don't have short data, but heck, we just ticked over into a July-September dataset. I mention that specifically with Smith as his short data was really rough, talking 80-20 in favour of Owen. Looking back at what he's done since July, at least on the Pro Tour (he may have been in one or more Euro Tours but I'm just looking at DC), we had:

- 6-4 loss to Lishman averaging 81, then whitewashed by Griffin the day after

- Meh win over Ritchie before a big loss to Pilgrim averaging 76

- Beats Szaganski, looks alright against Crabtree, then steamrollered by Nijman

- Averages 81 in 6-5 loss to Hurrell

- Does alright against Lukeman then wins one leg against Schindler averaging 81 again

- Then most recently 2b2 70 averages. One he gets away with because Marvin Kraft was just as bad, but then only just broke 80 against Dirk, but the other he didn't win a leg against Bialecki, and the 76 average there wasn't brought down by bad doubling - he wasn't on a double once.

Yikes. Meanwhile in other news Matt Edgar has a seemingly short fuse with a very weird reaction to comment that his latest Youtube vid which had no need to be made was basically the entire length of the video too long. I mean the literal title is "should young player be allowed to play in youth championship". If that needs more than a one second response, then good lord.

Final

So we have the number 2 in the world based on scoring over the last twelve months at 96.53, against the number 3 in the world at 96.29. That for me will make for a more exciting final than if we had the guy that's over 99 - yes it might have ended up being good anyway, and if we were to have had somewhat of a repeat of Littler/Price from last year (not that, given the bracket, that was possible) I don't think anyone would have said no, but an evenly matched duel between two elite players is good stuff. Over the full data this rates 52% Humphries. Over just the last six+ months it's 56% Humphries, but then over the last three+ months it's 66% Price, which gives a weighted average of 53-47 in favour of the Iceman. This kind of makes sense if you look at a rolling average graphic I have. I won't repeat it here, but it shows Luke steadily ahead on a past 60 days set, with a bit of a spell for Price in between the UK Open and Matchplay, before Humphries jumps ahead nicely. However, Price takes the lead back from around the start of September (i.e. starting from samples which include something like all of July/August and rolling onwards) and doesn't relinquish it from there. What does this show? Is Humphries the better player? Yes. Is it by much? No. Is Price playing better darts right now? Maybe. Who's playing the better darts in this tournament? Probably Humphries.

Frankly this Dev Tour race is more interesting. As it's the one before the (youth) worlds we've got a lot more of a varied lineup than usual - nobody from far flung places has done a great deal yet, but it's always good to see. Obviously Bialecki has the Slam spot by miles, but the races for cards and (senior) worlds spots are super tight and could go any number of ways, although if someone like van den Herik/Beeton/Self goes on a tear in the next couple of hours they can make a very strong claim for both.

I'll just do updated FRH rankings now.

1 Luke Littler

2 Gian van Veen

3 WHOEVER WINS THE FINAL

4 WHOEVER LOSES THE FINAL (up one/down one if Price wins, unchanged otherwise)

5 James Wade (UP 1)

6 Wessel Nijman (DOWN 1)

7 Jonny Clayton (UP 1)

8 Ryan Searle (DOWN 1)

9 Ross Smith (UP 1)

10 Danny Noppert (UP 1)

11 Josh Rock (DOWN 1)

12 Nathan Aspinall (UP 3)

13 Gary Anderson (DOWN 1)

14 Luke Woodhouse (DOWN 1)

15 Chris Dobey (DOWN 1)

16 Jermaine Wattimena (UP 2)

17 Stephen Bunting

18 Krzysztof Ratajski (DOWN 2)

19 Michael van Gerwen

20 Dirk van Duijvenbode (NEW)

Joyce is now up to 24, Zonneveld to 28. That's your lot for today.

We've got semis on

Real quick as I'll be at a match tomorrow:

Aspinall/Price - 44/51/36/44

Wade/Humphries - 58/36/18/37

That second one is a bit of a surprise, but yeah, Wade is actually outperforming Humphries in winning legs since the start of July. Of course, it's only just and doesn't have an enormous sample for obvious reasons, but it is what it is.

GP quarters

Pretty disastrous second round going 2-4 on bets including losing one big one on Noppert, been a pretty bad tournament full stop but there's still seven games where we might be able to claw something back. Let's see:

Aspinall/Joyce - 88/85/83/85

Price/Clayton - 60/63/74/66

van Veen/Wade - 30/37/62/43

Humphries/Zonneveld - 69/78/77/75

Yikes that disparity in short and long form between van Veen and Wade!

As such, it looks like the only value, and it's huge value, is in laying Joyce, which has gone brilliantly so far...

Grand Prix round two

Not the greatest of results, some people underperforming fairly badly, and notably seeing Littler out, which throws things wide open. We're down to sixteen and up to a best of five set run, so let's project things:

Woodhouse/Aspinall - 35/40/38/38

Noppert/Joyce - 80/71/74/75

Price/Smith - 65/65/69/66

Clayton/Nijman - 49/37/39/42

Humphries/Wattimena - 72/73/78/74

Zonneveld/Anderson - 34/27/26/29

van Veen/Searle - 53/49/59/54

Wade/Bunting - 55/60/46/54

Let's go.

Grand Prix round one

There's been a bit more meat on the bones in relation to the calendar, and boy, choices were made, but that's a problem for future TA Towers and we've got the Grand Prix to project. Now as I mentioned above, I don't actually have a specific setting in the master computer for a best of two sets match. Presumably I thought as that only happens in a double start event where my data doesn't have a direct exact similar computation, let's not bother. But I'll treat this as a best of 11 match. For one, you need to win six legs in this, and for two, a first two three set match (which I do have projected) appears very similar in win chances to a best of 17/19 game in leg play, so it seems close enough. We're only talking a fraction of a percentage difference in any case. As always, I'll give four numbers - the win chance using data from the last three completed months (plus September), then 6+ months, then the last year, and finally an average of the three.

Littler/Woodhouse - 85/78/81/81

Aspinall/Doets - 65/60/59/58

Noppert/Springer - 61/55/62/59

van Gerwen/Joyce - 69/71/74/71

Price/Bialecki - 76/77/82/78

Smith/Menzies - 52/55/56/54

Clayton/Ratajski - 68/55/58/60

Nijman/Cross - 53/57/62/57

Humphries/Chisnall - 70/74/81/75

Dobey/Wattimena - 70/63/63/65

Rock/Zonneveld - 54/54/56/55

Anderson/Heta - 56/67/69/64

van Veen/van Duijvenbode - 50/46/55/50

Searle/O'Connor - 64/60/64/63

Wade/Cullen - 68/58/57/61

Bunting/Gilding - 67/59/63/63

Looks like there might be some value in some places, but I've got Challenge Tour etc to catch up on.

Calendar is out!

And there's a lot to break down in it, so let's jump straight in.

The big one is the long rumoured additional major has been called in - there's no specifics about the European Open, as it's called, other than it'll be in Salzburg the week after the World Cup. Now if this is just a replication of the UK Open, it should be pretty cool. But I guess the proof will be in the pudding, and we'll wait and see what the actual gig is.

The next thing to note is that the European Championship is now over six days, rather than the current four. You've got to assume that it'll be a longer format as a result, the additional two days looking incredibly natural to expand things to 48 players, but again, no specifics yet. If that is what it is and ends up being a pretty simple 1-16 get a bye and 17-48 face off in round one, in other words exactly like a Euro Tour except on steroids, that should be good.

The Premier League has once again snubbed the south west of England, with the nearest place being Cardiff. It's something that happened last year but I didn't really notice, but that seems a little bit harsh. They've had Exeter before as a natural lead in to the UK Open, why they need both of Birmingham and Nottingham, or all of Liverpool/Manchester/Sheffield/Leeds, is a wee bit odd, but whatever.

Euro Tour in France. OK then. I have no idea whether it will sell well, but it's a bit of an open question as to how strong the players there will be. Barring some sort of miracle late season Pro Tour run, Tricole is losing his card (and even if he sneaks into the worlds, he might lose it anyway). Labre has fallen off a cliff. Thuillier who we saw at the World Cup seems better than Labre at this stage. They've got a few who've played some of the Challenge Tour but nobody who looks that close to breaking an eighty average. There's someone called Damien Decla who isn't doing horribly on the Development Tour, but still is clearly a work in progress. So somewhat of a mixed bag. I doubt it'd be any worse than the ones in much of Eastern Europe. Weekend in Krakow is tempting!

The Development and Challenge Tours have been cut to 18 events a piece from 24, and are now running at just one per day over six weekends. I think this makes a lot of sense, assuming that the prize money per tournament increases to compensate, even if the overall amount pumped into each tour stays the same.

World Youth Championship clashes with the final day of the Grand Prix. One has to assume they think Littler isn't going to enter it?

Expect something for the Grand Prix on Sunday. It'll likely just be an attempt at projections, the model I have doesn't have anything that can really adjust to the double in start, nor does it have any standard option to look at how a best of three sets match will go, so the first round will likely be pretty rough.

Quick FRH update

Was meaning to do this on Monday but got sidetracked:

1 Luke Littler

2 Gian van Veen

3 Luke Humphries

4 Gerwyn Price

5 Wessel Nijman

6 James Wade

7 Ryan Searle (UP 1)

8 Jonny Clayton (DOWN 1)

9 Josh Rock

10 Ross Smith (UP 2)

11 Danny Noppert (DOWN 1)

12 Gary Anderson (DOWN 1)

13 Luke Woodhouse (UP 3)

14 Chris Dobey (DOWN 1)

15 Nathan Aspinall

16 Krzysztof Ratajski (UP 1)

17 Stephen Bunting (DOWN 3)

18 Jermaine Wattimena (UP 1)

19 Michael van Gerwen (DOWN 1)

20 Rob Cross

None of this includes any Grand Prix first round money, which as everyone here is in wouldn't change anything. You need to get down to Schindler at 24 before you find anyone that isn't in, and the 7.5k first round money wouldn't see the player directly below him (Gilding) jump him. Gurney at 28 isn't there, but the rest of the FRH top 32 are, with Zonneveld (at 33) and Bialecki (at 40) the two that complete the field.

In terms of the movements, Wade getting a bink mostly just offsets Wade not having got any ranking money since the Matchplay. Smith with a Euro Tour bink and final hits the top 10 for I think the first time, I don't think he got there when he won his major. Woodhouse consistently accumulating well sees him continue to climb, while Bunting not doing a great deal on the Euro Tours since the last update loses some ground, the 100k he got from a worlds semi now counting for barely 10% of that amount in these rankings. Lower down, there's not a huge amount to mention, Dolan getting a good Pro Tour run mostly just arrests a slide and he remains outside the top 50, but yeah, just in general there's not been a huge deal going on.

We've had a bunch of worlds qualifiers been confirmed, such is the depth in most places that it's the case now that it is familiar names, but also with some notable absences. Looking at what we've got coming up, we're a couple of weeks away from the Challenge Tour being done (and then the UK associate qualifier the day after), the Japanese tour is nearly done, and the Nordic tour will finish by the end of September. Bunch of stuff will be sorted in early to mid October, but that's a next month problem. For now, let's just not pay attention to the World Series finals.