I'm struggling to think if there's anything Rob Cross can't do. Having made a major final now, I think it's hard to find a way to keep him out of the Premier League - he's now taken it nearly to the hoop on TV, and all that ranking money will keep him away from the really big seeds until at least the last sixteen in the worlds, if not the last eight. Will update the betting tracker tomorrow, annoyingly the PDC scoring website has forgotten the Gurney/Wright match existed so I'm going to need to see if ITV will do something right for once in their 62 year history (twice, deciding to allow Interceptor to be a thing was maybe the only exception) and allow me to replay the game to get the full stats. Maybe it'll also show on Youtube or our friends at @premiumdartdata on Twitter will give us the critical information. But, for now, the adjusted FRH rankings:
1 Michael van Gerwen
2 Peter Wright
3 Daryl Gurney (UP 1)
4 Gary Anderson (DOWN 1)
5 Mensur Suljovic
6 Simon Whitlock (UP 1)
7 Phil Taylor (DOWN 1)
8 Dave Chisnall
9 Michael Smith
10 Alan Norris (UP 4)
11 Benito van de Pas (UP 1)
12 Rob Cross (UP 8)
13 Kim Huybrechts
14 Gerwyn Price (UP 2)
15 Ian White
16 Raymond van Barneveld (DOWN 6)
17 James Wade (DOWN 6)
18 Jelle Klaasen (DOWN 1)
19 Joe Cullen
20 Adrian Lewis (DOWN 2)
Of those that got decent chunks this weekend outside of the top 20, Kyle Anderson is now at number 23 and breathing down the neck of Darren Webster, with Stephen Bunting just the one place behind him. Jonny Clayton is one place outside of the top 32, while everyone that played this weekend is within the top 64.
Sunday, 29 October 2017
European Championship quarter finals
Fairly disappointing from a betting perspective in round 1, but when you have mostly an underdog line, six of the eight seeds make the quarters and one of the two that didn't missed match darts in the game you bet on him, then that will tend to happen - at least some of the underdog punts were live, King really should have taken Norris down from 4-3 up with the throw and leaving a two darter after nine, Ratajski hitting one of the bull shots he had early or cleaning up the last leg a lot better than he tried to do and it could have been a different story.
As mentioned, with six of the eight seeds making it to this stage, and the other two being winners of TV events this year, we have some good data to work with, let's take a quick look - I've not yet put in this weekend's data and am running with information since the worlds:
van Gerwen v Whitlock - have van Gerwen taking this a shade over 83% of the time, compared to Whitlock's 17%. The odds have van Gerwen at 1/7 and Whitlock getting close to 13/2, so maybe, just maybe, there is tiny value in betting on Whitlock, who must be confident following his whitewash of Alan Norris, may want to make it personal after the "textgate" incident at the Matchplay, and there's always a small possibility that van Gerwen's ankle issue recurs, but I'm not going to be the one to do it.
Anderson v Suljovic - Anderson's stats are actually slightly better than Mensur's, although this is over a much smaller sample, with Suljovic having won over twice as many legs as Anderson has. This sample does not include either player's TV wins, both of those being unranked. I think this comes down to doubling - Suljovic has been absolutely lights out in the first two games with 16/27 hitting for nearly a 60% clip, whereas Anderson had huge chunks of missed doubles and slow legs in general, which Klaasen couldn't punish. Anderson's averaging in losing legs is perfectly fine, which isn't indicating a big consistency issue, but he's going to need to tighten up and take more of the chances he generates.
Wright v Gurney - this line (8/13 Wright) looks very close to accurate. I've got Wright claiming this around 63% of the time, so no chance of a bet here. Oddly, I'd have expected this to generate a Wright bet, given that my stats usually tell me to lay Gurney early and often, so maybe with my stats possibly underestimating Gurney, and Wright avoiding a possible upset against Jonny Clayton, it should be a Gurney bet instead? Who knows. I wouldn't be surprised to see Daryl pull this one off, but I won't bet again.
Cross v Smith - Same line as the Wright game, except in Cross's favour. My stats have this as being the closest game of the night, with the stats barely favouring Smith, not getting up as much at 55%, so I think I'll go with the Smith punt here. Cross is in unchartered territory, at least as far as major tournaments go, and has yet to be really tested here with Chisnall not being at 100% and Schindler putting up little resistance, whereas Smith needed a last leg break against van de Pas and didn't have it all his own way against Aspinall either, needing the youngster to throw one dart in fifteen in the treble at 4-4 on throw to allow him to generate the break chance he needed. Will go fairly small here - 0.25u Smith 6/4
Monday, 23 October 2017
European Championship Preview
Before I get into it properly, a quick note that Antonio Alcinas and Alexsandr Oreshkin managed to qualify for the worlds by winning the Southern Europe and Russian qualifiers respectively - Alcinas is someone who newer viewers may not know a great deal about, but he was very good around five years ago when he made back to back World Championships, losing to Wade in straight sets but pushing Andy Hamilton all the way in the year when Hamilton reached the finals, and more recently has made two Pro Tour quarter finals, indicating he's getting back to near those heights. Oreshkin has played more recently, beating Paul Lim in a prelim two years ago and pushing Mervyn King very hard in the first round proper. Both also have stage experience from the World Cup and are making very welcome returns to the big stage.
Will include some graphs, indicating each quarter's form in Europe this season. The top line indicates a runner up spot, next line a quarter final, next line below the last 32 and the bottom line not playing/qualifying. Should be straight forward. Also worth looking at these in conjunction with the previous post when the draw came out.
The van Gerwen quarter:
Obviously van Gerwen is the dominant force here, with only Mervyn King managing to make a final outside of the world number 1, with Whitlock and White managing to break through to the last four on occasion. I'm not touching the van Gerwen/Dekker game, purely because van Gerwen is injured. If that causes you to want to gamble on Dekker and not having the game called off because of van Gerwen being a non-runner, go right ahead, 12/1's a big price for a race to six. White/Webster I had lined up as a 60/40 based what they've done this season, whereas the bookies have it closer to evens, with Webster at 11/10. If I used all my data, which included Webster's god mode at the end of last season, it's probably right to call it a flip. Ian's outearned him on the Pro Tour, outperformed him in Europe, and I think it's worth the shot here, albeit small - 0.25u White 17/20. Whitlock/Richardson's a weird one, when Richardson is on he really cooks, he clips twelve darters at the same rate as Whitlock does over all my stats, but he's just so hot and cold - not converting in fifteen darts often enough, not scoring great when losing the legs, averaging 4.5 a throw lower than Whitlock does - if it wasn't for Whitlock's form, I might say take the punt on James given the price, which at 3/1 is decent, but Whitlock appears to be clicking at the right time so will ignore this one. This leaves King/Norris, with Norris perhaps surprisingly a small favourite. Mervyn's just got better stats all round, Norris has to his credit brought it on TV, but in these European events with a quick race to six, he's not made a single final session, which is quite remarkable given that, unless I'm mistaken, he's been seeded for every event so would only need two wins to get there. I'm liking the situation here, Norris has gone out in the first round of the last two Pro Tour events to Meulenkamp and Jacques, managed to lose to Dobey in the World Series qualifiers and didn't look close to Cullen last time out - 0.5u King 6/5.
The Suljovic quarter:
The only quarter with no winners, but we do have three losing finalists, a further semi finalist and six out of eight have made the final session, so this should be competitive. Suljovic got an absolutely awful draw in Kim Huybrechts, but is installed as a 4/7 favourite. My previous post had this as 50/50, but before we all start rushing to bet on the Belgian, consistency is key. He's only cleaned 91% of all legs won in my sample in 18 darts compared to Suljovic's 95%, and is over two points behind on scoring when not winning legs, so this may more than counteract that he finishes in twelve darts at over 15% compared to Suljovic at just under 12%. Kim's last two Euro adventures were very good, but he busted round 1 of the Grand Prix and has had recent losses to Mick Todd and Zoran Lerchbacher over this distance, which isn't too convincing. The winner will play either the other Huybrechts or Gerwyn Price, which has Price as a bit shorter than 2/1 on. My earlier projections had him at 64%, which isn't far off the line, and I think I can bump that up enough on current form, Ronny's had a couple of iffy Pro Tour defeats last time out. Klaasen faces Kist in an all Dutch affair, with Klaasen being 1/2, which if you look back at my previous stats, it seems crazy, until you remember that Kist had an absolute stinker last time out in Göttingen, is worse in most categories and, overall, despite Klaasen's inconsistency, scores less than Klaasen when losing and hasn't finished even half of all legs won in fifteen darts. This just leaves John Henderson and Kyle Anderson, both within one place of each other of the FRH rankings. Anderson's a 4/7 favourite, which is close to the projection I had in my previous post. Henderson's hitting form though, which should compensate enough to make it no bets in this section.
The Wright quarter:
Some big hitters here with four major title winners and two winners on the Pro Tour to go along with Peter Wright. Wright's first up against Ratajski. Wright is 2/9, which over a short format against a player who's completely dominated his qualifying section and made it to Alexandra Palace on European Tour money alone, as well as winning a BDO major, seems too short. My figures had this as 60/40, even if I'm off by a full 15 percentage points and he only has 25% equity this is still a profitable bet. 0.25u Ratajski 18/5. It's a concern that they have met three times in Europe this year and Wright's won all three, leading in legs 18-7, but Ratajski should be much more confident now. The winner will face either Jonny Clayton or Dimitri van den Bergh in what's a big chance for either to put some serious money in the bank to push towards the top 32. My stats have Dimitri as the favourite, whereas the bookies have Clayton leading the way. Clayton has made the senior breakthrough but van den Bergh probably has a touch more stage experience and is still crushing the Development Tour. With Clayton being confident I'll be a touch cautious here - 0.25u van den Bergh 6/5. Cullen against Bunting is our next game with Cullen only 60/40 at the bookies, whereas I have it closer to a 2/1 edge. Cullen has two Pro Tour wins this year and is beginning to get the hang of both the stage and the floor, and won both meetings against Bunting last year, at the UK Open and in the European Tour, both at big stage levels. Bunting's trending up but not enough for my liking - 0.5u Cullen 4/6. This just leaves Gurney against Beaton, which my stats say is a flip but the bookmakers have our newest major champion as a 1/3 favourite. My stats don't count the Grand Prix given the unorthodox format, but Beaton clearly leads in experience, has made a European final this year, has won a Pro Tour event this year (beating Gary Anderson in the final, who just crushed Gurney 6-1 the round before) - should Gurney win? Yes. Should Gurney win more than 75% of the time? Probably not, 0.25u Beaton 3/1. Bets in all four games, my god.
The Smith quarter:
A winner and two finalists here, with another couple of players reaching the semi finals - several solid players and some dangerous wildcards. Michael Smith is your winner and he faces Nathan Aspinall - someone who doesn't have a tour card but is very good when he wants to be, as he was in reaching the world youth final a couple of years back, and in general has been in Europe. My previous stat post had Aspinall as fairly close to Smith, but still a dog - Smith busted round one in the previous two majors and has the pressure on him, and my sample on Aspinall isn't that small, but I think Smith gets through this one enough. The winner will play a Dutchman as van de Pas faces van der Voort in what my stats said is the most finely balanced first round game. The bookies favour van de Pas, possibly based just on rankings and a good recent Grand Prix where for the first two rounds he looked fantastic, but Vincent's been pulling into form of recent with his back seeming to hold up. There seems to be a bit of vig on the market so I may add van der Voort if if drifts a bit more but 5/4 is nothing to write home about. The other bit of this section features Rob Cross against Martin Schindler, both making names this season, Schindler for having the best record of any German and reaching the World Championship, whereas Cross has just crushed everything. Cross is shorter than 1/3, and my previous projection looks to be bang on the line. I can't see Schindler being able to hit enough good legs over even a short format to warrant a bet, Cross should have learned from a disappointing last time out on TV against Beaton and bring this home. This leaves Dave Chisnall, last man not to be seeded, against Cristo Reyes, two big scorers who can miss doubles in chunks on occasion (although Reyes is generally solid in that department). Chisnall's 2/5 and it looks to be an accurate line with me projecting him at 72%, gun to head I'd go Chizzy based on Reyes doing most of his best work before the summer break, being a touch lacklustre since the Matchplay, but there isn't a gun here so I just won't bet.
Will include some graphs, indicating each quarter's form in Europe this season. The top line indicates a runner up spot, next line a quarter final, next line below the last 32 and the bottom line not playing/qualifying. Should be straight forward. Also worth looking at these in conjunction with the previous post when the draw came out.
The van Gerwen quarter:
Obviously van Gerwen is the dominant force here, with only Mervyn King managing to make a final outside of the world number 1, with Whitlock and White managing to break through to the last four on occasion. I'm not touching the van Gerwen/Dekker game, purely because van Gerwen is injured. If that causes you to want to gamble on Dekker and not having the game called off because of van Gerwen being a non-runner, go right ahead, 12/1's a big price for a race to six. White/Webster I had lined up as a 60/40 based what they've done this season, whereas the bookies have it closer to evens, with Webster at 11/10. If I used all my data, which included Webster's god mode at the end of last season, it's probably right to call it a flip. Ian's outearned him on the Pro Tour, outperformed him in Europe, and I think it's worth the shot here, albeit small - 0.25u White 17/20. Whitlock/Richardson's a weird one, when Richardson is on he really cooks, he clips twelve darters at the same rate as Whitlock does over all my stats, but he's just so hot and cold - not converting in fifteen darts often enough, not scoring great when losing the legs, averaging 4.5 a throw lower than Whitlock does - if it wasn't for Whitlock's form, I might say take the punt on James given the price, which at 3/1 is decent, but Whitlock appears to be clicking at the right time so will ignore this one. This leaves King/Norris, with Norris perhaps surprisingly a small favourite. Mervyn's just got better stats all round, Norris has to his credit brought it on TV, but in these European events with a quick race to six, he's not made a single final session, which is quite remarkable given that, unless I'm mistaken, he's been seeded for every event so would only need two wins to get there. I'm liking the situation here, Norris has gone out in the first round of the last two Pro Tour events to Meulenkamp and Jacques, managed to lose to Dobey in the World Series qualifiers and didn't look close to Cullen last time out - 0.5u King 6/5.
The Suljovic quarter:
The only quarter with no winners, but we do have three losing finalists, a further semi finalist and six out of eight have made the final session, so this should be competitive. Suljovic got an absolutely awful draw in Kim Huybrechts, but is installed as a 4/7 favourite. My previous post had this as 50/50, but before we all start rushing to bet on the Belgian, consistency is key. He's only cleaned 91% of all legs won in my sample in 18 darts compared to Suljovic's 95%, and is over two points behind on scoring when not winning legs, so this may more than counteract that he finishes in twelve darts at over 15% compared to Suljovic at just under 12%. Kim's last two Euro adventures were very good, but he busted round 1 of the Grand Prix and has had recent losses to Mick Todd and Zoran Lerchbacher over this distance, which isn't too convincing. The winner will play either the other Huybrechts or Gerwyn Price, which has Price as a bit shorter than 2/1 on. My earlier projections had him at 64%, which isn't far off the line, and I think I can bump that up enough on current form, Ronny's had a couple of iffy Pro Tour defeats last time out. Klaasen faces Kist in an all Dutch affair, with Klaasen being 1/2, which if you look back at my previous stats, it seems crazy, until you remember that Kist had an absolute stinker last time out in Göttingen, is worse in most categories and, overall, despite Klaasen's inconsistency, scores less than Klaasen when losing and hasn't finished even half of all legs won in fifteen darts. This just leaves John Henderson and Kyle Anderson, both within one place of each other of the FRH rankings. Anderson's a 4/7 favourite, which is close to the projection I had in my previous post. Henderson's hitting form though, which should compensate enough to make it no bets in this section.
The Wright quarter:
Some big hitters here with four major title winners and two winners on the Pro Tour to go along with Peter Wright. Wright's first up against Ratajski. Wright is 2/9, which over a short format against a player who's completely dominated his qualifying section and made it to Alexandra Palace on European Tour money alone, as well as winning a BDO major, seems too short. My figures had this as 60/40, even if I'm off by a full 15 percentage points and he only has 25% equity this is still a profitable bet. 0.25u Ratajski 18/5. It's a concern that they have met three times in Europe this year and Wright's won all three, leading in legs 18-7, but Ratajski should be much more confident now. The winner will face either Jonny Clayton or Dimitri van den Bergh in what's a big chance for either to put some serious money in the bank to push towards the top 32. My stats have Dimitri as the favourite, whereas the bookies have Clayton leading the way. Clayton has made the senior breakthrough but van den Bergh probably has a touch more stage experience and is still crushing the Development Tour. With Clayton being confident I'll be a touch cautious here - 0.25u van den Bergh 6/5. Cullen against Bunting is our next game with Cullen only 60/40 at the bookies, whereas I have it closer to a 2/1 edge. Cullen has two Pro Tour wins this year and is beginning to get the hang of both the stage and the floor, and won both meetings against Bunting last year, at the UK Open and in the European Tour, both at big stage levels. Bunting's trending up but not enough for my liking - 0.5u Cullen 4/6. This just leaves Gurney against Beaton, which my stats say is a flip but the bookmakers have our newest major champion as a 1/3 favourite. My stats don't count the Grand Prix given the unorthodox format, but Beaton clearly leads in experience, has made a European final this year, has won a Pro Tour event this year (beating Gary Anderson in the final, who just crushed Gurney 6-1 the round before) - should Gurney win? Yes. Should Gurney win more than 75% of the time? Probably not, 0.25u Beaton 3/1. Bets in all four games, my god.
The Smith quarter:
A winner and two finalists here, with another couple of players reaching the semi finals - several solid players and some dangerous wildcards. Michael Smith is your winner and he faces Nathan Aspinall - someone who doesn't have a tour card but is very good when he wants to be, as he was in reaching the world youth final a couple of years back, and in general has been in Europe. My previous stat post had Aspinall as fairly close to Smith, but still a dog - Smith busted round one in the previous two majors and has the pressure on him, and my sample on Aspinall isn't that small, but I think Smith gets through this one enough. The winner will play a Dutchman as van de Pas faces van der Voort in what my stats said is the most finely balanced first round game. The bookies favour van de Pas, possibly based just on rankings and a good recent Grand Prix where for the first two rounds he looked fantastic, but Vincent's been pulling into form of recent with his back seeming to hold up. There seems to be a bit of vig on the market so I may add van der Voort if if drifts a bit more but 5/4 is nothing to write home about. The other bit of this section features Rob Cross against Martin Schindler, both making names this season, Schindler for having the best record of any German and reaching the World Championship, whereas Cross has just crushed everything. Cross is shorter than 1/3, and my previous projection looks to be bang on the line. I can't see Schindler being able to hit enough good legs over even a short format to warrant a bet, Cross should have learned from a disappointing last time out on TV against Beaton and bring this home. This leaves Dave Chisnall, last man not to be seeded, against Cristo Reyes, two big scorers who can miss doubles in chunks on occasion (although Reyes is generally solid in that department). Chisnall's 2/5 and it looks to be an accurate line with me projecting him at 72%, gun to head I'd go Chizzy based on Reyes doing most of his best work before the summer break, being a touch lacklustre since the Matchplay, but there isn't a gun here so I just won't bet.
Sunday, 22 October 2017
Second Division Darts, sponsored by some random bookmaker nobody uses
I posted a short while ago about how the PDC should have a play-in tournament to the Premier League instead of the Masters, then I thought why not go one further with the hypotheticals - let's have a whole second division instead. Logistically and commercially it never happens, even if they could easily sell out smaller venues, the likes of which were seen in the Premier League's infancy (finals day at the Circus Tavern anyone?), but I've taken the ten highest ranked players in the FRH rankings after the World Championship was finished, and then looked to their first meeting this season to give a results. Our line up is Mensur Suljovic, Benito van de Pas, Ian White, Michael Smith, Robert Thornton, Simon Whitlock, Alan Norris, Daryl Gurney, Gerwyn Price and Stephen Bunting. Terry Jenkins would have been the last man in, but it'd be stupid to include him in the exercise. I'm not interested in any sort of "but Suljovic would have been in the main field if the rumours were right and he didn't decline the invite" or "Bunting/Thornton etc did nothing in 2016, invite someone else instead" arguments, it's all a hypothetical, but for 2018 what I will do is take the top 4 players in the FRH rankings who weren't invited to the real Premier League, then hand out six wildcards, and run it throughout the year.
Our current rankings look as follows:
Norris 6-2, yet to play Thornton
Whitlock 5-2, yet to play Thornton, Bunting
Suljovic 4-3, yet to play van de Pas, Thornton
van de Pas 4-3, yet to play Suljovic, Bunting
Smith 4-4, yet to play Bunting
Price 4-4, yet to play Bunting
White 3-6
Our current rankings look as follows:
Norris 6-2, yet to play Thornton
Whitlock 5-2, yet to play Thornton, Bunting
Suljovic 4-3, yet to play van de Pas, Thornton
van de Pas 4-3, yet to play Suljovic, Bunting
Smith 4-4, yet to play Bunting
Price 4-4, yet to play Bunting
White 3-6
Gurney 3-6
Bunting 2-3, yet to play van de Pas, Smith, Whitlock, Price
Thornton 2-4, yet to play Suljovic, Whitlock, Norris
That surprises me quite a bit. I'd have thought Norris would be nowhere near the top, and I'd have thought Gurney wouldn't be in real danger of the relegation zone. van de Pas having a winning record is also somewhat surprising. As far as closing out the remaining games go, Suljovic and van de Pas are likely to meet in round 2 of the Players Championship, while the rest of the games involve Thornton or Bunting. Thornton's not likely to play anyone again, he didn't make Hasselt and the only player in the Players Championship Finals in his half is Whitlock, but as van Gerwen is also in that half, it's not likely to happen. Bunting can't realistically face anyone in Hasselt with nobody in his quarter, and while he could get rid of the Price match at Minehead, they'd both need to make the quarters and go through Anderson and Suljovic respectively. So, to complete the scores, I'll first call the games draws, then go back through most recent matches and take the result from 2016 or earlier.
Table if unplayed games are draws (breaking ties by head to head, van de Pas/Suljovic can't be done):
Norris 13 (W6-L2-D1)
Whitlock 12 (5-2-2)
Suljovic 10 (4-3-2)
van de Pas 10 (4-3-2)
Smith 9 (4-4-1)
Price 9 (4-4-1)
Bunting 8 (2-3-4)
Thornton 7 (2-4-3)
White 6 (3-6-0)
Gurney 6 (3-6-0)
Table if unplayed games use most recent game from pre-2017, breaking ties by head to head:
Norris 7-2
Whitlock 6-3
van de Pas 6-3
Price 5-4
Suljovic 5-4
Smith 4-5
White 3-6
Gurney 3-6
Thornton 3-6
Bunting 2-7
Thursday, 19 October 2017
PDC Worlds international qualifiers
Today we finally got a bit of clarity as to what the remaining international qualifiers will be for Alexandra Palace, and it's a touch controversial, not only is it a case of them leaving everything until the last minute, with just eight weeks until the tournament kicks off (by contrast the entire BDO field has been announced and they kick off three weeks or so later), but it seems to be somewhat arbitrary as to how they've allocated the spots. Chucking an extra slot to Eastern Europe seems like a case of "get Ratajski in by any means necessary", and chucking one at whatever the NDFC is seems to be a case of giving Jeff Smith a spot on account of him not making the BDO worlds, due to their comically bad system of international qualifiers. A random spot for Africa just seems like a way to invite Devon Petersen, the only mystery is how they didn't give Max Hopp an auto-berth because darts in Germany is huge, presumably they guess he'll win the German qualifier (or the world youth, which seems even less likely). One spot for the Development Tour seems an odd one - there's already a slot for the best young player, i.e. whoever wins the world youth. Surely if you're going to give one to the minor tours you give it to Wayne Jones?
I'm not disputing that any of the players that had spots announce today don't deserve the spots, they're all excellent players on their day (for Ratajski and Smith it's most days, for Petersen less so), and I think we all want the best players on the oche in the biggest event of the season, but it seems a bit odd that they've allocated things in this way. Does anyone actually think that if Ratajski won one more game on the European Tour they'd give a spot to Madars Razma or Nandor Bezzeg, depending on how they define eastern Europe? If Smith had made Lakeside and took that opportunity they'd give a spot to Dion Laviolette? What if Petersen had won the last Pro Tour event from nowhere, would they give a spot to whoever the next best African player is? I'm not even going to try to work out who that might be. The weirdest thing about Ratajski is that they took away the four spots for next best Europeans, and he'd have got the first one of those positions anyway.
I'm not disputing that any of the players that had spots announce today don't deserve the spots, they're all excellent players on their day (for Ratajski and Smith it's most days, for Petersen less so), and I think we all want the best players on the oche in the biggest event of the season, but it seems a bit odd that they've allocated things in this way. Does anyone actually think that if Ratajski won one more game on the European Tour they'd give a spot to Madars Razma or Nandor Bezzeg, depending on how they define eastern Europe? If Smith had made Lakeside and took that opportunity they'd give a spot to Dion Laviolette? What if Petersen had won the last Pro Tour event from nowhere, would they give a spot to whoever the next best African player is? I'm not even going to try to work out who that might be. The weirdest thing about Ratajski is that they took away the four spots for next best Europeans, and he'd have got the first one of those positions anyway.
Monday, 16 October 2017
European Championship draw out
That was quick. Got to feel a bit for Suljovic and Kim Huybrechts in getting really awkward draws, but that's the nature of seeding eight players, you'll get oddities like Norris drawing Taylor last year. Ratajski seems to be confirmed in and doesn't have the easiest draw in Peter Wright, and apart from Suljovic the seeds appear to have dodged major bullets. The unseeded games all look to be quite well balanced, which is somewhat refreshing and should allow for some tense moments particularly given the quick race in the first round.
I'm posting the below bunch of stats (my god Google Sheets is so much easier to format on than Openoffice), there are no recommended bets yet as the draw's only been out and there's still a week plus so nothing's going anywhere. One thing I didn't list is that the FRH rankings listed on the sheet include the mincash for this event, so they will look a bit different to those posted up yesterday after Göttingen (i.e. Whitlock's now passed Taylor). So, without further ado, the initial FRH stat barrage, complete with conditional formatting and everything - if it's a bit small, a full size version should be available at https://i.imgur.com/z3O1hNx.png if it's too small and can't click through to resize:
I'm posting the below bunch of stats (my god Google Sheets is so much easier to format on than Openoffice), there are no recommended bets yet as the draw's only been out and there's still a week plus so nothing's going anywhere. One thing I didn't list is that the FRH rankings listed on the sheet include the mincash for this event, so they will look a bit different to those posted up yesterday after Göttingen (i.e. Whitlock's now passed Taylor). So, without further ado, the initial FRH stat barrage, complete with conditional formatting and everything - if it's a bit small, a full size version should be available at https://i.imgur.com/z3O1hNx.png if it's too small and can't click through to resize:
Sunday, 15 October 2017
ET12 aftermath
Michael van Gerwen's just claimed yet another title, being pressured well by Rob Cross who forced the Dutchman to pull out some huge checkouts at critical moments. I won't go through the whole best and worst formally for this one, other than saying it was another great performance by van Gerwen, winning his first three matches today for the loss of just two legs, Cross did well again, Andy Boulton can be happy with his weekend although the win against van der Voort was a bit fortunate with just one of six legs won being real quality legs, Keegan Brown also continued his recent resurgence in form with two quality wins before running into Cross. Kist has to be real disappointed with his 6-0 loss to Dekker and a very poor average, Benito van de Pas got whitewashed as well, James Wade also suffered a real bad defeat in the opening round.
In terms of seedings for the Euros, Suljovic and Klaasen held the number 4 and 5 seeds, Cross nipped up to 6 to be in the same section as Smith, knocking Cullen down to 7, while Whitlock was able to hold on to the final seeding spot.
New adjusted FRH rankings:
1 Michael van Gerwen
2 Peter Wright
3 Gary Anderson
4 Daryl Gurney
5 Mensur Suljovic
6 Phil Taylor
7 Simon Whitlock
8 Dave Chisnall
9 Michael Smith
10 Raymond van Barneveld
11 James Wade
12 Benito van de Pas
13 Kim Huybrechts (UP 1)
14 Alan Norris (DOWN 1)
15 Ian White
16 Gerwyn Price
17 Jelle Klaasen
18 Adrian Lewis
19 Joe Cullen
20 Rob Cross (NEW)
No real big swings as can be expected with van Gerwen grabbing the bulk of the cash, but Cross as reported earlier is now in the top 20 with a seven grand cushion over Mervyn King. Of those that have had big performances since the last update (so incorporating the midweek Players Championship events), James Wilson grabs the last spot in the top 30, Jonny Clayton is up to 37, Wattimena moves ahead of Terry Jenkins who rounds out the top 40, Jamie Caven climbs a few spots to 42, Keegan Brown is back into the top 60, and Andy Boulton is one place outside the top 64. Jeffrey de Zwaan's solid week sees him in the top 80, Alcinas is less than a grand from the top 100, while in ten days' time Colin Lloyd will drop off the list altogether.
With just an exhibition this week don't expect many updates until the European Championship draw is done, I've spotted some small errors in my database that I want to clean up, although as they date back to, at the latest, the BDO worlds, they won't make any difference to any filtered stats if I take it from a year, and all come from players with big sample sizes so won't really affect anything significantly anyway. Not heard anything as to whether the remaining World Masters stats will get posted so I've got to assume they won't at this stage.
In terms of seedings for the Euros, Suljovic and Klaasen held the number 4 and 5 seeds, Cross nipped up to 6 to be in the same section as Smith, knocking Cullen down to 7, while Whitlock was able to hold on to the final seeding spot.
New adjusted FRH rankings:
1 Michael van Gerwen
2 Peter Wright
3 Gary Anderson
4 Daryl Gurney
5 Mensur Suljovic
6 Phil Taylor
7 Simon Whitlock
8 Dave Chisnall
9 Michael Smith
10 Raymond van Barneveld
11 James Wade
12 Benito van de Pas
13 Kim Huybrechts (UP 1)
14 Alan Norris (DOWN 1)
15 Ian White
16 Gerwyn Price
17 Jelle Klaasen
18 Adrian Lewis
19 Joe Cullen
20 Rob Cross (NEW)
No real big swings as can be expected with van Gerwen grabbing the bulk of the cash, but Cross as reported earlier is now in the top 20 with a seven grand cushion over Mervyn King. Of those that have had big performances since the last update (so incorporating the midweek Players Championship events), James Wilson grabs the last spot in the top 30, Jonny Clayton is up to 37, Wattimena moves ahead of Terry Jenkins who rounds out the top 40, Jamie Caven climbs a few spots to 42, Keegan Brown is back into the top 60, and Andy Boulton is one place outside the top 64. Jeffrey de Zwaan's solid week sees him in the top 80, Alcinas is less than a grand from the top 100, while in ten days' time Colin Lloyd will drop off the list altogether.
With just an exhibition this week don't expect many updates until the European Championship draw is done, I've spotted some small errors in my database that I want to clean up, although as they date back to, at the latest, the BDO worlds, they won't make any difference to any filtered stats if I take it from a year, and all come from players with big sample sizes so won't really affect anything significantly anyway. Not heard anything as to whether the remaining World Masters stats will get posted so I've got to assume they won't at this stage.
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